The king of Hollywood genre spent his Hallowe’en in Toronto where he held court at the TIFF Bell Lightbox to speak about his career and present five nights of some of his favourite horror films. Guillermo del Toro launched the series last Thursday when he introduced the 1996 Italian flick L’arcano incantatore (The Arcane Enchanter) and answered questions from TIFF’s Artistic Director Noah Cowan. Despite being a bigshot Hollywood director, del Toro remains a film geek, the kind of guy who can rap about Road Warrior for hours. After showing a montage of some of his favourite movies (including Mad Max and Planet of the […]
by Allan Tong on Nov 4, 2011Guillermo del Toro, best known for directing aesthetically impressive, intellectually thoughtful horror films like Mimic and Pan’s Labyrinth, steps into a slightly different role this summer by presenting Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, a remake of one of his favorite films as a child. I spoke to del Toro about his decades-long dream of bringing this film to life, the connection between horror and spirituality, and what makes a dark basement so damn scary. Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark opens in theaters on August 26th. Filmmaker: I wanted to start by asking how you began working on the […]
by Farihah Zaman on Aug 12, 2011In We Are What We Are, first time Mexican helmer Jorge Michel Grau creates a deeply unsettling portrait of contemporary Mexican urban life which steady grows into many things all at once: a sincere family drama, an earnest exploration of the moral implications of cannibalism and a ribald satire of the seemingly intractable political and economic corruption that is haunting present day Mexico. All moody nighttime vistas and grim, claustrophobic interiors, Grau’s film manages both social commentary and grisly, bone-chilling terror the old-fashioned way, but it still manages to have a depth of human feeling that isn’t the stock and […]
by Brandon Harris on Feb 16, 2011THE GHOSTLY TOMÁS (ÓSCAR CASAS) IN DIRECTOR JUAN ANTONIO BAYONA’S THE ORPHANAGE. COURTESY PICTUREHOUSE. Though he looks and dresses like he’s still a teenager, behind Juan Antonio Bayona’s youthful appearance hides a mature and sophisticated cinematic sensibility. The 32-year-old Barcelona native has a passion for movies that first led him to become a precocious journalist, and then to study directing at film school. Since graduating, he has built a formidable reputation making a series of acclaimed commercials, pop promos for Spanish artists such as Hevia, Ella Baila Sola, Camela and OBK, and two short films, Mis Vacaciones (My Holidays) (1999) […]
by Nick Dawson on Dec 28, 2007