By Mathew Kumar

Fairly big news in the world of TIFF today with the announcement of a new programme, Vanguard. The first word of the press release is “edgy” which we kind of wish they’d spelt with a 3, considering the new programme is “fearless” and features “a raw, pulsating aesthetic that speaks to sexual, cultural and cinematic freedoms”. Whoa! If I want sexual freedom in the cinema I’ll go to the Metro! To be honest, we’re not entirely sure what separates this programme from their Visions programme, but, we guess maybe Visions is more about the filmmaker’s quirks than the film’s totally extreme 3dgyness? Bottom line – “These films are edgy, irreverent, definitely sexy, and have a palpable, youthful zing.” Means, “Dear hipsters, please come to our festival.”
And to be honest, as one of them there card-carrying hipsters, this is a pretty good programme. We’ve got Johnnie To’s Election 1+2 playing in their North American premiere, and one of the highlights (if not the highlight) of last year was the Pusher Trilogy, so the similarly crime orientated double feature this year is really high on our list of picks. We’ve got the graphically sexual Shortbus, from John Cameron Mitchell of Hedwig and the Angry Inch (also starring CBC radio host Sook-Yin Lee) and, weirdly, comedian Bobcat Goldthwait’s return to cinematic direction (After, um, Shakes the Clown) Sleeping Dogs Lie, which totally isn’t the film starring Maynard James Keenan of the same name.