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......

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. Today’s Contest: For your chance to win one of five pairs of tickets to tomorrow’s Doc Talks panel discussion Covering War (at 4:00 p.m. at the ROM Theatre), featuring directors Michael Tucker, Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro debating filmmaking in war-torn nations,......

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,......

No Film Friday today as we’re too busy with the festival, but we can let you know that this week sees releases of some pretty decent-sounding films: 3:10 to Yuma, Shoot ‘Em Up and Hatchet. Er, and also The Brothers Solomon, starring Will Arnett and directed by Bob Odenkirk but apparently dire. Let's Go To Prison wasn't great either. Sob. Today’s Reviews: Captain Mike Across America Captain Mike Across America is an interesting proposition:......

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......

Torontoist usually shudders at any combination of the words "folk" and "rock," but Ryerson Theatre grad Peter Katz has been slowly brewing a successful music career in that hybrid genre since he finished school in 2004. Winner of the CBC Galaxie Rising Star Award and the Grand Prize Winner of Toronto's IndieWeek (2005), Katz just released his first "official" full-length album, More Nights, under the name Peter Katz and the Curious. The first video off......

Artist Damien Hirst's diamond-studded skull reminded us that we used to live across the street from a lady who kept a magical Mayan crystal skull in her house. Which got us to thinking about other spooky things. So we've compiled a list of ten, supposedly haunted places in the city. Make your own ghost walk and if you do actually see a spirit, please let us know. 1. The Hockey Hall of Fame (pictured here)......

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......

Real to Reel 9:30am - This Filthy World (Cumberland 3) - See our review. 8:00pm - Manufactured Landscapes (Varsity 1, 7) Visions 2:35pm – Time (Paramount 1) 2:45pm Bugmaster (Paramount 4) - See our Day 6 coverage. 3:45pm - Zidane: Un Portrait du XXIe Siècle (Varsity 4) - See our Day 7 coverage. Midnight Madness 3:45pm - S&Man (ROM Theatre) 11:59pm - Princess (Ryerson Theatre) Canadian Open Vault 4:45pm - Paperback Hero (Isabel Bader Theatre)......

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)......

It's not quite an uprising more like a small complaint but an important one nonetheless. "Why are there no Q and A's at the Elgin theatre," Jeremy Barker at Popped Culture asks? "We’ve already accosted two film fest directors this week to ask what was up. Noah Cowan, co-director of the festival, explained that while “we understand that interaction is integral to the festival experience, emptying the theatre is a logistical nightmare....But is it really......

Gala 12:00pm - For Your Consideration (Visa Screeing Room (Elgin)) 6:30pm – Away From Her (Roy Thompson Hall) 9:00pm – The White Planet (Cumberland 2) Discovery 12:15pm – Reprise (Paramount 4) – See our review. 3:15pm – The Art of Crying (Cumberland 3) Dialogues 2:15pm – The Beales of Grey Gardens (Al Green Theatre) Midnight Madness 2:45pm – All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (Paramount 2) 11:59pm – The Abandoned (Ryerson Theatre) Real to Reel......

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......

Masters 12:00pm – The Wind That Shakes the Barley (Visa Screening Room (Elgin) 9:00pm – Rescue Dawn (Ryerson Theatre) Discovery 12:30pm – King and the Clown (Paramount 1) – See our review. 6:00pm – The Art of Crying (Paramount 3) 8:15pm – Reprise (Varsity 2) – See our review. Gala 12:45pm – Penelope (Ryerson Theatre) 1:30pm – The White Planet (Roy Thompson Hall) 9:30pm – Babel (Roy Thompson Hall) Real to Reel 3:00pm – Manufactured......

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......

Busy weekend Toronto. Art lovers have the TOAE, car junkies the Molson Indy and those interested in the ones and twos have the Toronto DJ Festival. In addition to the Toronto eliminations of the DMC Canadian Championships, there will be product demos from Stanton, Newmark and Rane as well as the first ever Serato Showcase which will feature DJ's spinning sounds from their computers. Ain't technology grand. Sponsored by Universal Urban, the whole thing......

A good night for the socially-conscious, as both Stephen Lewis and Ralph Nader will be rocking out at seperate-but-equal venues. Lewis is talking tonight at Massey Hall and Nader is at the Ryerson Theatre. Anyone lucky enough to go to these events is encouraged to write a review. Anyone lucky enough to see these gentlemen out and about in Toronto is doubly encouraged.......