Toronto International Film Festival 2013
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Five Questions with The Armstrong Lie Director Alex Gibney
Alex Gibney, the Oscar-winning director of Taxi to the Dark Side, is not only the most prolific figure within American documentary but also always seems to tackle solely the most complex, fascinating subjects. In recent years, he has put his focus on jailed lobbyist and con artist Jack Abramoff, disgraced politician Eliot Spitzer, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, Tea Party funders the Koch brothers, and Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. To this list can be now added fallen sports hero Lance Armstrong, the cancer survivor turned seven-time Tour de France winner who, after years of rumors, […]
by Nick Dawson on Sep 8, 2013 -
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 […]
by Mike S. Ryan on Sep 8, 2013 -
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: […]
by Nick Dawson on Sep 8, 2013 -
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 […]
by Nick Dawson on Sep 6, 2013 -
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 […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 5, 2013 -
TIFF Announces Docs, Midnight and Vanguard Slates
It’s the time for fall festival announcements, and in the last 24 hours TIFF has now unveiled its second wave of programming, including the documentary section, Midnight Madness and Vanguard. A lot of these films have (or will have) played elsewhere, but there are still a number of notable world premieres. Among the doc strand, Filthy Gorgeous: The Bob Guccione Story, a film about the head of the Penthouse empire, seems certain to be entertaining, and Jehane Noujaim’s excellent doc on the Egyptian uprising, The Square, will have its first official screening after playing in rough-cut form at Sundance. (I […]
by Nick Dawson on Jul 30, 2013 -
TIFF Announces Bumper Initial Slate
The first sections of the 2013 slate at the Toronto International Film Festival were announced today, and there’s a lot to dig into here. Just skimming the surface, the major points to note are that the fest will open with Bill Condon’s WikiLeaks movie, The Fifth Estate (starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange), and close with Dan Schechter’s Elmore Leonard adaptation Life of Crime, which I have heard some strong buzz about already. In the Galas section, the standouts are world premieres of awards hopefuls Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom and August: Osage Count, but it’s the Special Presentations section […]
by Nick Dawson on Jul 23, 2013
