Results tagged “videofestival”

The Toronto One Minute Film & Video Festival turns five tomorrow. Not to be lumped in with our typical neverending, city-spanning, celebrity-scoping, press-pass flossing film fests, this one usually comes and goes gracefully before anyone even knows it exists. Sixty films, 60 seconds each, played back-to-back at the Bloor Cinema. You couldn’t get bored if you tried. Founded in 2003 as the result of a dare among friends and former-filmmakers in Toronto, the idea is...

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.)

Only three days left in the 17th Annual Inside Out Gay and Lesbian Film and Video Festival! Last night, Eleven Men Out screened at the Bader; an Icelandic comedy with a reasonably original premise: a soccer player named Ottar being interviewed by a reporter in the locker room after a game while the rest of his team is changing decides, for the benefit of appearing on the magazine's cover, to come out of the closet at that exact moment. As a result, he is thrown off the team and becomes the pariah of his family, including an alkie former-Miss Iceland ex-wife, a biggoted soccer-exec father, a video-store managing brother with a penchant for shemale pornography and a moody tweenage son who would rather play Counter-Strike than have a conversation with his father.

The 17th Annual Inside Out Gay and Lesbian Film and Video Festival Continues! Last night, the festival presented its centrepiece gala screening at the Isabelle Bader Theatre of King and Clown (reviewed by Torontoist at last year's TIFF), a movie about a Korean monarch who falls in love with his cross-dressing jester that also happens to be the top-grossing Korean film of all time (OK, so at least it was until this happened).

The West End has its share of arts events in the upcoming months but what’s happening in the East?

The 17th Annual Inside Out Toronto Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival had its official launch earlier this week at the Gladstone (following a recent fundraiser) where it announced its lineup to the public.

Ghost Rider’s head is a flaming skull. Can’t get much cooler than that, eh? And yet, from trailers you’d barely know that Ghost Rider is a cinematic version of a Marvel comic book (with, as per usual, a ridiculously complex history) that stars a biker whose head is flaming skull.

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.

So, another film Friday reached and it is, ahem, a bit of a dull week with everyone obsessed with Cannes. And we’ve shot ourselves in the foot a bit perhaps by having already got a bit too excited about the new Cinematheque Ontario season here. So what is there to talk about, eh?

Well, though he’s been away, this Torontoist certainly missed Toronto. And his feet are a size 11 Ron but nice try. But honestly folks, what has happened to our town since we’ve been gone? The Royal, the Revue, and the Kingsway closing down? Are you kidding us? This is a serious problem. Not only is it probably going to kill off (or at least make it difficult for) many of the small festivals that make this a continually interesting city to live in as a movie goer, it’s also going to basically make Kung Fu Friday, which was moved from the Royal to the Revue a while back and recently has been very well attended, completely unviable.

Let’s open with an image. By far our favourite image of film in the past...Ooh, ages, Date Movie’s unique take on Napoleon Dynamite. I can almost hear the two (count ‘em) writers from Scary Movie in the pitching office.

The Bloor Cinema is heavy with festivals so shortly after the celebration of its 100th birthday, with The One-Minute Film and Video Festival starting tonight,as blogged below, and last night’s opening night gala of the Reel Asian Film Festival, The Motel.

Start the stop watches: The one-minute men and women of The One-Minute Film and Video Festival ready set go for opening night at the Bloor Cinema this evening. If the festival's name doesn't self-explain, here's the gist: Each filmmaker is given a subject in which to base a one-minute short film on. Last year's focus was "firsts," and this year's theme is "intersections." Given the length of the films (that's 60 seconds for those who don't keep time in minutes), there's a good number of screenings per night with good number of perspectives broached. Tonight's notables include Cowboy Junkies guy Jeff Bird, Toronto-area blogger Matthew C. Brown, and our very own comicatrix Alice Phieu.