The big one

Evening three on the TIFF 2016 scene began with a dinner at The Spoke Club hosted by Variety magazine and Holt Renfrew for American Honey. The film centres around a group of defiant teens crossing the American Midwest while hustling to make a living selling magazine subscriptions. One table last night was dotted with members of the young cast including Sasha Lane, a Hollywood newcomer, Isaiah Stone, who sat across from me, and Riley Keough, the eldest granddaughter of Elvis who sat a few seats down. Shia LaBeouf, the film's lead actor who covers the latest issue of Variety, was noticeably absent – out though was the mag's co-editor-in-chief Claudia Eller and the film's writer and director Andrea Arnold.

Around the corner at SoHo House, Grey Goose Vodka hosted one of the evening's hot tickets, a cocktail party for the cast of Lion. A sequin-clad Nicole Kidman arrived with super-producer Harvey Weinstein and director Garth Davis to a packed room of spectators. Cast mates Rooney Mara and Dev Patel were there too, as was Cheryl Boone Isaacs, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science, Bell Canada president Wade Oosterman, composer Volker Bertelmann and David Glasser, COO and president of The Weinstein Company. Upstairs, the post-screening party was well under way for Barry, Vikram Gandhi's film about a young Barack Obama, played by Australian actor Devon Terrell, during his first year at Columbia University.

Later, uptown, the rain didn't stop fans from lining the streets outside the Windsor Arms Hotel or the stars from coming out for the annual must-attend InStyle and Hollywood Foreign Press Association party, hosted this year by Italian fashion label Max Mara. It was the party of the night: Inside, Amy Adams, Jennifer Connelly, Dakota Fanning, Jeffrey Tambor, Hailee Steinfeld and The Birth of A Nation's stars Gabrielle Union and Aja Naomi King mixed under a sea of orchids that floated overhead. Meanwhile, Ruth Negga, who's in town to premiere her latest film Loving, was making the rounds in the panelled bar nearby. As I departed the packed party, Pharrell Williams, Bryce Dallas Howard, Harvey Weinsteinand Hidden Figures stars Octavia Spencer and Taraji P. Henson were among the many boldface names still streaming in.

Back downtown, capping off the night was a party to celebrate director Philippe Falardeau's The Bleeder, a film based on the life of heavyweight boxer Chuck Wepner. Wepner is played by Liev Schreiber, who was in attendance at the intimate happening held at Storys on Duncan Street. Also on hand were Elisabeth Moss and Naomi Watts, his on-screen spouses.