Filmmaking

"ARE YOU READY TO KILL SOME NAZIS?" INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS IN ISRAEL

With its pulp fiction take on the Nazi regime, World War 2, and a band of Jewish avengers, many have wondered how Quentin Taratino’s Inglourious Basterds would play in Israel. Well, if initial press reports are accurate, the answer is pretty well. Haaretz.com titles its story, “Israelis go wild for Inglourious Basterds,” noting that Tarantino introduced the premiere by saying, “Are you reading to kill some Nazis?” (They didn’t note the second line: “Are you ready to fuck up some Nazis?”). See the intro here: The film opens in Israeli theaters on Thursday, and we’ll check out the reviews when […]

By Scott Macaulay on Sep 16, 2009 Filmmaking
“PARTICIPATORY ETHNOGRAPHY” — TORONTO’S WAVELENGTHS 3: LET EACH ONE GO WHERE HE MAY

A pair of bare feet was wedged though the gap between seats in front of me, ankles casually crossed and toes silhouetted against the screen, for Let Each One Go Where He May, the third experimental Wavelengths program at this year’s Toronto Film Festival. The screening was devoted to the World Premiere of a single 135-minute 16mm work by American filmmaker Ben Russell?. The film has no translated dialogue and no traditional narrative. It is made up of ten 13-minute shots of two men walking and is described by programmer Andréa Picard as an “intervention” into culture and landscape. This […]

By Livia Bloom Ingram on Sep 15, 2009 Filmmaking
Exclusive | OREN PELI TALKS PARANORMAL

We’ve been keeping tabs on director Oren Peli (pictured) and his debut low-budget horror Paranormal Activity after seeing the film and instantly putting him on our 2008 25 New Faces on Independent Film list. Now Paramount Pictures has announced that the film — which the few who have seen it compare to The Blair Witch Project — will be doing a creative release of the film starting Sept. 24th when it screens at Austin’s Fantastic Fest at midnight. In select theaters across the country on the same night the film will have free midnight screenings. The studio has also created […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Sep 15, 2009 Filmmaking
WEINSTEINS TAKE SINGLE MAN

In the first major deal at Toronto, the Weinstein Company has picked up Tom Ford‘s A Single Man in a seven-figure deal for U.S. and German rights, according to Variety. An adaptation of the Christopher Isherwood novel, the fim’s star Colin Firth recently received the Best Actor award at the Venice Film Festival. Follow our coverage of the Toronto International Film Festival here.

By Jason Guerrasio on Sep 15, 2009 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

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