Just the facts ma'am. 26th annual Toronto International Film Festival errata:
326 FILMS (328 in 2000)
175 FEATURES MAKING THEIR WORLD (69), INTERNATIONAL (17), OR NORTH AMERICAN (89) PREMIERE (178 in 2000)
70% PERCENTAGE OF FEATURE FILMS THAT ARE WORLD, INTERNATIONAL, OR NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERES
143 NUMBER OF FEATURE FILMS SCREENED IN A LANGUAGE OTHER THAN ENGLISH
58% PERCENTAGE OF FEATURE FILMS SCREENED IN A LANGUAGE OTHER THAN ENGLISH
2549 TOTAL SUBMISSIONS. (INTERNATIONAL: 2020; CANADIAN: 529) (TOTAL SUBMISSIONS IN 2000: 2299)
54 COUNTRIES (56 in 2000)
249 FEATURES (253 in 2000)
77 SHORTS (76 in 2000)
27 CANADIAN FEATURES including co-productions (25 in 2000)
27 CANADIAN SHORTS (40 in 2000)
14 CANADIAN FEATURES MAKING THEIR WORLD PREMIERE (15 in 2000)
65 FIRST FEATURES (64 in 2000)
20 SCREENS USED (19 in 2000)
14 PROGRAMMES (15 in 2000)
27,091 MINUTES OF FILM (26,706 in 2000)
345' LONGEST FILM
1' SHORTEST FILM
To that list you may add the pre-emptive statistic: 1 Excited Online Movie Critic.
There's something in every program this year that gives me a charge. I hope I get a chance to catch Two Lane Blacktop on the big screen, if not Richard Linklater's "Dialogues" presentation (wherein a famous fan of a film engages the audience in a pre- and post-mortem) of it. (Linklater is here with his companion pieces Waking Life and Tape.) Ditto Bergman's Wild Strawberries and Fred Schepisi, the soft-spoken man behind such underrated gems as Iceman and Six Degrees of Separation.
Ray Lawrence, Australia's answer to Terence Malick, closes the Festival with his second feature (and his first since 1985's strange, haunting Bliss), Lantana. Barbara Hershey and Geoffrey Rush give touted performances as the grieving parents of a murdered girl, and Anthony LaPaglia plays the detective who should leave well enough alone. The final night's gala used to be lighter fare until Onegin broke tradition a couple of Festivals ago; Lantana sounds even more draining, but I'm there.
Neither Serendipity nor Enigma, both starring a Kate from England (Beckinsale and Winslet, respectively), have me holding my breath, although a free screening of Michael Apted's Enigma may prove too tempting, what with Winslet in classic garb and all. (The film is about code-crackers in WWII, and was produced by the I-couldn't-make-this-up team of Mick Jagger and Lorne Michaels!) Other fall Hollywood releases playing at Toronto: Antoine "Bait" Fuqua's Training Day, starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke; and From Hell, The Hughes' Brothers take on Alan Moore's take on the Jack the Ripper myth, with Johnny Depp as an Ichabod Crane-esque detective.
My #1, absolute must-see Fest entry is Cannes winner David Lynch's Mullholland Drive, part of the 15-director Masters series. (#2, you ask? Jean-Pierre Jeunet's cult-hyped Le Fableux Destin de Amélie Poulin (Amélie).) Mr. Lynch's last film, The Straight Story, was the true American beauty of 1999, and should he put in a personal appearance, I can't conceive of a celebrity encounter that would bring me greater pleasure. (When I missed the Blue Velvet revival at the 25th T.I.F.F., I unleashed a fury not seen since the likes of Amy Irving.) Spielberg-hater Godard will have his Eloge de L'amour shown, Hou Hsaio-hsien's latest, Millennium Mambo, is set to screen, and in past articles I mentioned some of the other invited Masters (Claire Denis, Ken Loach); Lynch is in good company.
I hope I've whet your appetite for what dreams may come--I know I'm salivating, and I haven't even taken a close look at the Midnight Madness line-up. (You can't beat the media synopsis for its selection The American Astronaut: "...what would happen if Luis Buñuel adapted an MGM musical into a spaghetti western and shot it on a Buck Rogers set.") But it's gonna take me a week just to plug the pertinent info into my Palm Pilot, and the clock hands seem to be turning faster. Maybe they're excited, too. -Bill Chambers
P.S.: I'd be remiss if I didn't pass on the following news item, which I feel is of special interest to day-passers and rush Fest-goers:
"This year, the Festival launches The Festival Daily, a daily newspaper about the 26th Toronto International Film Festival. The paper is written for the public, as well as members of the press and industry everyday of the Festival starting on Friday, September 7, free of charge. The Festival Daily is four pages of insightful coverage of the films and filmmakers. Ten thousand copies will be available in theatres, hotels, and restaurants throughout the Festival Village, located around the Bay and Bloor area."
