More from King and John this week as TIFF has put a focus on the maple leaf. Last week we got the big festival launch announcements so we already knew about new films from Jean-Marc Vallée and Atom Egoyan. Now we know to expect a lot more Canadian content. There’s a lot to chew on but here are some of the highlights:
Patricia Rozema’s new film Into the Forest with Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood will be one of the festival`s Special Presentations. The flick seems to have a sci-fi bent as two women from a forest discover a world on the brink of apocalypse.
The Forbidden Room is a collaboration between Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson that purports to honour classic cinema. This one is part of the Wavelengths program, so expect an experimental effort that will no doubt defy any attempt at summary I try to give it. We shall have to see.
The documentary category will include the world première of Guantanamo’s Child: Omar Khadr which, of course, will tackle the controversial titular figure. Another world première doc is a look at the late Canadian poet, Al Purdy, in Brian D. Johnson’s Al Purdy Was Here.
There will be a Canada Goose Award for Best Canadian Feature Film and a City of Toronto Award for best début. The jury features director Don McKellar, director of AFI Fest Jacqueline Lyanga, and the programming director of the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, Ilda Santiago.
The full list is available here.
Screening Round-up
Bloor Hot Docs is bringing back their Panamania weekend doc festival which ran in July. This weekend you can catch Jonathan Demme's doc The Agronomist (August 8 12:00 p.m.) which examines the mysterious demise of a Haitian journalist, Sergio (August 8 2:15 p.m.) looks at the UN Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello and Lucy Walker’s doc Waste Land (August 8 4:30 p.m.) a favourite from the 2010 Hot Docs festival.
Sunday August 9 you can catch Sins of My Father at 12:30 p.m following drug kingpin Pablo Escobar's son dealing with the life his father led and Marley at 3: 00 p.m., which is as you may have guessed, a Bob Marley bio doc.
Toronto`s second-largest LGBTQ film festival goes this weekend for the seventh year at the Revue Cinema this weekend. Queer West Film Festival aims to play the best in local and international queer cinema. They have expanded the event from a one night screening to a three-day long stay at the Revue. There are 15 films ranging from roughly five minutes to an hour in length on the advertised docket. You can view the festival trailer here.
Also in its seventh year is the Toronto Youth Shorts Film Festival on August 8 at Innis Town Hall. There are two programmes, one focusing on letting go and moving forward and anotherspotlighting complex women leads. Both cover a number of genres and forms. You can get tickets online or at the door.
Toronto Screengrab of the Week
The less said about last week's entry Welcome to Mooseport the better. That's also probably true of this week's entry from 2003, other than to note just how much utterly generic detritus that no one remembers gets pumped into theatres every year. This flick paired a guy who played an honest cop named Frank Serpico with a guy who is playing a not-so-honest cop named Ray Velcoro on TV these days.
