The start of the Sundance Film Festival is when film festivals traditionally reboot. A new wave of films comes in with the new year and festival films that have been trotting around the globe throughout 2014, especially the last three months of the year, will fall by the wayside. The changing modes of distribution of recent years, and the increased number of films being released, has meant that frequently the only time to catch certain films – often the best of the year – is at film festivals. A few years ago, some were questioning whether film festivals were still relevant, […]

“Right now, the Kurdish freedom fighters — the peshmerga — are protecting the whole world.” Middle Eastern politics start to sound different when explained by pop sensation Helly Luv. Nicknamed the “Lion Girl” in her native Kurdistan, Luv is known for her outspoken politics, fierce dance moves, daring fashion sense, and love of animals —especially her jungle cat co-star in the music video for her incendiary independence anthem, “Risk It All.” Released in March, the song turned Luv into a voice for Kurdish freedom; by June, it had been viewed by millions and Luv was performing at Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday celebration. Years of […]

If The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is to be judged on the world premieres it attracts, this edition of the festival was far from vintage. Artistic Director Cameron Bailey signaled a change in policy this year when he declared that no film playing at Telluride would be allowed to debut in Canada until after the all-important first weekend. He even broke with tradition by declaring the exact status of films playing at TIFF, and, since the program is announced before Telluride reveals its line-up, anyone that cared would know many of the films that would be playing at Telluride […]

Amidst the overwhelming landscape of the Toronto International Film Festival, the Wavelengths program provides a more tightly focused forum for experimental and avant-garde cinema. Until 2012, Wavelengths was primarily a sidebar of sorts for experimental short film programs. Eventually, it absorbed the former Visions program, and, now in its 14th iteration, Wavelengths presents short film programs alongside (or at least in relative conjunction with) domestic and international titles which challenge audiences in unique ways. I had read about Wavelengths for years and knew of its reputation as one of the primary places to see new experimental work. As a first […]

Michael Moore loves TIFF and this week he paid the festival back with a series of events and screenings, including the 25th anniversary presentation of Roger & Me and a keynote speech at the Doc Conference. The love affair began in 1989 when Roger & Me — about first-time filmmaker Moore chasing Ford Motors CEO Roger Smith to talk about layoffs that devastated his hometown of Flint, Michigan — captured the audience award and launched the film. Thom Powers, TIFF’s international documentary programmer, described the movie at the Monday night screening (to showcase the new digital restoration) as a “linchpin film […]

With the recent Berberian Sound Studio and now The Editor, we’re in a bit of a giallo revival. Or, more accurately, the gory, gloriously art decorated Italian horror thrillers of the 1970s have inspired a new generation to pay homage in the form of their own meta-commentaries. Interestingly, Peter Strickland’s Berberian Sound Studio and this year’s Toronto-premiering The Editor both feature post-production crew as their protagonists. In Berberian Sound Studio, it was a foley artist; in The Editor, Matthew Kennedy and Adam Brooks’ horror comedy, our hero is a once-vaunted picture editor who, following an accident, now must wield his […]

Actor Paul Bettany makes his directorial debut with Shelter, a drama about homeless junkies on the streets of New York starring his wife, Jennifer Connelly, and Anthony Mackie. Although Bettany references below Jerry Schatzberg’s classic Panic in Needle Park, he also emphasizes that his film moves far from those gritty New York streets of yore, finding an unexpectedly beautiful visual style to capture the life of a new generation of Gotham addicts. Shelter screens at the Toronto International Film Festival on Friday, September 12. Below, I talk with Bettany about cinematic inspirations, city moments and directing his wife. Filmmaker: There’s […]

This week Denzel Washington and director Antoine Fuqua unveiled their new thriller The Equalizer at TIFF, but over the weekend they spoke at a 90-minute Mavericks conversation. About 500 fans packed the elegant Isabel Bader Theatre a few miles north of the TIFF Bell Lightbox on Saturday afternoon to hear Washington, who dominated the casual chat. Several times, Washington implored the many actors in the audience to perform on stage, not film. “Acting is acting,” he declared. “I don’t know what film acting is. The truth is the truth.” His first love is theater; film was an accident in his life. “I wasn’t planning […]

Edward Zwick is at TIFF to premiere his chess drama Pawn Sacrifice, but over the weekend he spoke to young filmmakers from around the world at Films of City Frames. The Saturday morning event unveiled short films produced by New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, London’s National Film and Television School, Rome’s Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, Paris’ Groupe Esra and the Hong Kong Academy of the Performing Arts. The films featured the new line of sunglasses of sponsor Giorgio Armani, who presented the event with Rai Cinema and Luxottica in association […]

Gabe Polsky’s first documentary Red Army briskly reconstructs the story of the fiercely dominant Soviet hockey team of the late ’70s and ’80s. Out of the team, five players coalesced as an unbeatable combination, and their interviews form the backbone of Polsky’s story, fleshed out with a smart selection of archival footage from both sides of the Cold War. Teasing out hockey’s role as a not-so-subtle worldwide representation of the USSR’s success and masculine pride (per a song sung in archival footage by a boy’s choir, “cowards don’t play hockey”), Red Army is also propelled by the light director-subject sparring […]