Canadian Film Programmes Blog
September 13, 2021
And so it ends with a Bang, not a Whimper, as our fantastic run at this year's TIFF culminated in a packed, boisterous sold-out show on Friday at the AMC. The entire run was exhilarating, exhausting and enormously gratifying for us, as the audiences were extremely receptive, vocal and laughing! Nothing better than makin' people laugh. We couldn't have asked for a better world premiere. If you asked me on the first day of principal photography if I would be eating steak and creme brule at the Rosewater as a guest...
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WHEN LIFE WAS GOOD at TIFF 2008 ended when the wheels of our plane touched down yesterday in Vancouver.It was the most incredible nine days (although it felt like an incredible month, due to the hours we were keeping). Our new friends at the festival made us feel like we were at home each and every day with: passionate insightful conversation, tickets to whatever we wanted to see, amazing gourmet meals, and pretty much anything and everything else.Thanks to: Steve Gravestock, Jesse Wente, Matthew Hays, Magali Simard, Tammy Stone, and Jen Baldin for the best nine days.HIGHLIGHTS:Drinking and talking film...
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September 12, 2021
I simply love the 80's. This could be accredited to the fact that I am a marvelous creation from this time of pop, a tacky tapestry of styles. But it was also a time of Madonna rolling Like a Virgin all over the floor, and Wham stuffing socks in their shorts. Love it or hate it, it was oh so much fun, fun, fun. I sit down on my couch to talk with the make-up and hair artist/creator for Coopers Camera, Dee Daly - conveniently she is my best friend and comes to meet me. We have gathered to get...
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September 11, 2021
I just saw Bruce Kirkland on CBC News acting as a mouthpiece for the fluffy thesis that TIFF is no longer “the people’s festival.” The basis of his argument is that the average guy can’t dance on the red carpet with Brad Pitt.
I guess this is the news angle: It’s hard to get tickets for massive gala premieres with a bunch of huge celebs. All the tickets are going to evil corporate sponsors. Maybe ol’ Bruce should take an economics class. If there is a hot ticket and limited supply –...
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From the moment that the first image of two people laying painted, naked in bed graces the screen, you are left breathless. Lyne Charlebois, Borderline is a powerful, moving and creative testament to the amazing directorial vision of this Quebec native.I have been lucky enough to see quite a few film that have emerged from Quebec this year at TIFF - Charlebois resignates with me deepest. Why? She takes the bull by the horns. There is no hesitation, no fear and no fluffing of Kiki Labrèche's tale of woe - it...
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The Canadian Film Programme is exceptionally good at illustrating why Canada is such an amazing country. One night I’m getting a taste of rural Quebec in the 1960’s, the next I get a sense of what life is like for a drunken poet in Newfoundland, over the weekend it was Inuit life in the 1840’s.
However, films like Under Rich Earth prove programmers aren’t afraid of selections critical of Canadian entities like Ascendant Copper.
It’s the inspiring tale of Ecuadorian villagers who simply want to say no to...
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Canadian film enthusiast and contributing programmer of the Short Cuts Canada series, Kathleen Mullen, kicked off Programme 3 of the series by reminding us how important it is to support and encourage Canadian filmmakers. Mullen remarked that "there are usually multiple themes in series. Particularly tonight the theme is gender." My queer heart skips a beat.
The third installation of the Short Cuts Canada
brought out an eclectic crowd (image right) of 20-40 year old movie buffs out in
force and merited the same enthusiasm in number response as its predecessors.The investigation of the...
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As if the festival wasn't already going well enough - packed houses (thanks to the world's greatest audience), great movies, thrilled film makers, but the business side of the fest also has picked up. Maximum Films, one of the big time companies in Canada, has picked up the worldwide rights to Cameron Labine's outrageous debut comedy, Control Alt Delete. You can read all about it here. The premiere last night was a wild event. There's still a chance to see it twice - Friday and Saturday - the shows...
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Who does the future belong to? Cold, detached machines? Not computers but human machines. Cohabitation with computers can't be far behind. Spending time on the computer takes on new meaning in the Y2K fable, Control Alt Delete. Human contact is threatened by a cursor and a mouse, computers have become so efficient at satisfying our basic needs, who needs human interaction? We've become disconnected. The daily office dialogue is a malaise of computer speak and meaningless memos. Did you get the memo? Writer and Director Cameron Labine goes even further to make his point...
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September 10, 2021
There was a bit of a politically-charged brew-ha-ha at the screening of Maman Est Chez Le Coiffeur last night. First let’s give the film its due, its an elegiac story of a troubled childhood which shares the exact themes as C’est Pas Moi, Je Le Jure, and Un Ete Sans Point Ni Coup Sur. Fine company indeed. The three films would make an ideal weekend bill at Cinematheque Ontario sometime.
It’s no secret filmmakers have been unusually political at this year’s fest. Concerns over what a majority Conservative government could...
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Toronto the good needs a rude awakening. Toronto Stories clearly illustrates that Toronto's promise is stuck in the past. Toronto is no longer a hog town, it's a happening city. Everywhere you go something is happening. Toronto is a beautiful vibrant city. You would never know it talking to some of the people living here.
I arrived at the AMC theatre with all kinds of presumptions and expectations only to be treated to a brilliant depiction of a Toronto that flips, twists and defies pre-conceived notions.
In a brief...
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Only is like a warm glass of hot chocolate on a cold winters day. I just adored this film from beginning to end. During the introduction of the piece, co-director Ingrid Veninger commented that she had, "found inspiration for this film on a mountainside monastery in Japan. In five seconds I knew what happiness was." Clearly this renewed energy for love and life seeped into the workings of this film. Only connected with its audience in laughter, innocence and most of all when it came to remembering the days when we...
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Sorry for the tardiness of this blog, but it took me and my wife several days to recover from our amazing premiere night! This is us about 2 hours before the screening being picked up by our editor Aden Bahadori (because we thought he didn't do enough for the film yet, we made him our post production supervisor AND driver) in one of our snazzy Cooper Mini Coopers. It was a real kick to have these cars to boot around the city in, spreading the word of Coopers as we...
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September 9, 2021
I’m not going to lie to you because we all know the blog is a highly respected journalistic medium: I’ve got a bit of a movie-crush on Kristine Cofsky. Presumably any red-blooded admirer of women will feel the same way if they catch tomorrow’s screening of When Life Was Good.
When you watch a movie like Funny HaHa and the cute protagonist makes you squirm with affection there’s not much you can do about it. But as a TIFF blogger I can at least interview...
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Cassavetes comparisons are thrown out often these days. Filmmakers with inexpensive cameras go out of focus and immediately get compared to one of the masters. But Carl Bessai’s Mothers & Daughters actually tackles the themes of Cassavetes and comes out looking like a film that booze-loving Greek maniac would have cried at. Bessai is a filmmaker who obviously loves actors in the way the almost self-destructively passionate Cassavetes did.
If a comparison to John-boy weren’t flattering enough, Mothers & Daughters is also being compared...
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Everyone is buzzing about the deliriously funny performances of Samantha Bee, Jason Jones and Mike Beaver in Cooper’s Camera. What’s amazing is that the child/teen actors in the film are operating on about the same level.
I caught up with Nick McKinlay and Dylan Everett on our way to the after-party and hit them with these questions:
Nick
1) Did you do any hermaphrodite research? It's a fascinating subject.Umm, yes I spent a couple months with some flatworms and mollusks, you...
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Charles Officer's Nurse.Fighter.Boy is grounded in connectivity, the intricate details of life and love simplified. Everything comes together as it should. Stunning but non imposing visuals, a heavenly selection of eclectic music and potent performances by all of the actors. Clarke Johnson one of the stars of the film has been acting for a long time, but his performance in Nurse.Fighter.Boy has been a long time coming. Only a seasoned actor could give the role of (Silence) the lift it deserves. While watching this brilliant piece of cinema I couldn't help...
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Last night I had one of those "only at TIFF" moments. After hosting a raucus and emotional screening of Charles Officer's stirring debut Nurse.Fighter.Boy I headed over to one of the city's finer hotels to escort a few of the filmmakers from Before Tomorrow to their first journey up the CN Tower. The Igloolik based trio of Carol Kunuk, Madelaine Puijuq Ivalu and Susan Avingaq (pictured) enjoyed the view before heading over to the filmmaker's dinner, where they then got to schmooze with the likes of Kari Skogland (Fifty Dead Men...
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A scene from Whitmore Park (The Epic Story of My Life Part 4)People
often ask me if I get nervous before a screening at the Toronto
International Film Festival, to which I reply, "ME? NERVOUS?!" and then
I proceed to eat my own tongue.I'm joking, it's really not the
bad. In fact, by the time I premiere a film I've spent so much time
sweating over every detail that part of me doesn't even care how it
goes over, I'm just glad it's finished.The most nerve wracking
thing for me at a screening is the technical part. This is particularly
a factor...
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Female narrations have a unique level of emotional power.
The forum of woman's body has been used to widely convey an exceptional
amount of commentaries on life, sex, sexuality, society and culture in so many
forms of artistic manifestation. Any artist attempts to connect by presenting his/her best depiction of the world he/she sees, chooses to see, or what he/she dreams into truth. This is how Short Cuts Canada :
Programme II engages you into thinking about around the discourse of a woman.
I can't be happier about seeing these films. They just added to the buzz that
TIFF 08 has placed in my system this...
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