Angelina Jolie Gets Emotional Speaking About Her Late Mother’s Cancer at TIFF

Angelina Jolie had an emotional message about cancer during the premiere of her latest film, Couture,

In the film — her first since portraying opera diva Maria Callas in last year’s Maria — the Oscar winner, 50, stars as Maxine, an American film director hired to make a video for a Paris fashion event amid being diagnosed with breast cancer and navigating a divorce.

After the film’s Sept. 7 premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, the cast took part in a Q&A — moderated by Anita Lee, the Chief Programming Officer at TIFF — and were asked by an audience member who had recently lost a friend to cancer what their message of “hope” is for those still struggling.

The question caused Jolie, who lost her mother Marcheline Bertrand to cancer in 2007 at the age of 56, to become choked up before she composed herself and went on to share, “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“I think I will say that one thing I remember my mother saying when she had cancer, she said to me once, we had had a dinner and people were asking her how she was feeling and she said, ‘All anybody ever asks me about is cancer,” Jolie continued from the stage at the Princess of Wales Theatre, where she was joined by costars Ella Rumpf and Anyier Anei and writer-director Alice Winocour.

“So I would say, if you know someone who is going through something, ask them about everything else in their life as well, you know? They’re a whole person and they’re still living,” she added.

Bertrand was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1999 and was later diagnosed with breast cancer before her death in January 2007.

In 2013, Jolie underwent a preventative double mastectomy after genetic tests showed she had a high risk of developing breast cancer. At the time, the actress said tests found she had a “faulty gene” called BRCA1 and doctors gave her an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer.

 In a New York Times op-ed piece called “My Medical Choice,” Jolie said the surgery had decreased her risk of developing breast cancer to under 5 percent.

Speaking during the Q&A, Winocour said that although the movie is about cancer, it’s also about “life and the pulsation of life.” “We really didn’t want to depress you about cancer, quite the opposite,” Winocour said, adding that it’s about “the sprit of survival.”

Winocour also said Jolie “immediately found a personal connection with the film for reasons we know since her mother and grandmother died of breast cancer.”

“She also had a connection in her flesh to this story since she underwent a double mastectomy to escape her family fate,” she said.

According to TIFF’s official synopsis of Couture, Maxine takes the job in the Parisian fashion industry because it’s “lucrative and she has financial burdens. She is in the midst of a divorce, has a teenage daughter, and is preparing her next feature film. But her tightly ordered life is about to unravel as Maxine is given a serious medical diagnosis.”

“Maxine’s personal crisis intersects with two other women she encounters at her job: Angèle (Ella Rumpf), a veteran makeup artist writing a work of fiction based on her own experiences in the industry, and Ada (Anyier Anei), an 18-year-old pharmacy student from Nairobi who has just been “discovered” as a model and navigating a brand-new world. Each is confronted with choices small and significant, and must make life-changing career decisions.”

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Jolie appeared at TIFF last year in support of her directorial effort Without Blood, a harrowing drama starring Salma Hayek and Demián Bichir. Her son, Pax, 21, joined the audience in giving her a standing ovation following the film’s premiere.

Her eldest son Maddox, 24, who worked as a production assistant on Maria, served as the third assistant director on Couture, which was previously titled Stitches.