Toronto International Film Festival 2011
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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 […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 15, 2011 -
IFC BUYS LYNN SHELTON’S “YOUR SISTER’S SISTER”
indieWIRE reports that IFC Films has bought Lynn Shelton‘s You Sister’s Sister. The film, which stars Emily Blunt, Rosemarie DeWitt, Mark Duplass and Mike Birbiglia, premiered this week at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film follows Jack (Duplass), who still reeling over the death of his brother a year earlier, gets a suggestion from Iris (Blunt), his best friend and dead brother’s ex, that they take a trip to his father’s cabin to get his bearings. And there he’s unexpectedly confronted by Hannah (DeWitt), Iris’ sister. IFC plans to release the film in 2012. Read our interview with Lynn […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Sep 14, 2011 -
JAMES FRANCO & GUS VAN SANT ON “MEMORIES OF IDAHO”
One of the free programs at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival that caught our eye was James Franco and Gus Van Sant‘s installation, Memories of Idaho, which acts as a meditation on Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho and its lead actor River Phoenix. Here’s a discussion Franco and Van Sant had this past weekend with Noah Cowan at the Bell Lightbox about Memories of Idaho. If you’re in Toronto the installation will be at the Lightbox until Sept. 18. Here’s more about it from the TIFF release: In 1991, Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho and its […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Sep 14, 2011 -
FAMILIAR PLEASURES AT TORONTO: “YOU’RE NEXT” AND “SLEEPLESS NIGHT”
When you go to a film festival, you’re hoping for the new — films with a radical cinematic language, or content you’ve never seen before. A film that might have provided that to me at the Toronto International Film Festival has proven elusive. (I missed, for example, Steve McQueen’s Shame — the only oversold press and industry screening I’ve encountered so far.) But sometimes in your quest for new sensations you can be gobsmacked by the familiar, especially when it’s done very, very well. Indeed, the two most satisfying films I’ve seen so far at the festival are straight-up and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 14, 2011 -
Five Questions with The Patron Saints Directors Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky
Photographers-documentarians Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky use dark humor and unconventional storytelling techniques to look at patients living in a nursing home for their debut feature, The Patron Saints. Known for their Hurricane Katrina short God Provides and their photography highlighted on their site, piegonprojects.com (two reasons why we selected them for our 25 New Faces of Independent Film in 2007), Cassidy and Shatzky’s unique eye of making the ordinary look extraordinary has us excited in seeing this premiere at TIFF. Filmmaker: Tell us a little about what your film is about? Cassidy/Shatzky: The Patron Saints is a hyperrealistic […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Sep 14, 2011 -
TORONTO: WOMEN IN CHAINS
I heard a woman complaining in the women’s bathroom after Trishna. “But she just did what he said for two hours! It was like looking at a sphinx.” Later that day I found myself staring into the eyes of a thirteen-year-old Russia girl named Nadya as she dutifully trudged across the floor, on display in front of a group of Japanese fashion designers, close to paralyzed with alienation and helplessness. The latest by Michael Winterbottom, Trishna follows Freido Pinto as a very poor oldest daughter of a rural Indian family in an adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Victorian novel Tess […]
by Alicia Van Couvering on Sep 14, 2011 -
Girl Model Directors Ashley Sabin And David Redmon
In both narrative and documentary film, the character of the fashion model has long been a symbol of not only glamor but also a kind of post-modern alienation. Depicting a Russian teen model casting and one young girl’s travel to Japan for modeling work, Girl Model, David Redmon and Ashley Sabin’s absolutely riveting new documentary, is set in a morally adrift culture in which the image of childhood is a globally traded commodity. Nadya is an innocent-looking, blonde 13-year-old for whom modeling work is both a dream and way out of the poverty she’s grown up with in Siberia. But […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 14, 2011 -
MAGNOLIA NABS BOBCAT GOLDTHWAIT’S “GOD BLESS AMERICA”
Deadline reports that Magnolia Pictures has bought the world-wide rights for Bobcat Goldthwait‘s latest dark satire, God Bless America. The film will be released through Magnolia’s genre label, Magnet, with a VOD premiere in 2012 followed by a theatrical release. Premiering at this year’s TIFF Midnight Madness section, the film follows a 45-year-old man (Joel Murray) and a teenage girl (Tara Lynne Barr) as they go on a Bonnie and Clyde-esque rampage after the country unites in the ridicule of a simpleminded contestant on a television singing competition. “I feel like the American Empire is starting to crumble, and we’re […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Sep 13, 2011 -
Five Questions with Crazy Horse Director Frederick Wiseman
Legendary documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman heads to the Toronto International Film Festival with his latest film on dance, Crazy Horse. Highlighting the famous cabaret in Paris, Wiseman uses his patented verite style to give an unprecedented look inside the work and lives of the women who makes the Crazy Horse legendary. Filmmaker: Tell us a little about what your film is about? Weisman: I Followed the day to day activities involved in the rehearsing and staging of a new show at the crazy horse, a parisian cabaret famous for its beautiful dancers and erotic dances. Filmmaker: Why a verite look […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Sep 12, 2011 -
TORONTO IS A PUZZLE
This is my first time at TIFF, and I have to admit, it is a puzzle. Look at this picture — that’s only the press and industry screenings! Notice the puzzlement and confusion of the professionals, even. I also find the transportation system puzzling, and spend a lot of time in taxis. Everyone likes to complain about traffic in Toronto and it is de rigeur to show up to a screening at the AMC Theatres panting and sweating. I had two films premiere this weekend (three cheers!!) and they were very well-received (three cheers!!) But mostly every buyer I meet […]
by Alicia Van Couvering on Sep 12, 2011
