TIFF Features
-
TIFF 2013: Ben Rivers and Ben Russell’s A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness
One of the more anticipated films of a very strong Wavelengths section, Ben Rivers and Ben Russell’s A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness unspooled Saturday night to a packed house at the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Jackman Hall. A true collaborative effort by two major filmmakers, the feature follows a black guitar player, Robert A.A. Lowe, from a northern Finland commune through a solitary journey across a lake into an isolated wilderness to the climactic scene on a stage in Estonia, where he performs with a black metal band. The film is less of a character study than it is the […]
-
Five Questions with Beneath the Harvest Sky Directors Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly
Filmmaking team Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly first made their mark on the U.S. independent scene in 2009 with the documentary The Way We Get By, a heartwarming festival favorite about a trio of senior citizens who have spent years greeting U.S. troops returning from combat as they arrive at Bangor International Airport in Bangor, Maine. Four years on, the pair are once again telling a story set in Maine, but this time it’s a bleak, fictional narrative. Beneath the Harvest Sky, a 2013 IFP Narrative Lab project, tells the story of two teenage best friends whose paths in life are sharply diverging: […]
-
Five Questions with The Dog Directors Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren
The real-life incident of a man robbing a bank to fund his lover’s sex-change operation was immortalized in Sidney Lumet’s 1975 classic Dog Day Afternoon, with Al Pacino winning an Oscar nod for his fine performance as Sonny Wortzik. However the true story of John Wojtowicz — the man on whom Wortzik was based — remains all but unknown. The remarkable tale of that robbery and of Wojtowicz’s life after he emerged from prison is chronicled in Allison Berg & Frank Keraudren’s documentary The Dog, which the pair shot over the course of over a decade, starting in 2002. It has its […]
-
25 Picks for the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is overwhelming. Following the more rarefied Telluride and Venice Film Festivals, it’s a large, populist event that mixes red-carpet premieres with new filmmaker discovery and highlights from Cannes and other earlier events. As I usually do, I’ve concentrated on premieres and American independents for this preview, largely omitting films you’ve heard about because they’ve already been praised at other festivals (like, for example, Telluride hits 12 Years a Slave and Prisoners). Here, selected from the feature films, is what I’m hoping to catch at the festival this year. Beneath the Harvest Sky. The documentary team […]
-
Jared Leto’s 30 Seconds to Mars Battles Record Companies at TIFF’s Artifact
Rock “documentaries” are self-serving films that fawn over their subjects so their record companies can move more product. The typical rock doc strings together concert highlights with studio clips and innocuous musician quotes that add up to a fun, but facile movie. The L.A. band 30 Seconds To Mars turns this formula upside-down in Artifact, which enjoyed its world premiere at TIFF on Friday. Actor/musician Jared Leto’s band wants to leave their record label, EMI, when multimillionaire British tycoon Guy Hands devours the ailing company and sues 30 Seconds To Mars for $30 million. Artifact tells their battle as they struggle to […]
-
Ruba Nadda and Alexander Siddig Return to Tiff with Inescapable
Ruba Nadda, whose Cairo Time captured Best Canadian Feature in 2009, returns to TIFF with Inescapable. Both star leading man Alexander Siddig and are set in the Middle East. However, Inescapable is anything but a charming romance, but rather a fast-paced political thriller set in the most dangerous country in the world, Syria. When he learns that his daughter has gone missing in Syria, Adib (Siddig) leaves his comfy business in Toronto to track her down in Syria. Turns out that the Syrian government has abducted Adib’s journalist daughter and that a shady Canadian diplomat (Joshua Jackson) knows more about it […]
-
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Independent Film Week…
As excited as I am about coming to New York for IFP’s Independent Film Week, this story starts somewhere else…. For the last eight days, I have been fortunate enough to be in Toronto, attending TIFF as a 2012 Talent Lab Fellow alongside 24 very talented filmmakers from around the world. Produced this year by the indomitable Helen DuToit (who also serves as the Artistic Director of the Palm Springs International Film Festival), the Talent Lab was led by a core group of fantastic filmmakers – documentarian Jennifer Baichwal (Manufactured Landscapes), producer Stephen Woolley (presenting both Byzantium and Great Expectations), […]
-
Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon’s The Central Park Five at TIFF
It was horrific. One April night in 1989, a woman was jogging through New York’s Central Park when she was beaten and savagely raped. She lost 75% of her bodily fluids, lay in a coma for days and her face was pulverized so badly that friends identified her by a ring on her finger. Police picked up five black and Latino teenagers, secured confessions and launched one of the ugliest trials in New York’s history. Newspaper pundits and Donald Trump called for the death penalty. Even the African-American community turned their backs on the teens. After all, they were savages. […]
-
Five Questions with Union Square Director Nancy Savoca
Nancy Savoca’s True Love was an early high-water mark in the modern independent film movement. In fact, its storyline, newcomer casting and loose style is now the template for much current indie drama. So, it’s great to report that over 20 years later Savoca is back with another intimate drama realized on a low budget and entirely outside the industry. With a stellar cast (Mira Sorvino, Tammy Blanchard and Patti Lupone), Savoca explores sister dynamics through the lens of a Canon 5D. The film, Union Square, premieres today at the Toronto International Film Festival. Filmmaker: What were the origins of […]
-
Five Questions with Caprichosos Director Alison Murray
Several years ago director Alison Murray moved to Buenos Aires, where she danced tango competitively, married her tango partner, had two daughters and, now, has completed her fourth feature. Not surprisingly given these life changes, the film, Caprichosos, deals with dance. But instead of tango, Murray has focused on the murga — what she dubs “tango’s poor cousin.” Performed by groups of costumed dancers who rehearse their theatrical presentations for months before premiering them at Carnival, the dance is a local tradition suffused with beauty, drama, and a slight undertone of menace. Writes Murray in a director’s statement, “Unlike its […]
