Results tagged “spotlight”

FASHION: L’Oreal Fashion Week officially launches today at Nathan Phillips Square. Canadian designers will be strutting their stuff all week long as they launch their 2009 spring collections. The Bay’s new CEO Bonnie Brooks, accompanied by Fashion Design Council of Canada president Robin Kay, will be on hand this afternoon to cut the ribbon on the fabulous tented studio. Stay tuned for Torontoist's full Fashion Week preview. Nathan Phillips Square, 2:30 p.m., FREE.

November 14 to 18 marks the return of the Reel Asian International Film Festival. Last night, the Japan Foundation played host as filmmakers and media types gathered at a press conference to kick off the 11th annual incarnation of the fest. And with more than 70 independent works from all over the world, this year’s Reel Asian Festival will be worth cracking open that golden piggy bank for.

So, what’s scarier: a zombie infestation or the melting of the polar ice caps? This is an urgent and legitimate question! And later this week, Toronto cineastes can compare and contrast, for just as the After Dark Festival winds down, the Planet in Focus International Environmental Film & Video Festival springs up. Running from October 24 to 28, Planet in Focus is the most acclaimed film festival of its environmentally-minded ilk. This year, to coincide with the International Polar Year (which 2007 is, as you are doubtlessly already aware), the festival’s Spotlight Program is entitled Polar Visions. (Hint: these visions may include the melting of large volumes of ice.)

Last week, because we were completely distracted by Dock in a Box, we didn’t mention our sadness at the loss of both Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni. We also couldn’t think of a Director bad enough to lament the continued existence of in the same breath.

The 7th annual Planet in Focus International Film and Video Festival starts tonight at the Royal Ontario Museum, 7pm with a screening of Grant McLean’s 1953 short Farewell Oak Street before feature Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox, Sara Lamm’s documentary on the strange Dr. Emmanuel Bronner, a gentleman who (quite absurdly) escaped a psychiatric hospital and began a all-natural all-organic soap company.