It’s the final day of the festival, which is always rather maudlin one—although for those of us who try to cover it, the festival is largely a far too hectic, busy period of time, once things start to slow down the sudden lack of pressure is terribly deflating. Never mind—we’ll have some wrap up coverage for you next week. Tonight’s closing gala is Emotional Arithmetic, reviewed by Jonathan Goldsbie at the very beginning of......

No Film Friday again today, as we’re still too busy with the festival A few of the films that played at the festival are out already, with Neil Jordan’s The Brave One, David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises and Julie Taymor's Across the Universe all on general release. Not even new release Mr. Woodcock escapes a connection—it’s directed by Craig Gillespie, director of festival film Lars and the Real Girl. Today’s Reviews: The Tracey Fragments Though......

Today’s Contest: For your chance to win one pair of tickets to Saturday’s screening of Just Like Home, directed by Lone Scherfig (Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself) at 11:00 p.m. at the Cumberland 3, email us your name at contests@torontoist.com. Winners will be randomly selected and notified by tomorrow morning with ticket pick-up information. This is our last contest and it’s one of the last films of the festival, so if you haven’t taken......

Today’s Contest: For your chance to win one of three pairs of tickets to tomorrow’s screening of Reclaim Your Brain, starring Run Lola Run’s Moritz Bleibtreu (at 12:30 p.m. at the Scotiabank 2) email us your name at contests@torontoist.com. Winners will be randomly selected and notified by the morning of the screening with ticket pick-up information. Today’s Reviews: No Country For Old Men BY DANU MANDLSOHN The villain is Javier Bardem, looking like a......

Today’s Reviews: Juno BY MATHEW KUMAR It sounds unfair to hold directors who are the children of directors to a higher standard than other new filmmakers—but is it really? There is such a wealth of connections and expertise within a phone’s reach that it’s utterly disappointing when someone like Jason Reitman just poops out the latest in Hollywood’s line of safe, fake “indie” films that have absolutely nothing indie about them. Juno MacGuff, a......

Today’s Reviews: You, The Living One of the most critically acclaimed films of the festival so far, You, The Living (pictured above), is a very warm look at the hopes and dreams of the misfit inhabitants of a Swedish apartment complex, told through a series of vignettes. From Roy Andersson (Songs from the Second Floor), the warmth isn’t just towards the characters—it coats each shot like a fog. The film unfortunately places its funniest......

Today's Review: The Orphanage BY DANU MANDLSOHN With Guillermo del Toro’s name attached to a film about undead children at a haunted Spanish orphanage, you might think it would it be scary. Muy bien. Although the Pan’s Labyrinth auteur is merely the producer on this one, debut director Juan Antonio Bayona strikes gold, cherry-picking from modern gothic classics like The Sixth Sense and The Others. He knows that true horror comes from the unseen,......

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. It’s easy to write off the festival before it’s even begun: maybe you’re already sick of all the coverage, annoyed about how scarce tickets can be (despite some high ticket prices—this year we’re perplexed as to why......

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). Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to preview the Wavelengths or Midnight Madness......

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. Today we have our preview of the Special Presentations, Real To Reel......

Our Toronto International Film Festival preview coverage is a little different this year. While last year, our reviews came from our film editor, this year we were lucky enough to have our reviews come from many of our Torontoist writers. Today we have our Gala Presentation and Contemporary World Cinema preview, with reviews of Emotional Arithmetic, Jane Austen Book Club, Sleuth, The Band’s Visit, Breakfast With Scot, The Counterfeiters and Jar City from Christopher......

The Toronto International Film Festival have announced 73 films today, which is, er, a lot. Too many for us to even pretend to give them even coverage, so as usual we’re just going to pick and choose from today’s announcements, which are made of films from international filmmakers, and tell you about the ones that interest us personally. Gala Presentations gains Blood Brothers, the debut of director Alexi Tan. Produced by John Woo, it’s......

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! No one was prepared for the appearance of Viggo Mortensen on stage however, discussing perhaps the biggest announcement of the day: Eastern Promises. It makes sense, of course. Last year they had......

Contemporary World Cinema 9:00pm - Red Road (Varsity 8) Short Cuts Canada 9:30am - Programme 3 (ROM Theatre) - See our review. Featuring The Saddest Boy in the World! Special Presentations 9:30am - Exiled (Ryerson Theatre) - See our Day 7 coverage. Midnight Madness 12:15pm - Princess (Cumberland 2) - See our Day 9 coverage. 3:30pm - Severance (Paramount 3) Gala 12:00pm - The Banquet (Visa Screening Room (Elgin)) 3:00pm - After The Wedding (Visa......

Special Presentations 3:00pm - The Fountain (Ryerson Theatre) 9:00pm - Exiled (Visa Screening Room (Elgin)) - see our Day 7 coverage. Real to Reel 5:00pm - Sharkwater (Varsity 8) 6:00pm - Kurt Cobain About A Son (Varsity 7) 9:00pm - This Filthy World (Ryerson Theatre) - See our review. Discovery 6:00pm - King and the Clown (Varsity 4) - See our review. Visions 6:00pm - Invisible Waves (Paramount 1) Gala 6:30pm - Bobby (Roy Thompson......

Special Presentations 11:45am - Pan's Labyrinth (Varsity 8) 12:00pm - The Dog Problem (Ryerson Theatre) Dialogues 2:30pm - Velvet Goldmine (Al Green Theatre) Vanguard 3:00pm - Sleeping Dogs Lie (Paramount 1) 6:00pm - Election 1&2 (Al Green Theatre) Contemporary World Cinema 6:00pm - Starter For Ten (Ryerson Theatre) Visions 8:00pm - Zidane: Un Portrait du XXIe Siècle (Varsity 4&5) 9:30pm - Bugmaster (Paramount 3) Midnight Madness 11:59pm S&MAN (Ryerson Theatre)......

Special Presentations 10:30am - The Last King of Scotland (Paramount 2) - See our day 4 round-up. 6:00pm – The Fountain (Visa Screening Room (Elgin)) Contemporary World Cinema 11:45am Offside (Paramount 1) Real to Reel 12:00pm – The Killer Within (ROM Theatre) Dialogues 2:30pm – La Haine (Al Green Theatre) Midnight Madness 4:45pm – Black Sheep (Paramount 1) Gala 6:30pm - Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing (Roy Thompson Hall) Mavericks 8:30pm – Vanguard Cinema:......

Gala 11:30am - Babel (Visa Screening Room (Elgin)) 1:30pm - Never Say Goodbye (Roy Thompson Hall) 6:30pm - For Your Consideration (Roy Thompson Hall) Short Cuts Canada 11:45am – Programme 4 (Cumberland 3) – See our Short Cuts coverage. 5:45pm – Programme 1 (Cumberland 3) – See our Short Cuts coverage. Featuring Ninth Street Chronicles and Patterns 2&3! Special Presentations 3:00pm - Pan’s Labrynth (Visa Screening Room (Elgin)) 9:00pm - The Last King of Scotland......

Well, with day one done and dusted, this morning perhaps many people will still be sleeping off the opening night party, but for others (not least the staff and volunteers) it been another early morning to get the festival up and running. This is the first full day of the festival and as such it’s heavy with films to join the rush queue for. Let’s see what we’d give that honor to. Visions 11:15am –......

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......

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......