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TIFF Day 1
TIFF Day 2
TIFF Day 3
TIFF Day 4
September is once more synonymous with four words: Toronto International Film Festival. Fellow Spree staffer Christopher Schobert and I will again travel north to see what could be the top candidates for Oscar gold come next winter. Of course, they could also be films that won't hit theater screens for two to three years, depending on distribution deals. It’s another jam-packed schedule of sixteen films in less than four days. Daunting for sure, but a challenge we accept with excitement.
Sadly, the most coveted title of the festival for us, Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, makes its US premiere the day after we return home. But that disappointment won’t damper a roster of legends, up-and-comers and stalwart artists, foreign and domestic. If you can tell people you saw the newest work from maestro Jean-Luc Godard in the same thirty-hour period as watching Oscar-nominated actor/retired (or is he?) rapper Joaquin Phoenix alongside onscreen defecation, you know the trip was worth it—right?
We may not have a chance to experience a film in the newly constructed Bell Lightbox, opening September 12th and TIFF’s home for the foreseeable future, but we’ll visit some other gorgeous Toronto cinemas. Old favorites, like the Ryerson and the Elgin (along with its upstairs neighbor, the Winter Garden Theatre), sit beside venues such as the Dundas AMC and the Cineplex Odeon Varsity Cinema, a structure seen from the QEW on every trip in. With so many films in such little time between those four, the subway may get some use as a ferry to and fro—a welcome break to hydrate and ready ourselves for the next long Toronto walk (or run, if need be).
There may only be two galas on our docket—Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s It’s Kind of a Funny Story Saturday evening and Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours Sunday —and we may have been shut out of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s first feature without long-time writer Guillermo Arriaga, Biutiful, but with a few debuts and rumored appearances from the likes of Andrew Lau, Danny Boyle, Emilio Estevez, Guy Moshe, John Curran, Mark Romanek, Mike Mills, Tony Goldwyn, Clive Owen, Edward Norton, James Franco, Martin Sheen, Milla Jovovich, and Robert De Niro, we'll still be exposed to plenty of glitz and glamor.
(Schedule subject to change)
Thursday:
Jean-Luc Godard’s Film Socialisme [Film Socialism]
Andrew Lau’s Jingwu Fengyun — Chen Zhen [Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen]
Friday:
Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go
Tony Goldwyn’s Conviction
Emilio Estevez’s The Way
Casey Affleck’s I’m Still Here
Saturday:
David Schwimmer’s Trust
John Curran’s Stone
Peter Mullan’s Neds
Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s It’s Kind of a Funny Story
Guy Moshe’s Bunraku
Sunday:
Louis Bélanger’s Route 132
Robert Redford’s The Conspirator
Mike Mills’s Beginners
Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours
Tran Anh Hung’s Noruwei No Mori [Norwegian Wood]
Reader Comments:
As I'm sure is clear, our list is a damn ambitious one, and led to us making some very tough calls—"Norwegian Wood" over "Hereafter," for example—but it's rock solid. I'm especially excited about "127 Hours," which early buzz has pegged as a certain awards contender, and "Never Let Me Go," which has some critics throwing out the "K" word—Kubrickian.
Hope you'll join us here and on Facebook as the week progresses. Should be a blast.