Filmmaking

DEALS, OLD AND NEW, IN TORONTO

“What’s the state of the market here?” I asked a sales rep last night. “Well, the first deal announced during Toronto is for a film that already sold at Sundance.” He was referring to Antoine Fuqua’s Brooklyn’s Finest, which sold at Sundance, sat in a distribution limbo while a new cut was readied (and while Senator tried to come up with funds for its release) and now, following Senator’s collapse, has moved over to Overture. Anne Thompson has the details at Indiewire, and the story of unpaid labs, films sitting on the shelf, and general financial malaise at Senator is, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Sep 15, 2009 Filmmaking
“GOING GREEN” – TORONTO’S WAVELENGTHS 2: PRO AGRI

Plastic bags cost $.05 here in Toronto this year, a determinedly “pro-agri” city if ever there was one. In the second Wavelengths program, five directors explored themes of, in, and around the natural world. A sputtering soundtrack accompanied a tiny, spunky film, Lumphini by Thai director Tomonari Nishikawa, a speedy, black-and-white collection of still photographs documenting trees, plants, and leaves from a 140-acre Bangkok park in on gorgeous 35mm. In Cordão Verde (Green Belt, pictured above), Hiroatsu Suzuki and Rossana Torres document the pastoral Portugal countryside, while in Tamalpais, Canadian filmmaker Chris Kennedy uses a draughtsman’s landscape grid to break […]

By Livia Bloom Ingram on Sep 15, 2009 Filmmaking
ON UP IN THE AIR AND A CITY FULL OF THOSE GUYS

“I don’t know whether I liked the film because it’s a good film, or because I think I’m that guy,” a colleague said to me the other night here in Toronto about Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air and its lead character, George Clooney’s smooth-talking, frequent flying, no-attachments corporate road warrior. (In actuality, my colleague is nearly 20 years shy of being able to call himself “that guy.”) Or, he continued, “Maybe it’s just that the film is such a perfect fit for a film festival,” a thought that had occurred to me too. As film festival attendees, we fly […]

By Scott Macaulay on Sep 13, 2009 Filmmaking
“IT’S ALL ABOUT WAVES” — TORONTO’S WAVELENGTHS 1: TITANS

The first 2009 Wavelengths Program (or Programme, as the Canadians say) was held at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). It’s a sophisticated building, one that spent years shrouded in mystery and scaffolding, and has only just revealed its new Gehry glory. Organized this year by talented film programmer Andréa Picard, Wavelengths is an annual extensive program of avant-garde cinema that is screened in six parts during the course of the Toronto International Film Festival. The Festival’s first installment, titled Titans, was an artful collection of films that that varied widely in technique, from an architectural piece by Heinz Emigholz […]

By Livia Bloom Ingram on Sep 12, 2009 Filmmaking
TORONTO 09: CAMPION & KUSAMA

Over at our Toronto page, check out interviews with Bright Star‘s Jane Campion and Jennifer’s Body‘s Karyn Kusama. Both films are currently screening at the festival and will be out in theaters next week.

By Jason Guerrasio on Sep 11, 2009 Filmmaking
TORONTO 09: FILMS FOR THE TAKING

indieWIRE has compiled a list of 145 titles that will be for sale at Toronto. Some of them with big name talent attached — Don Roos’ Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, with Natalie Portman, Atom Egoyan’s Liam Neeson-Julianne Moore thriller Chloe and Todd Solondz’s Life During Wartime. TIFF ’09 has the makings of a buying bonanza. We’ll be on the scene if anything goes down. Head over to our dedicated page throughout the fest.

By Jason Guerrasio on Sep 10, 2009 Filmmaking
PREVIEWING THE TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL

Howard Feinstein will be covering Toronto for Filmmaker this year. Below, he jots down a few of the things he’s looking forward to. Question: How to group the films at Toronto I am most eager to see, by section or by geographical programming (a major plus for the festival)? Answer: Both. Here goes, but frankly, the titles are hardly exhaustive. “Visions,” with only 12 titles, could turn out to be the hot strand. I’m eager to see Trash Humpers (above left), by the poet of the most ignored among the marginalized, Harmony Korine. Ditto To Die Like a Man, by […]

By Scott Macaulay on Sep 10, 2009 Filmmaking
DISPATCH #2 FROM 66th VENICE: POLITICS AND PERSONALITIES

This has been a festival of surprises, beginning with higher attendance than anticipated in view of the world-wide economic crisis, and the emergence of unexpected stars: how about Michael Moore and President Hugo Chavez as media darlings? Moore, who apparently is better known in Europe than one would imagine, brought Capitalism: A Love Story (right), drawing an overflow crowd to his press conference and enthusiastic audiences to the screenings. Moore’s is one of the six U.S. films competing for the Golden Lion. The real coup, however, was an international stage for Chavez in Oliver Stone’s South of the Border, signing […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Sep 10, 2009 Filmmaking
From Hollywood to nobody

Sometimes people ask me how I went from living in Los Angeles, writing a studio film like 40 Days & 40 Nights, to living in Minneapolis, directing an independent comedy like nobody. It’s a fair question but it seems there’s a subtext here, too. Many people think independent film is a step down from the studio system. And I’m sure it is — for some people. But let’s go back. 40 Days & 40 Nights is about a guy who gives up sex for lent and then meets the perfect girl. The short version of how it was made goes […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Sep 9, 2009 Directing
TORONTO: TEASING HARMONY KORINE’S TRASH HUMPERS

Here’s the teaser for Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers, premiering this week in Toronto and then heading to the New York Film Festival.

By Scott Macaulay on Sep 9, 2009 Filmmaking

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