Steven Spielberg puts his life on screen with new TIFF film The Fabelmans | CBC News

Steven Spielberg has been one of the world’s most successful film directors for over 40 years. But with his upcoming semi-autobiographical film The Fabelmans, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday, the 75-year-old maestro is trying something new.

“I always found ways of putting my personal life into everything I’ve done,” the filmmaker told reporters on the TIFF red carpet. 

“But this was a very focused, intentional story of coming-of-age. I’ve never made a coming-of-age story before.”

The director’s latest effort tells the tale of Sammy Fabelman, a young aspiring filmmaker based on Spielberg’s upbringing in 1950s postwar Arizona, weaving in the origins of his passion for filmmaking and the influence of his parents on his subsequent career.

Spielberg ‘likes to scare himself’

Spielberg reunites with his frequent collaborator, Academy Award-winning playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner, who has now written and co-written four of the director’s films.

“Steven really likes to scare himself,” Kushner told CBC News, referencing past collaborations on 2005’s Munich, 2012’s Lincoln and last year’s West Side Story. “He likes to do things that he’s never tried before. So in a way, this is a departure, but when he made the decision to do The Fabelmans it was the first time that he really made the decision to share his own life.

“It’s a scary thing, to put your family up on the screen.”

Seth Rogen is pictured at the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of The Fabelmans on Saturday. The Vancouver actor, a filmmaker himself, said that he ‘wasn’t going to squander the opportunity to be standing next to Steven Spielberg all day.’ (Teghan Beaudette/CBC)

Among the cast are Michelle Williams, Seth Rogen and Paul Dano, and young actors like Julia Butters and Canadian-American Gabriel Labelle.

Vancouver-born Rogen, a filmmaker himself, said that he “wasn’t going to squander the opportunity to be standing next to Steven Spielberg all day.”

“I was very overt with my desire to learn from him, and I did not hide it,” Rogen said on the red carpet. “I would ask him a billion questions all the time: why he was doing what he was doing, what he was going for, what the thought process was behind it.

“He seemed very happy and open to talking about it.”

Parents didn’t think movies were right for Spielberg

Dano, who plays a version of Spielberg’s father in The Fabelmans, joked that he learned the director was a stubborn and strong-willed child.

“I feel proud of him for making this film, and I think you see it in his previous films now too once you see this: both of his parents either in him or in the characters in other films of his,” Dano said.

The project is a personal one for Spielberg, who has taken some inspiration from his parents and family history in past works, such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Schindler’s List.

“[Spielberg] had a rough childhood and he definitely pushed through it,” said Keeley Karsten, who plays the protagonist’s younger sister Natalie. 

“His parents didn’t particularly think that was the right career choice for him, to become a director. But it’s really what he loved to do. And that’s of course inspiring to somebody who may not have all the encouragement they need but can do it anyway.”

The Fabelmans marks the first time the director has premiered one of his movies at the Toronto International Film Festival. 

Speaking with CBC News in July, TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey remarked that the film “reminded me that even before I knew I was interested in film, I was affected by Steven Spielberg’s movies.”

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