Rocks premieres at TIFF 2019

Cameron Bailey, artistic director and co-head of the TIFF, was present on the stage prior to the premiering of the film on the opening night of the film on Sept 5 and spoke about the importance of portraying young energetic women.

British director Sarah Gavron was on the red carpet on Sept 5 before she went to the theatre.

Sarah tells the story of a teenage girl, named Rocks who is thrown in a struggling situation to take care of herself and her younger brother.

The story is about Shola (Bukky Bakray), or Rocks, as she's known, lives in a London council flat with her younger brother Emmanuel and their single mother. One day Rocks realized that her busy and stressed mother had left the house comes and this jolts her life and finds herself on her own with her younger brother to take care of.

When Rock feels the shattering foundation under her she seeks help from her friends.

When her closest friend Sumaya (Kosar Ali) tries to help, Rocks doesn't know how to accept it, blinded by Sumaya's two-parent household and relative comfort.

Instead of steering Rocks into miserablism, Gavron with her agile editing and humour and staying close to the protagonist at every moment, she creates an empathetic portrait of Rocks at a turning point and highlights the essential value of friends.

The cast of the film is Bukky Bakray, Kosar Ali, D'angelou Osei Kissiedu, Shaneigha-Monik Greyson, Ruby Stokes, Tawheda Begum, Anastasia Dymitrow, Afi Okaidja, Sarah Niles.

British director and producer, Sarah with a master's degree in film studies from the Edinburgh College of Art and has directed the documentary Village at the End of the World,  and the feature films This Little Life, and Brick Lane, and Suffragette. Rocks is her latest film.

(Reporting by Asha Bajaj)