The Toronto Film Festival premiere of Ron Howard‘s “Eden,” a survival thriller starring Sydney Sweeney, Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby, Jude Law and Daniel Brühl, was briefly halted due to a “medical emergency” as an attendee was carried out of Roy Thomson Hall on a stretcher.
The 5:45 p.m. screening was interrupted around 7 p.m. as murmurings started to spread around the venue. Then, the lights turned on so staff could attended to the incident, which took place in the orchestra. Meanwhile, Howard and the cast stayed seated in the mezzanine. After a 10 minute delay, the movie resumed around 7: 20 p.m. During a post-screening Q&A, Toronto Film Festival’s CEO Cameron Bailey confirmed the audience member “will be OK,” prompting the rest of the crowd to applaud.
“Eden” follows a pair of high-minded Europeans, played by Law and Kirby, who “seek a new life on a previously uninhabited island in the Galápagos, only to discover that hell is other people,” according to the official logline. As they encounter other island settlers, “nothing will test their mettle more than the challenge of coexisting with desperate neighbours capable of theft, deception, and worse.”
Popular on Variety
At the premiere, Howard thanked his cast for having “not only the capacity but creative courage to go to some of the places that these real people had gone in their lives.” He called the film, which is based on true events, “beyond anything I’ve ever done. The choices the characters are compelled or forced to make are more complex than anything I’ve dealt with in a film.”
