As these films are being shown to audiences for the first time…the director /cinematographer/actors are usually in the audience beside the other viewers…(ie US!) and they are listening to the reactions of the crowd. After the movie is done…they all go up on stage and answer audience questions.. and give further info on the film’s life. It’s all very exhilarating..
I’ve swiped the movie reviews (below) that are on-line as they do a much better job than I could!! I find value in each of these films…and in this bunch...there's only one I would not recommend.
Enjoy, ~Leslie
MY TIFF Film review: 2008
We saw 6 films in total…shopped, people watched, walked and ate!!
#1 film seen: The Paranoids
Los Paranoicos
Gabriel Medina
Country: Argentina Year: 2008 Language: Spanish Runtime: 105 minutes Format: Colour/35mm
Production Company: Aeroplano S.A./Mondo Cine Producer: Sebastian Aloi Screenplay: Gabriel Medina Production Designer: Sebastian Roses Cinematographer: Lucio Bonelli Editor: Nicolas Goldbart Sound: Fernando Soldevila Music: Guillermo Guareschi Principal Cast: Daniel Hendler, Jazmín Stuart, Walter Jakob, Martín Feldman, Miguel Dedovich
TIFF Tags: Spain/Spanish Language Comedy Romance Mental Health
The Paranoids, Gabriel Medina's first feature film, follows the hilarious antics of weirdo Luciano Gauna, wittily played by Daniel Hendler. An aspiring screenwriter from Buenos Aires, he lives in fear of success, STDs and – especially – his doorman. We meet Luciano during one of his typically awkward days: he has a narcoleptic attack on the job (he's a children's entertainer, to boot), obsessively calls an HIV helpline after a random sexual encounter and accidentally sends his best friend to the hospital after slamming a door in his face.
Things become even more uncomfortable when Luciano's childhood friend Manuel returns to Buenos Aires from Madrid, where he is the producer of a successful television show called The Paranoids. Manuel is in town to make an Argentine version of the hit, and Luciano becomes especially perturbed when he discovers that he provided the inspiration for the show's main character, who even shares his name.
When Manuel leaves on a business trip to Chile, his beautiful new girlfriend Sofiá (Jazmín Stuart) decides to stay with Luciano, a turn of events that amounts to a nightmare for her fearful host. At first, Sofiá sees Luciano superficially; to her, he is just the paranoid freak her boyfriend has described. After spending time with him, however, she begins to see Luciano for what he is – a misunderstood, honest and genuine person. In sum, he is the complete opposite of Manuel.
Medina's debut is an offbeat comedy that demonstrates a fresh, new facet of the cinema emerging from Argentina. The humour is due in large part to the film's visually innovative approach and its choreographic stylization of daily life, which includes a hilarious, rather passionate scene of dance-floor coitus. Finding its laughs not in clichés but in these wonderfully human characters, The Paranoids offers valuable advice about the muddy moral boundaries artists face when putting the people they know into their work.
Diana Sanchez
Gabriel Medina was born in Buenos Aires and studied film at the Universidad del Cine. He has directed several short films and the television documentary series Urban Mysteries. The Paranoids (08), for which he also wrote the screenplay, is his feature-directing debut.
· # 2 Film seen: My Mother, My Bride and I
Die Zweite Frau
· Hans Steinbichler
Country: Germany Year: 2008 Language: German Runtime: 95 minutes Format: Colour/35mm Rating: PG
Production Company: sperl+schott film gmbh/EOS Entertainment Producer: Gabriela Sperl Screenplay: Robert Seethaler Production Designer: Andrea Douglas Cinematographer: Christian Rein Editor: Christian Lonk Sound: Marc Parisotto Music: Antek Lazarkiewicz Principal Cast: Monica Bleibtreu, Matthias Brandt, Maria Popistasu
International Sales Agent: Beta Cinema
If you crave a good love story, get thee to Bavaria. In My Mother, My Bride and I, director Hans Steinbichler spins a tale so simple and so rooted in Bavarian culture that it seems to have sprung straight from that region's soil. And yet its recipe of desire, conflict and sweet surprise is entirely universal.
The story begins with the plain fact that forty-one-year-old Erwin (Matthias Brandt) still lives with his mother (Monica Bleibtreu). Well into his adulthood, he and Mama have fallen into classic co-dependence. She feeds him and tolerates his quirks, while he gives her a reason to live; together they run a small gas station in the middle of nowhere. Erwin has his mother and his passion for fish, but clearly there is something missing.
And so off to Romania he goes. As for much of Western Europe, Bucharest can offer what Bavaria needs – in Erwin's case, a wife. The sequence in which he interviews prospects in a sterile hotel restaurant is both heartbreaking and hilarious. It is a godsend when he finds Irina. Played by Maria Popistasu, she can be forthright, sexy and mischievous; in a word, irresistible. Erwin suggests a trial engagement, and brings Irina back home to Mother. Mother is not impressed.
This set-up is the stuff of both grand tragedy and low sitcom, but Steinbichler knows how to strike new notes with familiar material. The two women begin, as expected, in opposite corners, but the story throws surprising curves, always with a wry sense of humour and a sharp understanding of human nature.
Although it springs from deepest Bavaria, My Mother, My Bride and I carries the hallmarks of the best American independent films: engaging storytelling that features unusual characters sketched in vibrant detail. When this tale takes one or two surprising turns on the way to its conclusion, they are all the more satisfying thanks to the care it has taken to craft such rich, lovely characters.
Cameron Bailey
Hans Steinbichler learned photography from his father before pursuing a law degree and subsequently studying at the University of Television and Film Munich (HFF). He has directed several short films and his features include Hierankl (03), Winter Journey (06) and My Mother, My Bride and I (08).
· #3 Film Seen: Firaaq
· Nandita Das
Country: India Year: 2008 Language: Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati, English Runtime: 101 minutes Format: Colour/35mm Rating: 14A
Production Company: Percept Picture Company Producer: Harindra M. Singh, Shailendra M. Singh Screenplay: Shuchi Kothari, Nandita Das Production Designer: Gautam Sen Cinematographer: Ravi K. Chandran Editor: Sreekar Prasad Sound: Manas Choudhury Music: Rajat Dholakia, Piyush Kanojia Principal Cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Paresh Rawal, Deepti Naval, Sanjay Suri, Nowaz
Onscreen, Nandita Das has proven herself the most soulful of actors, capable of combining emotional expressiveness with unshakable integrity. Off screen, she has maintained an ongoing commitment to social justice in India. Das brings these two worlds together in her feature debut, telling the story of one of India's great wounds with both sincerity and passion.
Conflict between Hindus and Muslims continues to flare into violence in India, and is often stoked by political interests. Firaaq begins in 2002 in the state of Gujarat, where three thousand Muslims died in communal riots. In an early scene of almost Shakespearean gravity, two Muslim men dig a mass grave for the victims. From there, the story jumps forward one month, away from the direct physical effects of the conflict to the more amorphous – but increasingly persistent – inner discord.
When Hanif and Muneera return to the modest home they had fled during the violence, they find it ransacked. With their lives shattered not simply by vandalism but by betrayal from their neighbours, Hanif seeks revenge. Elsewhere, middle-class Hindus Sanjay and Arati were untouched by the hostilities, but are met with new moral challenges. Serene older musician Khan Saheb (Naseeruddin Shah) has tried to transcend religious differences, but as a Muslim living in a Hindu neighbourhood, he now finds this stance more complicated. At the same time, Anu and Sameer, an intermarried Hindu-Muslim couple, finally face the tensions they have long suppressed.
Das interweaves these stories over one twenty-four-hour period, as characters of both faiths and from many levels of society grapple with the new, post-violence reality. Through it all, a young boy named Mohsin embarks on an urban odyssey from his refugee camp towards a better future, wherever he might find it.
Firaaq is an Urdu word that means both separation and quest. Like this courageous and essential debut film, the word acknowledges divisions while pointing a way forward to hope.
Cameron Bailey
Nandita Das was born Mumbai, India, and holds a B.A. in geography from the University of Delhi's Miranda House and an M.A. in social work from the University of Delhi's School of Social Work. She is a prominent actor who has appeared in such films as Deepa Mehta's Fire (96) and Earth (98). Firaaq (08) is her feature writing and directing debut.
#4 Movie Seen: Cooper's Camera (and wished I hadn’t!!)
Warren P. Sonoda
Country: Canada Year: 2008 Language: English Runtime: 93 minutes Format: Colour/HDCAM Rating: PG
Production Company: Buck Productions/Darius Films Inc. Executive Producer: John Kozman Producer: Sean Buckley, Nicholas Tabarrok Screenplay: Jason Jones, Mike Beaver Production Designer: Diana Abbatangelo Cinematographer: Samy Inayeh Editor: Warren P. Sonoda, Aden Bahadori Sound: Rob DeBoer, Tony Grace Music: Rob DeBoer, Tony Grace Principal Cast: Jason Jones, Samantha Bee, Dylan Everett, Nick McKinlay, Mike Beaver, Peter Keleghan, Jayne Eastwood, Dave Foley
Canadian Distributor: Boutique Films
Preceded by: funny little flick….. this was worth seeing… L
The Catsitter
Tim Hamilton Canada, 2008/English 10 minutes/Colour/HDCAM
TIFF Tags: Canada Short Film Comedy
BAD FILM>>>>> L
This has got to be one of the most caustic comedies ever made. It's Christmas Day, 1985. Gord Cooper (Jason Jones) is thrilled with the brand-new video camera he gave his wife and elated at the thought of recording every little detail of the holiday fun. His wife, Nancy (Samantha Bee), is more excited – suspiciously excited – at the thought of the pending visit by her husband's brother Tim (Peter Keleghan). She is also several months pregnant with the couple's third child, a fact Coopers' Camera plays for all its unseemly glory.
Director Warren P. Sonoda has crafted a film as hilarious as it is excruciating. Jones and Bee – a real-life married couple who regularly mine the comedy of discomfort on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show – are at the top of their form, leading an unbeatable ensemble cast. Each actor contributes to the film's scathing, cringe-laden charm: Keleghan exudes a perfect small-time sleaze, while Mike Beaver, as Uncle Nick, plays the Christmas dinner guest from hell. Then there's Jayne Eastwood as the anti-social live-in grandmother, who insists on retiring to bed early, requesting that they simply slip the turkey under her door. And in what is undoubtedly one of the strangest recurring cameo appearances of the year, Dave Foley helps the film feel like a who's who of Canadian comedy.
Shot in the style of an old VHS home movie and blessed with a brilliant cast, Coopers' Camera taps into proud, zany Canadian comic traditions, recalling such favourites as SCTV and Kids in the Hall. It's one of those rare comedies that keeps getting better as its characters dig themselves into deeper and deeper holes, yet it also achieves an almost surreal poignancy in its penultimate scene. Films that capture the holiday season accurately are rare; Coopers' Camera is one of them – a feature that perfectly depicts the agonizing torment of yuletide festivities.
Matthew Hays
Warren P. Sonoda was born in Hamilton. He studied filmmaking at Ryerson University before moving on to direct more than one hundred music videos. He has written several screenplays and edited a number of features, including Phil the Alien (04). His feature films as director are Ham and Cheese(04), 5ive Girls (06) and Coopers' Camera (08).
I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS BATHROOM HUMOUR FILM>>> LESLIE
· Deepa Mehta
Country: Canada Year: 2008 Language: Punjabi, English Runtime: 106 minutes Format: Colour/Black and White / 35mm Rating: PG
Production Company: Hamilton-Mehta Productions Inc./National Film Board of Canada Executive Producer: Ravi Chopra, David Hamilton, Silva Basmajian, Deepa Mehta, Sanjay Bhuttiani Producer: David Hamilton Screenplay: Deepa Mehta Production Designer: Dilip Mehta Cinematographer: Giles Nuttgens Editor: Colin Monie Sound: Sylvain Arseneault Music: Mychael Danna Principal Cast: Preity Zinta, Vansh Bhardwaj, Gick Grewal, Geetika Sharma, Yanna McIntosh
Canadian Distributor: Mongrel Media
Opening with an ecstatic, vibrantly coloured celebration marking the impending nuptials of Chand (Bollywood star Preity Zinta, who delivers one of the year's finest and most courageous performances), Deepa Mehta's powerful and visceral Heaven on Earth quickly shifts gears. The minute its heroine gets off a plane in Toronto to meet her new husband, Rocky (Vansh Bhardwaj, who's impossibly good in his first film role), the colour scheme greys, and virtually all scenes (even outdoor ones) appear to be lit by fluorescent lights. This twilight world is fitting, because there's something off-putting about Rocky's family.
Deepa Mehta has always had a particular gift for portraying unique families and their subtle power dynamics. Still, Heaven on Earth may be her strongest work to date because of her insistence on the collective liability for the acts of a lone individual. Rocky's coldness and horrific temper may be the primary causes of Chand's unhappiness, but he has numerous – albeit often passive – accomplices, most importantly his domineering mother.
Desperate and unable to contact her family, Chand turns to a fellow factory worker, Rosa, who gives her a magical potion that will make whomever drinks it fall in love with Chand immediately. With this elixir, Mehta injects an element of magic realism, and the film morphs into a portrait of Chand's deeply divided mental state. It is an inspired and audacious strategy. Mehta and her collaborators further exacerbate the sense of unease by invoking the elements of domestic comedy: the precocious kids, the ineffectual, aging patron, and the nosy, pushy mother. But while the recipe for conventional, chaotic marital happiness is present, everything is off-kilter. Pranks aren't funny, they're malicious, and ineffectiveness turns into tacit approval.
Simply put, this is a brilliant work by one of our most daring filmmakers, humanist and empathetic even toward its villains, yet at the same time a universal indictment, refusing to let any of us off the hook.
Deepa Mehta presents her 1991 film Sam and Me in the Festival's Dialogues: Talking with Pictures series this year.
Cameron Bailey
Deepa Mehta was born in Amritsar, India, and studied philosophy at the University of New Delhi before immigrating to Canada. Her feature debut, Sam and Me (91), received a special mention in the Caméra d'Or competition at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival. After directing Camilla (94), she started on her elemental trilogy about India. She completed Fire (96) and Earth (98) before returning to Canada to make Bollywood/Hollywood (02) and The Republic of Love (03) while production on Water (05) was suspended due to protests. Heaven on Earth (08) is her most recent film.
~Yes , this is about abuse in the family and all the trappings.. not a story in isolation as it could happen to each of us…. Or to someone we know… we are responsible to do something.
· 6th and Final screening: Easy Virtue
· This was our GLAM film…
· Stephan Elliott
Country: UK Year: 2008 Language: English Runtime: 93 minutes Format: Colour/35mm Rating: PG
Production Company: Ealing Studios/ Joe Abrams Productions/ Odyssey Entertainment/ Endgame Entertainment/BBC Films/Prescience/Fragile Films Executive Producer: James Spring, Douglas E. Hanson, Cindy W. Kirven, George McGhee, Ralph Kamp, Louise Goodsill, Paul Brett, Peter Nichols, Tim Smith Producer: Barnaby Thompson, Joe Abrams, James D. Stern Screenplay: Stephan Elliott, Sheridan Jobbins, based on the play by Noel Coward Production Designer: John Beard Cinematographer: Martin Kenzie Editor: Sue Blainey Sound: Simon Gershon, Matt Skelding Music: Marius De Vries
Principal Cast: Jessica Biel, Colin Firth, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ben Barnes, Kimberly Nixon, Katherine Parkinson
International Sales Agent: Odyssey Entertainment
The pedigree is to be envied: based on the play by Noel Coward, which was first adapted by Alfred Hitchcock during the silent era, Easy Virtue is the epitome of British wit. Combine those names with a cast led by Colin Firth, Kristin Scott Thomas and – as the American interloper – Jessica Biel, and the result offers all the delights of wicked, high-toned comedy. Bringing it all together is Stephan Elliott, a director with a sure hand for such giddy, savage fare, best known for The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
Larita (Biel), the American, is a Jazz Age race-car driver. After impulsively tying the knot in Monte Carlo with young Englishman John Whittaker (Ben Barnes), she travels to England to meet her groom's privileged and batty family. Naturally, they hate her. John's mother, Mrs. Whittaker (Scott Thomas), and his sisters Hilda and Marion (Kimberly Nixon and Katherine Parkinson) do their best to sabotage the newlyweds and banish their brother's shocking new wife. Only in the family's patriarch, Mr. Whittaker (Firth), does the young bride find acceptance, and the two develop a bond founded on their mutual appreciation for motorbikes and flouting social etiquette.
Elliott directs the ensemble cast with verve bordering on glee, bringing his own wit and style to this sparkling Noel Coward confection. Scott Thomas delivers her barbed dialogue with delicious timing, while Firth counters her pinched sophistication with droll one-liners. Biel, who shows a new talent for this material, more than keeps pace, supplying some of the film's most entertaining zingers and sight gags. The look of the Whittaker estate is gorgeous, the visual style quotes and plays with the conventions of the era, and the music is positively radical. Period pop mingles with flapper reworkings of more recent tunes, including infectious versions of Carwash and When the Going Gets Tough.
Crafty direction, snappy dialogue and a delightful cast take this comedy of manners far beyond the confines of the typical romantic comedy. What results is a film that is as clever and hilarious as it is artfully crafted.
Cameron Bailey
Stephan Elliott was born in Sydney, Australia. He began his career as an assistant director before turning to screenwriting and directing. His filmography includes Frauds (93), The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (94), Welcome to Woop Woop (97), Eye of the Beholder (99) and Easy Virtue (08).
Note: This was an easy to watch movie…. Star watch: We got to be beside Colin Firth as we entered the Wintergarden Theatre…..on Yonge… he’s very nice looking…in person…and a wee bit shy. I tried to snap a phone shot…no luck…
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The TIFF had a new feature this year at The Square on Yonge…as there are no freebies anymore like there were available in other years…(like a free TIFF bag or poster or pin etc…boo) They provided a photo booth for folks to get a quick photo memory done and it was $2 for a strip of photo’s for each person in the booth…. So here are ours…on different days.. goofy…yet fun…
That’s it…for this year…
It’s over far too soon…
1 comment:
A very good synopsis of our TIFF adventures, Leslie. Maybe I'll just link your blog to mine ha ha.
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