Here’s our good friend Noah Cowan, co-director of the Toronto Film Festival in Indiewire today talking about a surprise in this year’s selection process:

“The biggest surprise this year has actually been the United States. There has been a kind of copycat lethargy to the US indie scene over the last few years, from our perspective. Only a few films a year really stood out from the crowd as meaningful cinema. But we have been overwhelmed this year by strong, political films by filmmakers unafraid to take risks. There are maybe twenty or more films from the indie scene that add to the international cultural debate. It’s amazing – like watching the sleeping giant suddenly awake. It feels like 1992 again – or even the 1970s!”