Festival Daily






September 8, 2021
No Script. No Crew. No Problem.
Posted By Festival Daily At 9:01 AM
By Jonathan Doyle Judging from the work of veteran filmmaker Carl Bessai (Mothers & Daughters) and first-timer Terry Miles (When Life Was Good), improvisational cinema is alive and well in Canada. Both directors arrive at this year’s Festival with aggressively improvisational works that challenge the norms of traditional scripted filmmaking. They foreground performance at the expense of carefully planned visuals and tightly structured narratives, creating films of unusual truth, spontaneity and insight. Bessai has been working in this area for quite some time (this is his third consecutive year at TIFF including 2006’s Unnatural & Accidental and last year’s Normal), which means...

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A Filmmaker’s Guide to Toronto: Deepa Mehta, Heaven on Earth
Posted By Festival Daily At 9:01 AM
File under: Directors
By Hailey Eisen As I enter Deepa Mehta’s home in the picturesque Annex neighbourhood, I instantly feel at ease. The zen-like ambience is created in part by her cozy decor (family photos, beautifully woven carpets and colourful artwork) and also by her serene disposition. Though journalists are being ushered in one after another on this late August day, Mehta is completely composed. A Toronto International Film Festival-veteran, Mehta says she loves how the city is transformed for this 10-day celebration of cinema. “You can feel the energy,” she says. “Torontonians are such film lovers that they take time off work to...

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Of Film and the City
Posted By Festival Daily At 9:01 AM
By Kate Lawrie Do you remember the lovers perched atop the mountain of plastic water bottles overlooking Bangkok in 2004’s Citizen Dog? How about the depiction of discordant gentrification in last year’s This Beautiful City? If you missed these selections, you most likely heard about Crash, Paul Haggis’s symphonic narrative of urban social disconnection that took the Festival – and then awards season – by storm a few editions back. With every passing year, more people worldwide gravitate toward urban centres (50 per cent of the earth’s population, as of 2008). And with every passing year, filmmakers have brought to the...

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A Round with... Kristopher Belman
Posted By Festival Daily At 9:01 AM
File under: Directors
By Eleni Deacon Who: Kristopher Belman, director of More Than a GameWhat: Whisky and cola; gin and tonic Where: The Pilot Tavern, 22 Cumberland StreetWhen: Sept. 6, 7:45pm Though his flight from Los Angeles had landed just a few hours before, first-time director Kristopher Belman is a great sport as we climb the three flights of stairs to the rooftop patio of The Pilot Tavern. His documentary, More Than a Game, has been six years in the making, having started as a university assignment. Initially unsure of how to even operate his camera, Belman shadowed five promising basketball players from his home...

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Rain You'd Be Lucky To Get Caught In: Maria Govan's World Premiere
Posted By Festival Daily At 9:01 AM
By Sam Toman When Maria Govan, writer and director of the film Rain, told her friends that she was leaving the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles to return to her native Bahamas, they had one thing to say: “You’ll never make films in the Bahamas.” What they probably meant was that Govan would never make the film she wanted to in the Bahamas. Every year, big-budget Hollywood studio productions set up shop in the archipelago nation. Recently Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and Casino Royale shot there. Sprawling beaches, clear water and a proximity to the United States make...

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