Urban Planner: May 14, 2009

By Laura Trethewey

Urban Planner is Torontoist’s daily guide to what’s on in Toronto, published every morning. If you have an event you’d like considered, email all of its details—as well as images, if you’ve got any—to [email protected].

Photo from Shervin Kermani’s film Sofia by Sabrina Armani courtesy of RUFF.

FILM: Starting tonight and ending Saturday is the Ryerson University Film Festival (RUFF), an annual end-of-year screening of graduating film students’ final projects. The opening night screens nine short films from the class, which is certain to offer up some gems from the city’s young film talent. Case in point: many of the films screened over the next few nights are picked up by international film festivals and shown around the world. Royal Cinema (608 College Street) 7 p.m. $10.
WORDS: Found, a magazine that collects recovered notes, nonsensical pictures, and all sorts of ephemera, is launching a new book tonight at Supermarket. The mag started in Chicago when one of its founders, Davy Rothbart, discovered a misplaced letter from an angry girlfriend to her lover tucked under his car’s windshield wiper. Since then, Found has grown into an established magazine and a collection of books, printing submissions from around the world. At the launch tonight, Rothbart tells more stories behind the unique little finds that fill up Found’s pages. Supermarket (268 Augusta Avenue), 6–8 p.m., FREE.
WORDS: Storied publisher, CanLit king, and all-around media darling Coach House Books is launching its spring roster of books tonight. Guy Maddin will read from My Winnipeg, which reprints narration from the popular film, alongside family photographs, diary entries, and an interview between the filmmaker and Michael Ondaatje. Other writers reading tonight include Anton Piatigorsky, Carla Gunn, Jocelyn Brown, and Matthew Tierney. Stones Place, (1255 Queen Street West), 8 p.m., FREE.
LECTURE: One of Canada’s most prominent choreographers, Christopher House, starts off the Toronto Public Library’s On Stage Performing Arts Series. House, who has served as the artistic director of the Toronto Dance Theatre since 2004, is screening parts of his documentary Ahead of the Curve tonight. The ongoing series will see actor Sheila McCarthy speak with Debra McGrath and soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian with James Bradshaw, son of the late Richard Bradshaw. Toronto Reference Library (789 Yonge Street) 7 p.m., FREE.