Director Sam Mendes will receive the TIFF Ebert Director Award at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, TIFF organizers announced on Friday.
Mendes will be at the festival for the Canadian Premiere of his new movie, “Empire of Light,” which stars Olivia Colman as a woman who works in a seaside movie theater in 1980s England. It is his ninth film as a director and second as writer in a career that began with the Oscar-winning “American Beauty,” which made its world premiere at TIFF in 1999.
His other films include and “Road to Perdition,” “Revolutionary Road,” “Skyfall” and “1917.”
He will receive the award as part of the TIFF Tribute Awards, which will be presented at the Fairmont Royal York hotel on Sept. 11. Previous winners of the honor, which is part of a ceremony that serves as a fundraiser for the TIFF Every Story fund, are Denis Villeneuve, Chloe Zhao and Taiki Waititi.
Previously, the festival announced that the ensemble cast of “My Policeman” will receive one of two TIFF Tribute Awards for Performance. Additional honorees will be announced in the coming weeks.
The 47th annual Toronto International Film Festival will take place from Sept. 8 through Sept. 18.
