The 29th Toronto Film Festival

[pmw]

Speaking of NYFF, I'm posting a complete lineup in another thread.
P

[arsaib4]

sorry, i guess i didn't read this in time.

...also i think you missed my post so i am gonna delete mine.

[arsaib4]

Toronto International Film Festival co-director Noah Cowan and managing director Michele Maheux announced the complete lineup of 328 films that will screen during the festival. A total of 253 are features and 207 of those are having their World, International or N.American premieres at Toronto. Festival organizers indicated that they received more than 3,300 submissions this year from 61 countries.

here's the amazing lineup:

http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2004/f...s/filmlist.asp

[Chris Knipp]

How can you choose what to go to?

[arsaib4]

Like last year, i've gone with a coupon book which i had to purchase in advance. Then the programmers hold a rafle to see who gets what but i'm not bound to the films i get, it's easy to find people who want to see a certain film i don't and vice-versa or you just turn the ticket in to the box-office. This year advance single tickets are available online until the night before the screening and i plan to use this option the most.

[arsaib4]

I know you guys were happy to see me gone but I'm back after spending a few days in Toronto, 4 1/2 to be exact and I managed to see 11 films during that time. Had chances to see a few more but World Cup of Hockey (the second reason I went there) took some time away as I ended up going to the Semi-final match and then watched the Final last night at a local establishment there. I am sure some of our Canadian contributers relate to this much more, even though I was cheering for my European compatriots. I will post my thoughts on the films I saw and the ones I didn't see in the upcoming days whenever I get the time as I'm catching up with school work at this point.

[pmw]

Look forward to reading about it and welcome back!
P

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by arsaib4
The film is produced by the likes of Alfonso Curazon (El DEseo films) and Guillrmo Del toro so the budget and the cast proper for an Equadorian film. In the final act, more genre elements rear their ugly head but overall this is very well made film.

Your comment that "genre elements rear their ugly head" is very telling. Ratas, Ratones, Rateros was nicely edited and featured credible performances, but it was just another shallow, run-of-the-mill crime flick. Cheap thrills at the expense of the underclass. I have to admit the casting is interesting: Colombian-American Leguizamo, Mexican vet Damian Alcazar, Spanish babe Leonor Watling and Brit of Spanish descent Alfred Molina.

[arsaib4]

I think Leguizamo is a very talented actor/comedian who is usually reduced to played a thug or a best friend like most other latino actors (what else is new) but it's nice to see him taking on some challenging and different type of roles recently, he was great in Summer of Sam and i've always enjoyed his one man stage shows.

It is refreshing to see a 'Sundance lab' approved script to be this savvy. Cordero avoids the pitfalls (for the most part) and actually delivers a critique of the sensationalistic media (and perhaps of other directors) who like you said, take advantage or polish their skills at the expense of the underclass.

[Chris Knipp]

Welcome back, arsaib4 and I look forward to hearing further reports. I've been staging a mini-film festival for myself here in Paris and am listing the things I've seen. Today I will see Gianni Amelio's Le chiave di casa with Charlotte Rampling. Do you know that one?

[arsaib4]

I believe Amelio's Le Chiavi di casa premiered at Venice last month, it was also at Toronto but couple of so-so reviews deterred me from pursuing it. However, it seems like the kind of film which will more popular with the general public than the critics. Let us know about it.

[arsaib4]

Every festival has atleast one film that creates some kind of a controversy mostly due to it's subject matter. Only at times the director or it's distributers try to create a buzz for their own films but that usually turns out to be hollow. The film which mosty had every one talking about this year was Lukas Moodysson's
A Hole In My Heart. It screened on the first day of the festival and by the time I was there (on the third day), it was talk of the town. A friend (the person I was staying with) who saw the film was one of the lucky ones because as soon as the word got out about the subject matter, hundreds of people started gathering outside the theatre for a look including some industry execs who had to wait just like everyone else. Later on the festival organizers had to schedule a special screening for the buyers and the press. The film deals with shooting of a porno in an apartment which spirals out of control while the shy son of the director is unable to do anything about it. The film according to the friend produced many walkouts as it involves explicit sex, constant male and female nudity, penetrated plastic vaginas, numerous shots of a young girl's labia being sliced off and ends with a man vomiting into her mouth. Still I'm told that Moodysson is a humanist and is not just out to provoke in the tradition of Gasper Noe. The film after a bidding war naturally was purchased by NewMarket (The Passion), to be fair they also released Moodysson's last Lilja-4-Ever, lets hope they put that out on video first because it's been almost two years since it's release.

One of the highlights of the festival for me was not just a film but to be able to meet someone I highly admire. Through an old colleague of my mom I was able to get into a party organized by chum/city tv and it was attended by the stars and the director of Clean. Assayas was also there as I was told but I didn't see him, however I got couple of minutes to say hi to Maggie Cheung which was awesome. The sad part was that I ended up praising her for the film I didn't get to see. Hopefully my performance was good enough for her. I'm not into celebrity watching for various reason (I am told it's partly due to my ego) but that's not true. It's the fact that If given a chance I'd prefer to meet a director or someone else associated with the film who actually cares and is much more knowledgable but it was a treat to see the classy Cheung.

[Chris Knipp]

About Amelio's new film: there's plenty of positive press as well as press that says it's manipulative and that putting a handicapped kid in a starring role was a gimmick to gain the jury's affection. These discussions are interesting, and I want to peruse them in the Italian press as shown online, but I haven't quite got the time to do that in detail now since I'm at a pay-by-the-minute internet cafe and I leave Paris tomorrow. All I can say is that Le chiave di casa is going to stay in my mind. The boy, Andrea, Paolo in the film, as Amelio himself said in an interview (http://film.spettacolo.virgilio.it/c...100&pagina=319), had the capacity to be incredibly open with people, and yet to maintain an ironic distance at the same time. He's a complex, fascinating personality, and Amelio built a fascinating and mysterious portrait improvisationally out of that personality. I found it not so much a tear-jerker as extremely intriguing and fresh, an experience, as another Italian article also said, of life moment-to-moment, not for the past or the future, but in the now.

About Maggie Cheung: I know a young Chinese-American guy in San Francisco who used to talk about how he was madly in love with her, and I can't watch her without being aware of her heartbreaker capacity. The emotional Clean makes a wonderful antidote to the cold Demonlover.

[pmw]

Wow, the Moodysson film sounds provcative. My guess is that NewMarket won't release it if it's half as racey as you describe.

>chum/city tv

Long live the new flesh. Apparentally, City TV which I've only seen a tiny bit of was the inspiration for Civic TV in Cronenberg's Videodrome. City TV sounds like it was quite revolutionary, although what I saw a few months ago seemed to be an MTV equivalent with some bawdier shows in the wee hours. The description of the orginal station sounds really really great.

Maggie Chung / Assayas - what could be better. Sounds like a great experience. Two of the more admirable celebrities.
Thanks for passing on some of the Toronto flavor.

P

[arsaib4]

Clean is one of the films i'm looking forward to the most and it's shocking that it's still hasn't found a distributer. One more thing that has left me scratching my head is it's absence in the NYFF lineup. Assayas i consider one of the best young directors in the world and 'Demonlover' one of the best films of this decade.