For a film zealot such as myself, the period leading up to the Toronto International Film Festival (T.I.F.F.) is a lot like finding out what you're getting for Christmas. The actual unwrapping may disappoint, and you might find there was some assembly still required, but the anticipation is enough to fuel fantasies.
Over the past couple of weeks, the "Perspective Canada" programme's line-up has been announced, along with the opening gala (the drama Last Wedding, from Bruce Sweeney of Dirty fame) and a few stray entries (the world premiere of Novocaine, in which Steve Martin plays a patsy dentist; Mike Figgis' experimental Hotel; and John Dahl's oft-delayed Joy Ride, whose T.I.F.F. induction would seem to say that it's not just another teen slasher pic). Some promising titles here, so let's begin.
This year, Perspective Canada hosts 18 feature films (10 of which--heads up aspiring filmmakers--are directorial debuts) and 27 shorts. The inaugural selection is André Turpin's Un Crabe Dans La Tête, about an insecure man's misadventures during a longer-than-scheduled stopover in Montreal.
Carl Bressai's Lola, co-starring Colm Feore, is yet another stolen identity fable as Lola assumes the life of her doppelganger. Sturla Gunnarson will come to the T.I.F.F. with the comedy Rare Birds, about a scheming restaurateur; William Hurt and Molly Parker head the noteworthy cast. Peter Lynch, he of the infamous Project Grizzly, is bringing Cyberman, about a U of T professor who becomes metaphysically linked to the Internet. Prolific auteurs Lynne Stopkewich and Anne Wheeler preem Lilith on Top and Suddenly Naked, respectively. The former promises an inside view of Sarah McLachlan's all-female music tour, Lilith Fair.
According to press notes, four Perspective Canada films "center around themes of revelation." They are: Anais Granofsky's On Their Knees, Catherine Martin's Mariages, David Weaver's Century Hotel, and Rick Caine's The Frank Truth, which documents the misfits responsible for Canada's controversial "FRANK Magazine". Meanwhile, humour is the focus of Helen Lee's The Art of Woo and Sean Garrity's Inertia.
Asghar Massombagi's Khaled was inspired by the true story of an inner city boy who concealed the death of his mother. In both Laurie Maria Baranay's Walk Backwards and La Femme Quit Boit from Bernard Émond, women try to put the past to bed, while William Phillips' Treed Murray has a high/low concept premise: an ad exec scales a tree to escape "disenfranchised youth" and remains stuck there, psychologically tortured from below by his young assailants.
Political issues are tackled in Denis Chouinard's L'Ange de Gourdon, about a family of Algerian immigrants, and Paul Cowan's Westray, a portrait of the aftermath of a coal mining disaster that claimed 26 Nova Scotian men in 1992.
Shorts (directors listed in parentheses)
- Romain et Juliette (Frédéric Lapierre)
- Lollipops (Graham Tallman)
- A Fresh Start (Jason Buxton)
- Sight Under Construction (John Kneller)
- 1:1 (Richard Reeves)
- Silent Song (Elida Schogt)
- Film (Dzama) (deco dawson)
- Lip Service-A Mystery- (Ann-Marie Fleming)
- I Shout Love (Sarah Polley--yes, that Sarah Polley)
- Charlie Noir (Keith Davidson)
- Jean La Liberté (Philippe Falardeau)
- Remembrance (Stephanie Morgenstern)
- Instant Soup (Bridget Hill)
- Topic of Cancer (Ramiro Puerta)
- Self: (Portrait/Fulfillment) A Film by The Blob Thing (Brian Stockton as The Blob Thing)
- In Memoriam (Aubrey Nealon)
- The Green (Paul Carriere)
- Soowitch (Jean-François Rivard)
- Scènes d'Enfants (Scenes from Childhood) (Lara Fitzgerald)
- Three Sisters on Moon Lake (Julie Kwan)
- Inséparables (Normand Bergeron)
- After (Byron Lamarque)
- The Judgement --based on a Franz Kafka story (Serge Marcotte)
- Âme Noire (Martine Chartrand)
- Touch (Jeremy Podeswa)
- Un Abre Avec Un Chapeau (Pascal Sanchez)
