Not just ‘Bonjour Tristesse’ with cellphones: At TIFF, a classic gets a modern update

Among the more anticipated world premieres at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival is an adaptation of Françoise Sagan’s 1954 novel “Bonjour Tristesse,” which marks the filmmaking debut of author Durga Chew-Bose. Chew-Bose, who directed and wrote the screenplay for “Bonjour Tristesse,” has also been tapped to receive one of the festival’s filmmaker tribute awards at a fundraising gala on Sunday night. Claes Bang, left, Lily McInerny and Chloë Sevigny in Durga Chew-Bose’s adaptation of “Bonjour Tristesse.” Not to be reductive about what you can do, but I think people might expect that you would make a movie more directly connected to the themes and ideas of your book having to do with identity, yourself as a child of immigrants and growing up in a multicultural community. Everyone’s always like, “try to take it all in.” But I had something absolutely horrible happen and it forced me to treat every second with all of myself as much as I could.