Thirteen years ago, “Irena’s Vow” had a short run on Broadway starring Tovah Feldshuh. She got good reviews but it didn’t quite work and closed after about 100 performances.

Now writer Dan Gordon has adapted the true life story of a Polish Catholic girl named Irena Gut for film and the material makes more sense. Louise Archambault deftly directs Sophie Nelisse (from Yellowjackets), Dougray Scott, and a cast of Polish actors. It’s a Canadian production shot in Poland and tells how Irena, as a young woman, saved a dozen Jews in Warsaw from being killed by the Nazis.

Gut died in 2003 but before that she was interviewed by Gordon extensively, Her own daughter, and a very much alive older man who is featured in the real life story as a baby, came to the screening in Toronto. “Irena’s Vow” was maybe my favorite film of the whole festival and is now looking for a distributor.

The story will remind you of Anne Frank’s. A young Irena began witnessing atrocities against the Poles– the Jews– by the invading Germans. She hid the dozen Jews– including several couples — in the basement of a mansion occupied by a ranking German official, Major Eduard Rugemeier. She was working in the house as a servant to save herself, eventually became his mistress as a trade off when he discovered what she was up to. When the Russians finally arrived in 1944, Irena went to a displaced persons camp while the major fled with the Germans.

Irena eventually wrote a memoir and was honored in Israel at Yad Vashem for her heroism in 1982. Thirty years later, in 2012, Rugemeier was also honored by Yad Vashem, although his protection of the Jews, I think, had more to do with wanting to keep Irena under his control.

Chemistry is everything in movies, and Archambault has made a seriously gripping film that seems almost like a light-hearted fable but never flinches from the horrors of the Holocaust. Archambault and Gordon introduce her to the Holocaust when a Nazi soldier brutally kills a baby outside a window. Irena is catalyzed from that moment on/

Nelisse is remarkably poised for a 23 year old, she’s an old soul who gets it. Glamorous in person, Nelisse — who has a flat Canadian accent — stuns because her Irena is so vibrantly drawn on screen. She’s a plain girl heroically keeping one step ahead of death — not for herself but for the people she’s decided to protect.

If the old Miramax were still around, Harvey Weinstein (now Public Enemy Number 1) would have turned “Irena’s Vow” into an awards season event. Maybe someone less odious can step up and do that now.

Bayard Rustin is not a well known character from the civil rights movement. But he was Martin Luther King’s comrade, and the architect of King’s 1963 March on Washington. His legacy got lost in the mix of time mostly because he was gay and not an accessible hero for students.

The great theater director George C. Wolfe changes all that in “Rustin,” a biopic that brings Wolfe’s whole outstanding career to a high point. He’s got Colman Domingo– known for solid supporting roles in TV, movies, and plays — also doing his very best work as the title character. They should each get Oscar nominations and I dare say that Domingo may dazzle the Academy over the likes of DiCaprio, Cooper, Murphy and even Giamatti.

Wolfe and screenwriters Julian Breece and Dustin Lance Black carefully juggle a rich and three dimensional ensemble cast that also includes the great Glynn Turman, Chris Rock, Adrienne Warren, CCH Pounder, Audra McDonald, Michael Potts, and Jeffrey Wright. It’s to the screenplay’s credit that we can keep all these people straight as Rustin wrangles them all to the monumental vision of the March — despite dozens of obstacles and setbacks.

Domingo on his own march, though, you can see it in his eyes. They are on fire as he navigates Rustin’s determination to live his life without fear both personally and professionally. Fictionalized romances with a straight married minister are addressed head on with grace just as Rustin also has a young white man who lives with him and expects more. But the romantic stuff is secondary even though it informs Rustin. He knows he’s a civil rights trailblazer and will not be deterred from his mission.

The Toronto Film Festival is helping clarify what could be the Oscar race for Best Actor 2024.

You know we already have Leonardo DiCaprio from “Killers of the Flower Moon” on the list. Cillian Murphy as “Oppenheimer” is a given. Colman Domingo is picking up raves for “Rustin” which opens here later in the day.

Yesterday we got confirmation of two other names: Jamie Foxx and Paul Giamatti. Foxx nails his role in “The Burial” with just charisma and acting chops that he definitely makes the top 10 if not top 5. Maggie Betts’ dramedy — which I’ll write more about tomorrow — is from Amazon and MGM. Tommy Lee Jones co-stars and these guys are magic together. My old friend Jurnee Smollett has a breakout turn as well.

Alexander Payne makes a gigantic comeback as director of “The Holdovers.” There’s lots to say, but Paul Giamatti must be nominated for Best Actor. I was thinking about “Billions” and how different from this his Chuck Rhoades character is. He’s one of our finest actors. “The Holdovers” will be all over awards season.

More tomorrow on these films and a couple more…