CATCHING UP WITH THIS YEAR'S FESTIVAL TITLES:
TIFF 2002 brings Washington to Toronto
It's high time I checked in with some of the titles recently slated for this year's Toronto International Film Festival. 26 days and counting!
PROGRAM: GALAS
Antwone Fisher (dir. Denzel Washington) - Denzel Washington makes his directorial debut with this true story of a temperamental sailor (Derek Luke as Antwone Fisher) whose navy-assigned psychiatrist (Washington) charts him a course to redemption. Fisher himself penned the screenplay, said to reveal so much writing talent that Hollywood has courted him for other projects.
PROGRAM: PERSPECTIVE CANADA
Bollywood/Hollywood (dir. Deepa Mehta) - To me, Deepa Mehta will always be the woman who announced someone else's name when I was up for a certain filmmaking award, but she is an accomplished hyphenate with the distinction of having now had two pictures selected to kick off the "Perspective Canada" program. (Before Bollywood/Hollywood, Fire, in 1996.) In Bollywood/Hollywood, a westernized Indian living in Toronto as a dot-com millionaire tires of hearing his mother's threats of arranged marriage and pays a woman of the same race to act like his fiancée while he attends to the life he's built outside tradition and family; falling in love with her puts a crimp in his charade. In case you saw that coming, know that that's the point: Bollywood/Hollywood steeps itself in a hoary plot on purpose to draw parallels between popular Bollywood and Hollywood styles. That marvel of lips and hips Jessica Paré appears as the white romantic interest.
PROGRAM: SPECIAL PRESENTATION
Between Strangers (dir. Edoardo Ponti) - This international production about a Toronto neighbourhood has one of the most eclectic casts of any Festival entry. Sophia Loren plays a frustrated artist married to Pete Postlethwaite's John; Deborah Kara Unger seeks retribution on her mother's killer--her father (Malcolm McDowell); and Mira Sorvino portrays a photographer living in the shadow of her famous dad (Klaus Maria Brandauer). This is Ponti's feature debut and it will be interesting to see if he can handle an ensemble of such esteem.
Dirty Deeds (dir. David Caesar) - Yet another organized crime picture out of the UK, Dirty Deeds spins a chapter of the Vietnam War that brought American soldiers to Australia into a tale of the Chicago mob wanting to be cut in on the dealings of a small-time Sydney hoodlum (Bryan Brown). Toni Collette co-stars.
Divine Intervention (Yadon ilaheyya) (dir. Elia Suleiman) - A Palestinian man and woman are kept apart by a political divide in this timely love story, which has earned positive notices overseas.
Spirited Away (dir. Hayao Miyazaki) - The coming of Hayao Miyazaki, take two. After the domestic failure of Princess Mononoke, Miramax tries again with Spirited Away, an animated adventure in which a Dorothy Gale figure falls under the control of a wicked witch and, upon escaping her clutches, attempts to rescue her parents from a similar fate. The film will be dubbed when it hits U.S. theatres on September 20, but the Festival screening may or may not have subtitles.
8 Femmes (dir. François Ozon) - Ozon does Gosford Park in this old-fashioned Technicolor murder mystery set in 1950s France. After Gaby's (Catherine Deneuve) husband is murdered, she gathers seven close female friends--all suspects--at her estate to join in a parlour game of guessing the killer's identity.
PROGRAM: PLANET AFRICA
A String of Pearls, a documentary--the third in a trilogy--that co-director Camille Billop devotes to the impoverished men in her life, opens the "Planet Africa" series. (Note: Mariette Monpierre's short film Rendez-Vous precedes it at all screenings.) In addition to the shorts Black Attack, George and the Bicycle Pump, I Have a Dream, Mud Madness, Naked Walk, Now Jimmy!, and Ubuntu's Wounds, the following round out the program's ultra-promising line-up:
Les Chemins de l'oued (dir. Gaël Morel) - An Algerian drama dealing with guilt and identity in the aftermath of a teenage boy's hit-and-run with a police car.
G (dir. Christopher Scott Cherot) - This one's from the USA. Described as "a tragic love story," G takes place in New York's Hamptons, where a reporter discovers that the hip-hop producer he's been interviewing once dated his cousin, and tampers with Cupid's formula to get them back together.
Khorma (dir. Jilani Saadi) - A redhead in Tunisia finds himself the replacement for his village's "official announcer of births, deaths, and marriages."
Our Father (dir. Mahamat-Saleh Haroun) - The mysterious disappearance of a man leads his two sons to investigate, but their mother has other plans for them.
Promised Land (dir. Jason Xenopoulos) - Returning from London to South Africa, George becomes the target of hostile white supremacists. (Trust me, the full synopsis sounds less like a "Seinfeld" plotline.)
Royal Bonbon (dir. Charles Najman) - Pretend King "Chacha" uncovers imaginary plans to overthrow his imaginary throne.
Shottas (dir. Cess Silvera) - "Shotta" means "teenage gangster" in Jamaica; first-timer Silvera presents two Shottas in over their heads with Miami drug-dealers. Wyclef Jean scored the soundtrack.
Waiting for Happiness (dir. Abderrahmane Sissako) - 17-year-old Abdallah relocates to a coastal town unable to speak its dialect. Unaware of the rest of the world's goings-on, he adapts to the ways of his adopted homeland as its silent citizen.
Last but not least, among the 31 documentaries catalogued under "Real to Reel," I can't wait to see Trudie Styler and John-Paul Davidson's The Sweatbox, given that "sweatbox" is subject Sting's synonym for The Walt Disney Company. It's the kind of sticky anti-corporate flick that promises to be difficult to distribute when it leaves the festival circuit.-Bill Chambers
The Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 5-September, 14, 2000. Visit the Festival's Official Website or call the BELL INFOLINE at (416) 968-FILM for more information. Box office located on level one of the Toronto Eaton Centre at Dundas.
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