Results tagged “canadafirst”

The Toronto International Film Festival begins tonight with opening-night gala Creation, a controversial choice not because of the subject matter (Charles Darwin) but because it's only the third time a non-Canadian film has opened the festival. Surprising, but Festival Co-director Cameron Bailey stated that they "fell in love with this movie," and we felt it was the one that set the tone to have the kind of conversations they "hope will happen around the film fest."

The Toronto International Film Festival Group announced their top ten Canadian features for 2007 last night, along with (for the first time) their top ten list of Canadian short films. The top ten Canadian features were: L’âge Des Ténèbres (Denys Arcand), Amal (Richie Mehta), Continental, Un Film Sans Fusil (Stéphane Lafleur), Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg), Fugitive Pieces (Jeremy Podeswa) , My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin), A Promise To The Dead: The Exile Journey Of Ariel...

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve teamed up with the Toronto International Film Festival Group to run a contest each day until the end of the festival for tickets to next-day screenings.

It begins! Tonight the Toronto International Film Festival opens officially with Jeremy Podeswa’s Fugitive Pieces, so if you want to start soaking up the atmosphere of the festival head down to Roy Thompson Hall before 8 p.m.

Well, this is it. The Toronto International Film Festival begins tomorrow, and this is the last of our previews, with coverage of Vanguard films Boy A (pictured above) and Help Me Eros from Jonathan Goldsbie and Mathew Kumar, and reviews of a selection of Short Cuts Canada shorts from Mathew Kumar (in which he has the audacity to hand out a 0/5).

If you missed it, yesterday our Toronto International Film Festival preview began with a look at the Gala and Contemporary World Cinema programmes, and if you didn’t know, tickets go on sale tomorrow morning online, at 416-968-FILM or 1-877-968-FILM and at the TIFFG Box Office at the Manulife Centre, 55 Bloor Street—so after you’ve read this, you might want to start queuing.

It is forgivable to forget that Toronto is the prevailing backdrop to the stories and poems collected in the anthology TOK: Writing the New Toronto. The anthology itself is not exactly about Toronto—devoid of any superficialities of Toronto pride and a "what Toronto means to me" mentality—choosing instead to showcase a continually shape-shifting Toronto.

The Toronto International Film Festival madness began today with this year’s Canadian press conference—whereas last year we were unprepared for the experience, this year we were ready. We didn’t eat lunch, instead eating our fill of the finger food on offer. Result!

6:00pm – The Fountain (Visa Screening Room (Elgin))

Canadian films don't make money. It's almost a certainty in the Canadian film industry but once in a while a film comes along that gives us hope. This year Fido, just might be that film. Our glowing review is here and other bloggers agree that the zombie comedy (zombedy?) about a '50s community where zombies are pets was the right choice to open the Canada First series.

9:00pm – Rescue Dawn (Ryerson Theatre)

We've finished up our TIFF Preview, so today we begin our daily coverage of the festival, beginning with this, our picks for the first day. Or as we should perhaps say, the first night, because the festival doesn’t really kick off until this evening, other than one screening (Kenneth Branagh’s The Magic Flute, sneaking in early). It’s rather odd that the opening Gala isn’t literally the first film, but we guess that’s the way it is!

A sparse and lonely film, Sur La Trace D’Igor Rizzi concerns Jean-Marc Thomas, played by Laurent Lucas. A former European soccer player, he now, in an attempt to be closest to the spirit of his dead lover, wanders the streets of her hometown, the perpetually snowy Montreal.

So… The festival has been on for a full day, and Torontoist has very little to actually report, having stayed in for the night. Well, it did see the star of Short Cuts Canada film ‘Patterns’ (by Jamie Travis) wearing a stylish lime green dress and looking a bit confused, so there is that, if anything. That film is in Programme 5: Genre Redux, if you like the sound of her.

So tonight is the big opening of the Festival, with certain sections of the city all abuzz with poseurs yammering into cell phones, except now not in Canadian accents! All the staff and hardworking volunteers will be hoping it all goes off without a hitch, terrified and excited at the thought of nearly two weeks of celebrities, parties, networking… oh, and films, I guess. The opening night Gala tonight is Deepak Mehta’s Water, a film shut down by Indian extremists, forcing the director to film the rest of her examination of ostracized Indian widows in Sri Lanka. Torontoist, naturally, doesn’t have tickets, and due to Ontario’s severe laws won’t be scoring any on eBay either, so we're here with a look at the Contemporary World Cinema and Reel to Reel programmes.

A whole new lineup of Canadian films you've never heard of will open TIFF's Canada First program. The fest scrapped the Perspective Canada series because they wanted Canadian films to compete on their own merit, so we're not sure how Canada First! figures into this. But this one has us curious.