Leto's Artifact Nabs Toronto Prize

LIFE DURING WARTIME: One of the most talked-about films to screen at this year's Toronto Film Festival was Artifact, Jared Leto’s autobiographical recounting of real-life drama in the life of his band, Thirty Seconds to Mars. The film looks back on the legal battle between 30STM and EMI, which sued the band for the poetically apt figure of $30 million after Leto and his bandmates essentially went on strike in an attempt to extricate themselves from their deal during the disastrous Guy Hands regime. Leto then documents the making of the band’s subsequent —and aptly titled—This Is War album. You can’t make this stuff up—little wonder Artifact garnered rave reviews in Toronto, where it won the People's Choice Award for best documentary. In a subsequent Q&A, when asked how things stand now with the label, Leto responded: "If we don’t hold it against the record company that they sued us for $30 million, they shouldn’t hold it against us that we made a film about the experience." (9/17a)