TIFF's Matt Brown (The Cinema of Survival: Mad Max Fury Road) on how audiences received and celebrated the practical elements of MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, the eye-popping fourth entry in George Miller’s post-apocalyptic action series, in an increasingly digitally forward landscape. The pantheon of iconic action heroines gained its newest member in Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), headlining George Miller’s long-awaited third sequel to his 1979 cult favourite Mad Max. In a not-too-distant apocalyptic future, Furiosa frees “the Wives,” a group of women held captive by the tyrannical Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), and takes it on the lam in a souped-up 18-wheeler — with reluctant road warrior Max Rockatansky (a hulking Tom Hardy) in the passenger seat and Joe’s howling hordes of enraged men in hot pursuit. In shifting the focus from Hardy’s eponymous hero to Theron’s Furiosa, Fury Road rankled “men’s rights” groups and won a new legion of 21st-century cinephiles, who also stayed for Miller’s explosively gonzo action sequences with live-action stunts, shot in the Namibia desert. More importantly, the film ditches any semblance of a typical female-revenge plot and makes Furiosa and the Wives into something far more powerful: icons of self-sufficient survival. While Fury Road unfolds in a fantastical wasteland, it is rooted firmly in the reality that women are capable, resourceful, and immensely powerful human beings. Matt Brown heads the Digital Experience team for the Toronto International Film Festival. A filmmaker, podcaster, and online film critic, he is the author of The Cinema of Survival: Mad Max Fury Road, a book of essays about George Miller’s 2015 film. For more about the Toronto International Film Festival and our year-round programming TIFF Bell Lightbox, visit http://tiff.net. #madmax #madmaxfuryroad