2015 TOfilmfest: Choosing your films

Recently a friend, and fellow film-fest fan, mentioned she was choosing at least one movie from each of the festival's official programs — a good way to see a variety of cinema.

Last year @ParticPelic spent several hours watching videos trying to trim down her choices (btw, local cinema writer @TerrorInToronto has put a list of videos together into a convenient single playlist for 2015).

As for us, since we add films to our website with each weekly announcement, we tend to look back at all the film titles by date of announcement.



Everyone has their own method to choose their movies but fwiw, here are some other ways to #PicktheBestoftheFest at TOfilmfest:

•  — enjoyed the work of a particular director or actor/actress? …you'll likely want to see their latest film
•  — want to visit another place in the world and be immersed into another language & culture? …cinema makes it easy to travel the world!
•  —  in Ontario any film without an official OFRB rating will be restricted to adults 18+…
•  — although regular tickets cost $25 (and premium screenings $48), there are plenty of free screenings for 2015…
•  — tired of trekking from the Lightbox cinema to the Ryerson theatre? …pick screenings closer together!  ;-)
•  — not on vacation? …see everything that's playing when you're available
•  — many films have screened previously, and been reviewed by movie critics… why not check?

• BONUS:  Release dates — many films have a theatrical release already set for the fall …so you can see them later!

Btw, if you're on-the-go, without access to the internet, download a PDF file of the 2015 Official Film Schedule (note there are some changes to the schedule for 2015).

And, if you only have your smartphone, try TIFFwidget — a mobile-friendly website that uses data from TOfilmfest.

So, what's on our list?

Our next post will highlight our picks for the 2015 film festival...  :-)

#ChacunSonCinema!
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2014 Full Festival Line-up Complete!

The final film titles have been announced for the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival:

Discovery

• ’71, Yann Demange
• Adult Beginners, Ross Katz
• Atlantic, Jan-Willem van Ewijk
• The Crow’s Egg, M. Manikandan
• Dukhtar, Afia Nathaniel
• Flapping in the Middle of Nowhere, Nguyen Hoang Diep
• The Great Man, Sarah Leonor
• I am not Lorena, Isidora Marras
• The Intruder, Shariff Korver
• Life in a Fishbowl, Baldvin Zophoníasson
• The Little Death, Josh Lawson
• Los Hongos, Oscar Ruiz Navia
• Magical Girl, Carlos Vermut
• Mardan, Batin Ghobadi
• May Allah Bless France! Abd Al Malik
• The Narrow Frame of Midnight, Tala Hadid
• OBRA, Gregorio Graziosi
• Run, Philippe Lacôte
• La Salada, Juán Martín Hsu
• Second Coming, Debbie Tucker Green
• Senza nessuna pietà, Michele Alhaique
• Stories of Our Lives
• Sway, Rooth Tang
• Theeb, Naji Abu Nowar
• The Tribe, Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy
• Unlucky Plaza, Ken Kwek
• The Vanished Elephant, Javier Fuentes-León
• Villa Touma, Suha Arraf
• X+Y, Morgan Matthews

Mavericks in Conversation

• David Thorpe, Do I Sound Gay?
• Denzel Washington and Antoine Fuqua
• Jon Stewart
• Juliette Binoche
• Reese Witherspoon
• Richard Gere
• Robert Duvall
• Julie Taymor, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Special Events

• Ghostbusters [1984], Ivan Reitman
• Groundhog Day [1993], Harold Ramis
• Stripes [1981], Ivan Reitman
• People's Choice Award Winner

Kids

• Labyrinthus, Douglas Boswell
• Paper Planes, Robert Connolly
• Secrets of War, Dennis Bots
• Song of the Sea, Tomm Moore

There were also additions to some previously announced programs:

Special Presentations

• Roger Waters The Wall, Sean Evans and Roger Waters
• St. Vincent, Theodore Melfi

Contemporary World Cinema

• Cut Bank, Matt Shakman
• Tigers, Danis Tanovic

Masters

• Foreign Body, Krzysztof Zanussi
• Murder in Pacot, Raoul Peck
• The Tale of The Princess Kaguya, Isao Takahata
• Winter Sleep, Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Documentary

• The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, Mami Sunada
• The Years of Fierro, Santiago Esteinou

Vanguard

• The Voices, Marjane Satrapi

Including short-films and free screenings, the festival is bringing over 400 films to Toronto this September!

See you at the fest,
www.TOfilmfest.ca

PS.
btw, here's the 2014 complete film schedule in PDF format.
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Sat.01/Oct: Nuit Blanche at Lightbox

Toronto's Nuit Blanche, an annual sunset-to-sunrise celebration of contemporary art, returns tonight — and there are a few events taking place at the Lightbox centre:

Man with a Movie Camera

A live digital re-scoring of filmmaker Dziga Vertov's documentary, Man with a Movie Camera.

Local artist Darren Copeland will set the everyday soundscape of Toronto in 2011 against Vertov's depiction of Moscow in 1929. Copeland creates a new perspective on the sounds of our city: allowing the audience to re-experience Toronto through the ears and imagination of Dziga Vertov.

Chiptunes Orchestra



The 'Royal Canadian Chiptunes Orchestra' (a collection of musicians playing on custom-hacked Game Boys and home-made circuit-based instruments) present an evening celebrating the music of the video game.

As well, musical groups will present their interpretations of iconic video game songs and scores. Performances by: Battle Lava, Deadbeatblast, .exe, Radius and Helena, Oxvylu, Cybernetic Orchestra, Freque, Awesome Force, Jeff the World, Starpilot, Tetris Hold'em, bossFYTE, DJ Finish Him, Press Start 2 Play, and Spell 'n Math.

Singin' in the Dark: '80s Edition

Favourite musical numbers from '80s films like Fame, Footloose, Little Shop of Horrors, Flashdance and more.

(Mature content after midnight.)

Movie Studio Playhouse

Movie Studio Playhouse takes live feeds of participants acting in spontaneously-created films and enables the audience to manipulate these feeds in a number of different playful ways.

Get involved by using fun props and costumes to make a short film that will be projected on the atrium wall. Audience members watching in the atrium are encouraged to play the role of post-production trickster, tinkering with, manipulating and re-arranging the moving images.

See you at Lightbox!
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FREE films this summer

The film festival's Lightbox centre will be hosting several free film screenings this summer — and running a weekly outdoor film series, beside Roy Thomson Hall.

The Free Screen
Wed.01/Jun @ 7:00pm
— Independent/avant-garde cinema

• The Perlin Papers (cycle of 8 short films) – Jenny Perlin
  
  

Canada Day
Fri.01/Jul
— Celebration of Canadian cinema

• Mary Pickford, The Muse of the Movies (@11:00am, feature-length documentary)
  After the screening, both Nicholas Eliopoulos (director) and Rob Brooks (who donated the materials for the Mary Pickford exhibition) will be in the Canadian Film Gallery, on the 4th floor.
  
  
• Classic Canadian Shorts (@1:30pm)
  
  • Blinkity Blank – Norman McLaren
  • Romance of Transportation in Canada – Colin Low
  • Walking – Ryan Larkin
  • Log Driver’s Waltz – John Weldon
  • The Sweater – Sheldon Cohen
  • Crac! – Frederic Back
  • The Big Snit – Richard Condie
  • The Cat Came Back – Cordell Barker
    
    
• C.R.A.Z.Y. – Jean-Marc Vallée (@4:00pm)
  
• Voulez-vous coucher avec God? – Jack Christie, Michael Hirsh (@7:30pm)
  
• Black Christmas – Bob Clark (@9:30pm)
  
  

Classic Musicals in the Park
Wednesdays
— Outdoor screenings in David Pecaut Square (formerly Metro Square)

• Wed.06/Jul @ 9:00pm, The Wizard of Oz
• Wed.13/Jul @ 9:00pm, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
• Wed.20/Jul @ 9:00pm, Funny Girl
• Wed.27/Jul @ 9:00pm, The Sound of Music
• Wed.03/Aug @ 8:30pm, Jagte Raho
• Wed.10/Aug @ 8:30pm, Fiddler on the Roof
• Wed.17/Aug @ 8:30pm, Singin’ in the Rain
• Wed.24/Aug @ 8:30pm, The Muppet Movie
• Wed.31/Aug @ 8:30pm, Mary Poppins
  

See you at the fest!
TOfilmfest.ca
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FREE film Wednesdays at Lightbox

Although the free Family Day weekend has just passed, there are more free screenings – part of a series of short avant-garde films – coming up at the Lightbox centre:

• Wednesday, 23rd of February @ 7pm
  Keeping Trace — On Time and Film
  
  • Pro Agri, Nicky Hamlyn [Great Britain, 2008, 3 min, 16mm]
  • Les Chaises, Vincent Grenier [Canada, 2008, 8 min, HD]
  • August Afternoons, Deanna Morse [USA, 1985, 5 min, 16mm]
    
  • She is Away, Bruce Elder [Canada, 1976, 13 min, 16mm]
  • Tamalpais, Chris Kennedy [Canada, 2009, 14 min, 16mm]
  • Lacuna, Shannon Harris [Canada, 2008, 10 min, DV]
  • Transitions, Barbara Sternberg [Canada, 1982, 11 min, 16mm]
  Presented by the Canadian Film Makers Distribution Centre.
  
  
• Wednesday, 9th of March @ 7pm
  Mantler’s Visual Music
  • Introduction by Chris Cummings
  • Allegretto, Oskar Fischinger [USA 1936, 3 min, 35mm]
  • Motion Painting No. 1, Oskar Fischinger [USA, 1947, 11 min, 35mm]
  • Trade Tattoo, Len Lye [USA,1937, 5 min, 16mm]
  • Rhythm, Len Lye [USA, 1957, 1 min, 16mm]
  • Free Radicals, Len Lye [USA 1958, 4 min, 16mm
  • Synchromy, Norman McLaren [Canada, 1971, 7 min, 35mm]
  • Lines Horizontal, Norman McLaren & Evelyn Lambart [Canada, 1961, 6 min, 35mm]
  • Gymnopedies, Larry Jordan [USA, 1965, 6 min, 16mm]
  • Friendly Witness, Warren Sonbert [USA, 1989, 22 min, 16mm]
  • When the Organ Played ‘Oh Promise Me’, Cecil Stokes [c.1940, 3 min, 16mm]
  • 15-minute live musical performance by Mantler
    
  Presented by The Music Gallery.
  
  
• Wednesday, 23rd of March @ 7pm
  Images of Nature, or The Nature of the Image
  
  • Light Magic, Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof [Canada, 2001, 3 min, 16mm]
  • View of the Falls from the Canadian Side, John Price [Canada, 2006, 7 min, 35mm]
  • Migration, David Rimmer [Canada, 1969, 11 min, 16mm]
  • Notes in Origin, Ellie Epp [Canada, 1987, 17 min, 16mm]
  • Plein Air, Richard Kerr [Canada, 1991, 20 min, 16mm]
  • Trees of Syntax, Leaves of Axis, Daïchi Saïto [Canada, 2009, 10 min, 35mm]
  • Beauty Plus Pity, Emily Vey Duke & Cooper Battersby [Canada, 2009, 14 min, video]
    
  Presented by the Canadian Film Makers Distribution Centre.
  
  
• Wednesday, 30th of March @ 7pm
  Landscape as Expression — San Francisco Bay Area
  • A Trip Down Market Street, Miles Brothers [USA, 1906, 12 min, Silent, 35mm]
  • North Beach, Dion Vigne [USA, 1958, 5 min, 16mm]
  • Visions of a City, Lawrence Jordan [USA, 1957-78, 8 min]
  • All My Life, Bruce Baillie [USA, 1966, 3 min]
  • Golden Gate Bridge Exposure: Poised for Parabolas, Lynn Marie Kirby [USA, 2004, 5 min, Silent, DV]
  • Junkopia, Chris Marker [USA, 1981, 6 min, 35mm]
  • Street Noise, Michael Glawogger [USA, 1981, 9 min, 16mm]
  • Degrees of Limitation, Scott Stark [USA, 1982, 3 min, Silent, 16mm]
  • Side/Walk/Shuttle, Ernie Gehr [USA, 1991, 41 min, 16mm]
  Presented by the Images Festival.
  

See you there!
#TOfilmfest

Sun.20-Mon.21/Feb: FREE Tim Burton show at Lightbox

In celebration of Family Day, the Tim Burton exhibition at the new Lightbox centre will be FREE on both Sunday, February 20 and Monday, February 21 from 12pm to 6pm.
(Regular price, $22.75)

The Lightbox centre opens at 10am.

There are also free film screenings on both days!

[Free tickets distributed 30 minutes prior to showtime — first-come, first-served; capacity is limited. See FAQ for details.]

Sunday, February 20th

Free Black History Month event

• 3:30pm – Witness As Desired: A Celebration of African Canadian Film

  "A selection of short films programmed/curated by Kenneth Montague, followed by a panel discussion hosted by Cameron Bailey. Witness As Desired is an exploration of African Canadian identity in film. The program presents a series of short films by emerging and established filmmakers that reflect historical journeys and challenge representations of African Canadians as well as document contemporary perceptions of race and identity." – Presented shorts include:

  • Sum of the parts: what can be named, 2009 [18min] – Deanna Bowen
  • Where Do White People Go When the Long Weekend Comes?, 2008 [7min] – Powys Dewhurst
  • Batty Boys Revenge, 2010 [3min] – Alison Duke
  • Olé’, 2010 [3min] – Jason Ebanks
  • CHAINS, 2009 [11min] – Sharon Lewis
  • Keep On Keepin’ On, 2010 [3min] – Sylvia Hamilton
  • The Little Prince, 2009 [7min] – Chantal James
  • MAKING CHANGE, 1995 [18min] – Colina Phillips
  • Proverbs 24:10, 2008 [2min] – Peter Dean Rickards
  • Looking for Dawn, 2011 [25min] – Dawn Wilkinson

Free documentary screening

• 1:00pm, 6:15pm, 8:40pm – Unauthorized [Harvey Weinstein documentary by Barry Avrich], 2010
• 3:30pm – Cameraman [Jack Cardiff documentary], 2010

Free cinema classics

• 1:00pm – Leave Her to Heaven, 1945
• 6:00pm – Red Shoes, 1948
• 7:00pm – The Rules of the Game, 1939
  

Monday, February 21st

Free Tim Burton screenings

• 12:30pm – Alice in Wonderland, 2010 — Tim Burton
• 1:45pm – James and the Giant Peach, 1996 — Tim Burton
• 3:00pm – The Nightmare Before Christmas, 1993 — Tim Burton
  
  

Free live music performance

• 4:30pm – Sherlock Jr., 1924 — Buster Keaton (with live music from iNSiDEaMiND; see the Toronto Star interview with Cheldon Paterson and Erik Laar plus Silent Toronto's Buster Keaton, turntables and sound effects: The early days of cinema redux.
  

Free Mary Pickford screenings

• 12:00pm – Suds, 1920 — Mary Pickford
  
• 2:30pm – Through the Back Door, 1921 — Mary Pickford
  
• 4:30pm – My Best Girl, 1927 — Mary Pickford

The Mary Pickford: The Invention of the Movie Star, on the 4th-floor in the Canadian Film Gallery runs free from January 13 to July 3, 2011.

See you there!
#TOfilmfest

PS.
For families with children, Lightbox is also bringing back Bibi Blocksberg (2002, Germany; previously screened for Halloween), and Singin' in the Dark hosted by Shawn Hitchins (presented during the 2010 Nuit Blanche celebration).

Sat.02/Oct: Nuit Blanche film-fest events

Toronto's annual sunset-to-sunrise contemporary art celebration Nuit Blanche returns this Saturday (October 2nd, 2010), with a number of film-fest related events:

• The Essential Cinema
  
  The 100 films that represent the "best" and the "most influential" works of all time – filling a gallery with iconic objects, images and video clips that mark these achievements and their ripple-effect through the history of cinema and world culture.
  Two of Canada's greatest living filmmakers contribute new media art projects that dig deeper. Atom Egoyan explores the unusual relationship between the viewer and the screen with 8 ½ Screens, while Guy Maddin's Hauntings I and Hauntings II re-imagines the lost work of master filmmakers to produce the ghosts of cinema's past.
  
  
• Arcadian Renaissance
  
  Remember the days of darkened arcades, bleeps and bloops in the dark? Remember being wrapped in a cocoon of sound and light, transported to another reality with a button under one hand and a joystick in the other? For some, it was a cultural blip. For others, utterly formative. The Indie games community is made up of the latter.
  
  Working solo or in tiny teams with an experimental and creatively singular approach, artists make the simple and engaging games that turned them on to the potential of a medium. For Nuit Blanche, the videogame culture collective Hand Eye Society is presenting several new arcade-style games by Toronto gamemakers in the classic stand-up arcade cabinet context they were meant to be played. For one night, regain the lost feeling of what it felt like to play games in public, without losing any quarters.
  
  Here are the games presented (click for info/download):
  
  
  
  
  And, here's a video, from the exhibit, at Lightbox:
  
  
  
  
• A Girl and a Camera /
  A Girl and a Gun
  
  SUNSET TO 1:00AM: The first female director, producer and studio owner, cinema pioneer Alice Guy Blaché's keen sense of storytelling helped the cinema evolve from documentary actualités into an intricate narrative art form. The films on display also demonstrate her pioneering broaching of sexual and political issues and her remarkable formal experimentation.
  AFTER 1:00AM: The Toronto premiere of Austrian montage master Gustav Deutsch's "Film Ist: A Girl and a Gun", compiling archival footage from the first four decades of film history into a carnal celebration of the quasi-supernatural energy of erotic desire and a dark rumination on the battle of the sexes, set to a spectral score by electronic icons Christian Fennesz, Martin Siewert and Burkhard Stangl.
  [Mature content, suitable for audiences 18+]
  
  
• Singin' in the Dark
  
  The tunes you remember, from the movies you can’t forget.
  7:00PM-MIDNIGHT: Join us and a special on-stage host for a riotous sing-along featuring hit tunes from movie musicals. [Suitable for all ages.]
  AFTER MIDNIGHT: As the night gets later, the movies get darker and the songs get... surprising! [Suggested for mature audiences.]
  
  
  
  
• Grindbox!
  
  A tribute to the beloved American institution of the grindhouse – a term for theatres that mainly showed exploitation films, named after the defunct burlesque theaters located on New York City's 42nd Street where "bump n' grind" dancing and striptease were featured – this presentation of vintage trailers for horror and exploitation films from around the world is a cinematic celebration of the weird, the wild and the wonderful, balanced on the border between art and trash. Curated by Midnight Madness programmer Colin Geddes.
  [Mature content, suitable for audiences 18+]
  

Night Navigator App
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See you at Nuit Blanche! ;-)
#TOfilmfest