Festival Daily






By Neil Karassik With such a wide range of content at the Festival this year, it comes as somewhat of a surprise that there are three films playing in different programmes that all happen to be westerns. And all three are in many ways throwbacks to some of the major cycles within the genre. From Galas to Special Presentations and even to the after-hours Midnight Madness programme, there seems to be an underlying frontier theme at this year’s Festival. So grab your cowboy hat and come along for the ride. The first film is a major Hollywood adaptation of a novel...

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By Ghita Loebenstein   As TIFF nears its curtain call for 2008, Festival programmers tell us what shocked, who enthralled and what kept them up all night.   Jane Schoettle (International Programmer)   I was impressed by how many actresses wore towering sadistic heels and yet managed to stay upright. I was inspired by how articulate Barry Jenkins (Medicine for Melancholy) is about filmmaking. I was star-struck by Shohreh Aghdashloo from The Stoning of Soraya M. because of her dark beauty, husky voice and deep passion for art. I was surprised that the content of the Q&A; for...

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Who: Piers Handling, Director of the Toronto International Film Festival and CEO of the Toronto International Film Festival GroupWhere: The Library Bar at the Royal York Hotel, 100 Front Street WestWhen: 6:15pmWhat: A glass of shiraz and a cranberry spritzer Kate Lawrie sits down with Piers Handling in the hush of the Library Bar to chat about the role of film festivals, the atomization of culture and why silent filmmakers are still the bomb. KL: What has changed with the Festival since you first joined? PH: The attention. Everything’s just gotten bigger, with more attention on every part of the Festival: the...

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Sweet Dreams
By Ghita Loebenstein Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck made a stunning debut with Half Nelson, and now the indie powerhouse have combined forces to make Sugar, the story of a young baseball player from the Dominican Republic whose dreams of making it big in the United States do not transpire as he had hoped. The writing-directing duo sits down with the Daily to talk about turning big dreams into successful films. GL: This is your first time with a film at the Festival. What are your expectations? RF: We’re hoping to have fun and hang out. We have a distributor for the film,...

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By Jason Lapeyre The conquistador Ruy Díaz de Guzmán first referred to the territory as Tierra Argentina, Land of Silver, in the 17th century. Four hundred years later, we may do well to refer to it as the Land of Silver Nitrate, as Argentina has blessed the Festival this year with its highest contribution to date. There are six films from the region in the current lineup, and they are all remarkable in their own way.  “Not only do we have continuity with those filmmakers who were part of the New Argentine Cinema that became so acclaimed in the late 1990s,”...

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By Kate Lawrie Sometimes being part of a film crew continues long after the credits roll. Witness the fab-foursome that came to Toronto in support of their documentary The Dungeon Masters: director Keven McAlester, editor Christine Khalafian, producer Phil Hay and maverick cinematographer (and TIFF party legend) Lee Daniel. Throughout their week here, they eagerly awaited – then happily celebrated – the world premiere of their big-hearted verité portrait of the lives of several adult players of Dungeons and Dragons. Between mad dashes to theatres and party hopping, I quizzed Keven, Phil, Christine and Lee on the film and their time...

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A Round With... Daniel Burman
Eleni Deacon Who: Daniel Burman, director, Empty NestWhat: 7UP with limeWhen: September 9, 7pmWhere: Mistura, 265 Davenport Road Though Argentine filmmaker Daniel Burman is the out-of-towner at our table at Mistura, he provides me with some unusual Ontario travel tips. He speaks energetically – if incredulously – about a 3-D movie theatre in Niagara Falls where you can sport the classic blue-and-red lenses to watch a video of the nearby falls. “You see the same thing that you see in life 100-metres away. This sort of thing can only happen in North America. I love this,” Berman says. Such appreciation for the...

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By Ghita Loebenstein On the silver glow of the big cinema screen, lust is always youthful and taut, while the first flush of love is usually reserved for the nubile domain of the under-25s. But in real life, older people do fall in love, and sex does not cease to exist for many in their twilight years. Three directors at this year’s Festival have dared to open that creaky bedroom door and peer inside. “We are afraid of seeing the naked bodies of older people because they don’t look as beautiful as those we see in magazines and newspapers everyday. They are...

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By Kate Lawrie I’ve never had to fight back tears while moderating a Q&A; after a film. Not until this past Sunday, September 7, that is – at the world premiere of directors Don Hardy and Dana Nachman’s documentary Witch Hunt. I had seen the film in an advance screening, and admittedly was astonished by the almost surreal failing of the American legal system that it details. But even that couldn’t prepare me for the emotional outpouring that came about at the post-premiere discussion. In the late 1980s, a cataclysm of undertrained investigators, bad questioning methods, problematic prosecution cases and...

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By Alissa Simon The spirit of peripatetic sixteenth-century Greek painter Domenikos Theotokopoulos, better known to the world as El Greco, comes to Toronto during the Festival via the colorful period drama El Greco, directed by Iannis Smaragdis, and a special exhibition, “El Greco – from the set to the screen,” which will be on display at the Bata Shoe Museum through September 14. The medium for this materialization, director Smaragdis, his producer wife Eleni Smaragdis and cinematographer Aris Stavrou, will appear at the film’s public screenings on September 12 and 13. They will be accompanied by the leading actors, including Nick...

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By Parul Pandya Nandita Das has proven herself to be one of the first ladies of India, with over 12 years of acting and 30 films to her credit. Onscreen, she garners admiration for her unique ability to vividly paint the emotional landscape of the characters she embodies. But Das’s authenticity goes beyond her acting talents; off-screen, she is an active advocate for social justice and change in India and beyond. Firaaq, her directorial debut, intertwines an investigation of the human capacity for suffering with a look at the social implications of violence on individuals and nations alike. The word “firaaq”...

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By Nicholas Davies Who: Richard Glatzer and Wash WestmorelandWhat: Top secret Where: That’s top secret, too When: September 9, 3:30pm I meet up with my friends Richard and Wash, who are in town with the film Pedro. As its producers, they’re here for the premiere that happened on Sunday. They’re busy doing press all day, but we manage to squeeze in a bit of time for a chinwag – and we arrange that I’ll look in my closet for the shirt Wash left behind (the boys were staying chez-moi at the start of the Festival). We lament the fact that they’re leaving...

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By Hailey Eisen It is a warm summer evening, and the Bloor Street West strip is buzzing with life. The flashing yellow lights of Honest Ed’s (581 Bloor Street West) illuminate the sidewalks as people of all ages and walks of life mingle in this vibrant, mid-town neighbourhood. A landing place for many University of Toronto students, the Annex area is also home to some of Toronto’s most well-known talent. Its plethora of coffee shops, bars, restaurants, boutiques and street vendors attract throngs of people all year round. For Martha Burns and Susan Coyne – celebrated personalities in the Toronto film,...

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By Caley Moore What is documentary? The simple answer – non-fiction film – seems to have become more complicated recently. In film or other media, the line between fact and fiction is often nebulous. Director Michael Moore has frequently been accused of manipulating the plots of his landmark documentaries, and even NBC admitted to using digitally enhanced fireworks – described by on-air hosts as a “cinematic device” – in its coverage of the opening ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics. While films that combine non-fiction footage with invented components are nothing new, more and more documentarians seem to be experimenting with crossover...

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By Tammy Stone People do not generally assume that a grape would be tastier if it was as big as a watermelon, or that a child’s plastic craft table should accommodate a royal family dinner. Similarly, in the arts, no one asks if a haiku could benefit from a few extra syllables, or wonders if the Mona Lisa might have more impact if it were as big as Jackson Pollock’s Lavender Mist. For some reason, this same sensible logic does not apply in the world of cinema, where more often than not, short films are defined by what they are not: in...

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By Thom Ernst   The Talent Lab is one of those brilliantly conceived ideas that could only come out of a festival like TIFF. This four-day creative course allows a select group of promising filmmakers to work alongside their peers while also being given the unique opportunity to connect with some of the most well-respected names in the industry.   ON THE EVE OF TALENT LAB“We would like the participants to be overwhelmed by the end of four days. Overwhelmed by possibility, that is,” says Sandra Cunningham of Strada Films who, along with partner Brad Fox, co-produce the programme. Her intention is simple: “That...

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Agnès and I
By Ghita Loebenstein Talking to Agnès Varda is like being in one of her films. We meet on the patio of l’Espresso Bar Mercurio where uniFrance is hosting a luncheon for its French filmmakers and their cohorts. Olivier Assayas is deep in conversation with Piers Handling. Mabrouk El Mechri, the young director of buzz-title JCVD is surrounded by a throng of beautiful women. The Dardenne brothers have just left. We find a table in the corner. A life-sized statue of a gold lion sits beside us, peering over the conversation, and Varda begins to talk, as if she is in mid-thought....

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A Round With… Aaron Poole
By Kate Lawrie Who: Aaron Poole, star and producer of last year’s This Beautiful City, appearing this year in Atom Egoyan’s Adoration and Jamie Dagg’s SundayWhere: Marben, 488 Wellington Street WestWhen: 7pm, August 27What: A glass of malbec and a local premium pilsner As the large party two tables over converse energetically about how Baby Duck was the “drunk” of choice for teens in the 1970s, the Daily’s Editor-in-Chief sat down before Festival mania hit for a chat with the charming Canadian multi-hyphenate Aaron Poole. KL: How did you get into acting? AP: I moved from a small town to go to...

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By Elizabeth Beddall When you call Joel Hynes’s home and catch the muffled squeak of a child’s voice – and hear a patient father suggest that his son go draw him a picture of a grizzly bear – you may, at first, wonder if you have the right person on the line. His body of written work may have you expecting something quite different. In fact, legend has it that the 37-year-old author-actor is partial to rage and mass destruction; that his persona could reach through the phone and sock you in the face. “Well, you know, it follows me around,”...

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A Round with... Terence Davies
By Nicholas Davies Who: Terence Davies, director, Of Time and the City and The Terence Davies TrilogyWhat: Vodka cranberry and vodka sevenWhere: 22 Lounge at the Windsor Arms Hotel, 18 St. Thomas StreetWhen: September 5, 7:30pm I arrive at 22 Lounge in the lovely Windsor Arms Hotel, where a very charming bartender clears out the back room to make way for my private chat with Terence Davies (no relation), the master British director of some of the most heart-rending works of contemporary cinema – including his latest, Of Time and the City, and his seminal Trilogy, which is screening in the Dialogues:...

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