text: UPDATE: The Globe And Mail is now reporting that Madonna's camp has issued and distributed a press release denying she told volunteers to turn away from her. 
   
   The following is an excerpt from the press release: 
   
   "Neither Madonna nor her security ever gave instructions for the volunteers to turn away from Madonna. In fact she was so impressed with the volunteers that she publicly thanked them from the stage for their hard work before the premiere of her film last night which earned a standing ovation. She had a wonderful time at the festival and was especially delighted that she got to spend so much time with her fans in front of the theatre which is a famous tradition at the Festival ... We are still trying to figure out who and why anyone would ask the volunteers to turn away from Madonna. She has never and would never ask anyone to do that ever" 
   
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   At the Toronto International Film Festival, each movie showing opens with a pre-roll of messages meant to inform the press, industry folk and public about different aspects of the major event. Amongst the most prominent of these ads is a series of sketches featuring famous directors in messy scenarios, a sort of parallel universe that would explode without the help of the festival's ubiquitous and dutiful orange-shirted volunteers. The ad ends with a thank you to the unpaid staff for all their hard work, and the audience, on cue, applauses resoundingly. 
   
   Maybe she hasn't seen a movie at the festival yet, or maybe they gave her a bouquet of hydrangeas; either way, Madonna, according to a report in Toronto's Globe and Mail, did not quite show the same appreciation for the volunteers' tireless hustle. 
   
   The "W.E." director premiered her film at the festival Monday night, and earlier in the day, sat down for a press conference with a gaggle of international reporters. Backstage, before the event, word is that she refused to allow the volunteers to even look at her in the eye. Instead, as a volunteer told the paper, they had to turn their backs to her as she made her way to speak with the assembled masses. 
   
   Clearly, Madonna doesn't deal well with the little people press events; it was in Venice that she made her infamous hydrangea diss. Which, by the way, she refuses to let go away. 
   
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   ||||| Director Madonna poses before the news conference for the film ''W.E.'' at the 36th Toronto International Film Festival September 12, 2011. 
   
   TORONTO | 
   
   TORONTO (Reuters) - Madonna on Monday said she said she doesn't mind any criticism of her filmmaking abilities, so long as it is directed at her movie and not at herself. 
   
   The pop star told reporters at the Toronto International Film Festival, where she is promoting her second film "W.E.", she had to earn her reputation as a musician and she expected to do the same as a film director. 
   
   "I had the same kind of pressure when I began my music career," Madonna told reporters. "I was nervous, and I didn't know what to expect, and people didn't know what to expect." 
   
   The film, which premiered at the Venice film festival and is screening at Toronto, has been characterized by critics as visually stunning, but lacking in focus and burdened by weak performances. 
   
   "I can tell when people are reviewing my film and when they're reviewing me personally," Madonna said when asked whether she cared about what critics thought. "So when they stick to the film, then I do care." 
   
   "W.E." stars Abbie Cornish as a young New Yorker in the 1990s who becomes infatuated with the 1930s marriage of King Edward VIII and American divorcee Wallis Simpson, played by Andrea Riseborough. It follows Madonna's first feature, 2008's "Filth and Wisdom," which performed poorly at the box office. 
   
   Britain's The Guardian newspaper was the harshest among the critics, giving the film just one star out five, while the Daily Telegraph gave a more positive three star review. 
   
   The budget of W.E. is estimated to be around $15 million, and it hits movie theaters in the United States in December, prompting one journalist to ask Madonna about her Oscar hopes for the film. 
   
   "My legs and my fingers are crossed," she quipped. (Reporting by Julie Gordon, editing by Christine Kearney) ||||| Madonna described King Edward VIII as "very punk rock," at the North American opening of her film W.E about his infamous romance with American divorcee Wallis Simpson - and his subsequent abdication. 
   
   The singer-turned-film-director was explaining how an anarchist anthem by punk band The Sex Pistols ended up on the soundtrack for her second directorial work, starring British actors James D'Arcy and Andrea Riseborough. 
   
   The band's 1977 single "God Save the Queen" attacked social conformity and deference to the Crown. 
   
   Madonna said: "I thought he (King Edward VIII) was quite rebellious and cutting edge in his point of view about life and about how to run the empire and using the Sex Pistols was a perfect marriage." 
   
   In Venice, where the film premiere earlier this month, the Queen of Pop said there were "elements of myself" in the film, and said she could sympathise with Wallis as an outsider, an American living in London. 
   
   "I empathize with Wallis. Public figures or icons are often just reduced to a sound-bite, just a handful of attributes. I think people tried to diminish her... I tried to make her human," she said in Venice. 
   
   At the Toronto International Film Festival, Madonna added that Wallis "was and is a very provocative character. She is also a mysterious and enigmatic creature, not conventionally beautiful, not young, twice divorced, not anything fabulous about her background and somehow she managed to capture the heart of the man who at the time held the most important position in the world. 
   
   "That story intrigued me immensely and I wanted to understand it." 
   
   "But also I was interested in the concept of the cult of celebrity which we are all consumed with now, and then." 
   
   Polish classical composer Abel Korzeniowski set up the movie's haunting score. 
   
   He tried to explain to reporters that Madonna had urged him to "not try to be talented." Madonna interrupted, "No, I said: 'Don't over-think it.' I always wanted you to be talented." 
   
   The clash of his classical and Madonna's pop backgrounds, he continued, resulted in "the most interesting thing." 
   
   "I found myself learning very interesting things (from Madonna) about music, which helped me in my classical thinking," Korzeniowski added. 
   
   During filming, it was also revealed that Madonna and the cast held sing-a-longs "to pass the time" during rainy days when shooting was interrupted. 
   
   In Toronto, Madonna serenaded journalists with a few impromptu lyrics they had sung together: "We're making a movie, isn't it groovy, welcome to my house". 
   
   But Madonna has already conquered the music industry, and is more focused on filmmaking now. 
   
   "I had to earn my way ... to be taken seriously in the music department, and now I'm well aware that I have to do the same in the world of film," she said, welcoming critics' reviews of her film (not her personal life). 
   
   W.E is scheduled for wide release in December at the peak of the pre-Oscar season. "I'm keeping my legs and fingers crossed" for a nod, she quipped. ||||| W.E. is Madonna's first film as director and received some negative reviews when it debuted at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month. 
   
   Speaking at the Toronto Film Festival, the singer said she wanted reviewers to focus on her work as a director – not on her personal life. 
   
   "I can tell when people are reviewing my film and when they're reviewing me personally," she said. 
   
   "I welcome criticisms of my film when it's viewed as an artistic form and not when people are mentioning things about my personal life or my achievements in any other field because they're irrelevant to the film. So when they stick to the film then I do care, I pay attention to it." 
   
   Madonna said she has always been fascinated by the relationship between Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII. Despite being based on true historical figures, the film is not a straight-forward biopic but vacillates between the historical love affair and a contemporary romance between a married woman and a Russian security guard. 
   
   While she takes her work seriously, the director said there was plenty of time on set where the cast relaxed with one another. 
   
   "We did have sing alongs. It was a way to pass time. When it was pouring down rain and you were shooting outside and you were stuck inside some grey dirty shack waiting for the sun to come out, what can you do but make up a song."
target: – Madonna doesn’t mind criticism of her new movie, WE—a good thing, since it bombed at the Venice Film Festival and, Reuters notes, subsequently received a one-star review in the Guardian—as long as that criticism is directed at the movie, and not at the Material Girl. "I can tell when people are reviewing my film and when they're reviewing me personally," Madonna said yesterday at the Toronto International Film Festival, where WE is screening. "So when they stick to the film, then I do care" what critics think, she explained. She also described King Edward VIII, whose romance with Wallis Simpson is depicted in the film, as “very punk rock,” the Telegraph reports. That’s why she put the Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen” on the soundtrack, she explained: “I thought [the king] was quite rebellious and cutting edge in his point of view about life and about how to run the empire and using the Sex Pistols was a perfect marriage.” (She also, the Telegraph adds, broke into song at one point during the Q&A session—watch at left.) Click for another story coming out of the film festival—apparently, Madge doesn't like to be looked at by volunteers...