Belfast (film) in the context of "Toronto International Film Festival"

Ciarán Hinds (/ˈkɪərən/ KEER-ən; born 9 February 1953) is an Irish actor from Belfast, Northern Ireland. Hinds is known for a range of screen and stage roles. He has starred in feature films including The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989), Persuasion (1995), Oscar and Lucinda (1997), Road to Perdition (2002), The Sum of All Fears (2002), Munich (2005), Amazing Grace (2007), There Will Be Blood (2007), Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Silence (2016), First Man (2018) and Belfast (2021), the last of which earned him Oscar and BAFTA nominations for Best Supporting Actor.

Known for his distinctively deep voice, Hinds is also known for his voice role as Grand Pabbie, the Troll King in the animated film Frozen (2013) and its sequel, Frozen II (2019). He played General Zakharow in Red Sparrow (2018). He also portrayed Steppenwolf in Zack Snyder's Justice League (2017) and its 2021 director's cut.

Sir Kenneth Charles Branagh (/ˈbrænə/ BRAN-ə; born 10 December 1960) is a British actor and filmmaker. Born in Belfast and raised primarily in Reading, Berkshire, Branagh trained at RADA in London and served as its president from 2015 to 2024. His accolades include an Academy Award, four BAFTAs, two Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and an Olivier Award. He was appointed a Knight Bachelor in 2012, and was given Freedom of the City in his native Belfast in 2018. In 2020, he was ranked in 20th place on The Irish Times's list of Ireland's greatest film actors.

Branagh has directed and starred in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays, including Henry V (1989), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Othello (1995), Hamlet (1996), and As You Like It (2006). He was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor and Best Director for Henry V, and Best Adapted Screenplay for Hamlet. He directed Swan Song (1992), which earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. He also directed Dead Again (1991), Peter's Friends (1992), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), Thor (2011), and Cinderella (2015). For his semi-autobiographical film Belfast (2021), he was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director, and won Best Original Screenplay.