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TIFF Celebrate Nuit Blanche and Culture Days

It's that time of year again in Toronto. Well that second other time of the year. The TIFF Festival is done, however the greatest city in the world doesn't just simply stop after the festival. Right around the corner we have Nuit Blanche and Culture Days. A time when the city embraces it's cultural soul while also turning into an all-night Art Gallery.

The folks at TIFF are not staying out of it by offering a great program of events.

Oh Look! A Press Release:

TIFF CELEBRATES NUIT BLANCHE AND CULTURE DAYS

Toronto â€" On October 1 from 7:00 pm â€" 7:00 am TIFF Bell Lightbox will take part in the City of Toronto’s 6th annual Scotiabank Nuit Blanche with an action-packed all-nighter of interactive programming that will have visitors of all ages singing, acting, making music and seeing Toronto in a whole new way. To celebrate Culture Days on October 1 and 2, TIFF presents a full weekend of interactive activities at TIFF Bell Lightbox from 11:30 am â€" 3:30 pm a with a variety of activity stations.

Scotiabank Nuit Blanche activities include:

  • The Movie Studio Playhouse: A collaboration between TIFF and the Canadian Film Center Media Lab, the Movie Studio Playhouse is an interactive installation that allows participants to make and play with moving image stories in real time. As participants act in spontaneously-created films, the images they create will be projected live onto various surfaces at TIFF Bell Lightbox . VJs will then mix, manipulate, mash, and multiply these live video streams and turn them into moving digital paintings.
    Drop-in, runs from 7:00 pm â€" 7:00 am
  • The Royal Canadian Chiptunes Orchestra: TIFF's all-night salute to the music of the video game kicks off with exciting performances by the Royal Canadian Chiptunes Orchestra playing on custom-hacked Gameboys and homemade circuit-based instruments. In addition, a thrilling line-up of top chiptunes artists will fill the giant stage and screen of TIFF Bell Lightbox's Cinema 1 to the brim with bits, bytes, and beats as a mix of live music and scheduled sessions of giant-screen video games come together on stage.
    Runs from 7:00 pm â€" 7:00 am
  • Singin’ in the Dark: ’80s Edition: Visitors will have the time of their life as stand-up/cabaret artist/professional ginger Shawn Hitchins hosts a full night of sing-alongs to ’80s classics like Fame, Footloose, Flashdance and Dirty Dancing.

Show begins every hour, on the hour from 7:00 pm

  • Man With A Movie Camera: Local artist Darren Copeland performs a live digital re-scoring of Dziga Vertov’s iconic city symphony, setting Vertov’s kaleidoscopic depiction of bustling 1920s Russia against the sounds of Toronto circa 2011.
    Live performances at 7:00 pm, 10:00 pm, 1:00 am and 4:00 am. Recorded performances at 8:30 pm, 11:30 pm, 2:30 am and 5:30 am

Culture Days activities include:

 

  • Be in the Scene:  offers visitors the opportunity to immerse themselves in some stunning film scenes through the magic of green screen technology.
  • Buttonography:  visitors become their very own buttonographers by capturing a film scene of their choice on a button and having it made on site.
  •  Wonders and Wardrobes:  a fun costume activity that will get visitors ready for the paparazzi .

TIFF is generously supported by Lead Sponsor Bell, Major Sponsors RBC and BlackBerry, and Major Supporters the Government of Canada, the Government of Ontario, and the City of Toronto.

 

About TIFF
TIFF is a charitable cultural organization whose mission is to transform the way people see the world through film. An international leader in film culture, TIFF projects include the annual Toronto International Film Festival in September; TIFF Bell Lightbox, which features five cinemas, major exhibitions, and learning and entertainment facilities; and innovative national distribution program Film Circuit. The organization generates an annual economic impact of $170 million CAD. TIFF Bell Lightbox is generously supported by contributors including Founding Sponsor Bell, the Province of Ontario, the Government of Canada, the City of Toronto, the Reitman family  (Ivan Reitman, Agi Mandel and Susan Michaels ), The Daniels Corporation, Major Sponsor and official bank RBC, Major Sponsor BlackBerry and Visa†. For more information, visit tiff.net.

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TIFF Celebrate Nuit Blanche and Culture Days

It's that time of year again in Toronto. Well that second other time of the year. The TIFF Festival is done, however the greatest city in the world doesn't just simply stop after the festival. Right around the corner we have Nuit Blanche and Culture Days. A time when the city embraces it's cultural soul while also turning into an all-night Art Gallery.

The folks at TIFF are not staying out of it by offering a great program of events.

Oh Look! A Press Release:

TIFF CELEBRATES NUIT BLANCHE AND CULTURE DAYS

Toronto â€" On October 1 from 7:00 pm â€" 7:00 am TIFF Bell Lightbox will take part in the City of Toronto’s 6th annual Scotiabank Nuit Blanche with an action-packed all-nighter of interactive programming that will have visitors of all ages singing, acting, making music and seeing Toronto in a whole new way. To celebrate Culture Days on October 1 and 2, TIFF presents a full weekend of interactive activities at TIFF Bell Lightbox from 11:30 am â€" 3:30 pm a with a variety of activity stations.

Scotiabank Nuit Blanche activities include:

  • The Movie Studio Playhouse: A collaboration between TIFF and the Canadian Film Center Media Lab, the Movie Studio Playhouse is an interactive installation that allows participants to make and play with moving image stories in real time. As participants act in spontaneously-created films, the images they create will be projected live onto various surfaces at TIFF Bell Lightbox . VJs will then mix, manipulate, mash, and multiply these live video streams and turn them into moving digital paintings.
    Drop-in, runs from 7:00 pm â€" 7:00 am
  • The Royal Canadian Chiptunes Orchestra: TIFF's all-night salute to the music of the video game kicks off with exciting performances by the Royal Canadian Chiptunes Orchestra playing on custom-hacked Gameboys and homemade circuit-based instruments. In addition, a thrilling line-up of top chiptunes artists will fill the giant stage and screen of TIFF Bell Lightbox's Cinema 1 to the brim with bits, bytes, and beats as a mix of live music and scheduled sessions of giant-screen video games come together on stage.
    Runs from 7:00 pm â€" 7:00 am
  • Singin’ in the Dark: ’80s Edition: Visitors will have the time of their life as stand-up/cabaret artist/professional ginger Shawn Hitchins hosts a full night of sing-alongs to ’80s classics like Fame, Footloose, Flashdance and Dirty Dancing.

Show begins every hour, on the hour from 7:00 pm

  • Man With A Movie Camera: Local artist Darren Copeland performs a live digital re-scoring of Dziga Vertov’s iconic city symphony, setting Vertov’s kaleidoscopic depiction of bustling 1920s Russia against the sounds of Toronto circa 2011.
    Live performances at 7:00 pm, 10:00 pm, 1:00 am and 4:00 am. Recorded performances at 8:30 pm, 11:30 pm, 2:30 am and 5:30 am

Culture Days activities include:

 

  • Be in the Scene:  offers visitors the opportunity to immerse themselves in some stunning film scenes through the magic of green screen technology.
  • Buttonography:  visitors become their very own buttonographers by capturing a film scene of their choice on a button and having it made on site.
  •  Wonders and Wardrobes:  a fun costume activity that will get visitors ready for the paparazzi .

TIFF is generously supported by Lead Sponsor Bell, Major Sponsors RBC and BlackBerry, and Major Supporters the Government of Canada, the Government of Ontario, and the City of Toronto.

 

About TIFF
TIFF is a charitable cultural organization whose mission is to transform the way people see the world through film. An international leader in film culture, TIFF projects include the annual Toronto International Film Festival in September; TIFF Bell Lightbox, which features five cinemas, major exhibitions, and learning and entertainment facilities; and innovative national distribution program Film Circuit. The organization generates an annual economic impact of $170 million CAD. TIFF Bell Lightbox is generously supported by contributors including Founding Sponsor Bell, the Province of Ontario, the Government of Canada, the City of Toronto, the Reitman family  (Ivan Reitman, Agi Mandel and Susan Michaels ), The Daniels Corporation, Major Sponsor and official bank RBC, Major Sponsor BlackBerry and Visa†. For more information, visit tiff.net.

-30-

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Xavierpop's MovieJay runs down his picks for #TIFF11

When the morning air gets that familiar autumn crisp, for movie-lovers in Toronto, that can only signal one thing: the start of the good movie season. A time where sequels and TV remakes give way to more thoughtful movies, many of which will premiere at the most important film festival on the planet for movies - the Toronto International Film Festival.

Over 300 feature films will play over 11 days during this, the 36th edition of the festival, (and my 17th personally).

My first TIFF movie?

"Leaving Las Vegas" at Roy Thomson Hall. That's when TIFF showed movies on a dozen screens. Just two years later I saw "Life Is Beautiful" at the magnificent Elgin Theatre. Within a couple of years after the Elgin opened for TIFF movies, the Varsity Cinemas expanded and became the home of press/industry screenings while the multiplex Scotiabank Theaters entered the fray along with the Isabel Bader Theatre. This year the Prince ss of Wales Theatre has been tapped to open several big opening-weekend movies, adding more lustre to an already huge and exciting ten day extravaganza.

Like most festival veterans, I seem to be forever tinkering with my schedule, trying to fit in all the movies I want to see only to get sidetracked when the buzz starts to swell on a particular movie just when I feel like my schedule was settled. I always start with looking at the director vs the actor and then just grow my list from there as various factors come into play.

So after all my research/frustration/enjoyment, I now give you my movies to look for this year, all of which I can't wait to see and will write more about on our sister site http://xavierpopdoestiff.com as the festival gets going this Thursday:

Probably the most anticipated film of the festival is Drive, and it's also an exception to the rule I just wrote about for selecting movies as director Nicolas Winding Refn is coming off of Valhalla Rising, a movie that is presently scoring a 5.8/10 at imdb.com. It stars Ryan Gosling as a Hollywood stunt man and has a lot of hype coming from Cannes as Refn walked away with the directing prize.

Also from Cannes is the Artist about silent-era film star George Valentin starring the French actor Jean Dujardin (who you may remember from last year's wonderful family drama Little White Lies). Dujardin comes to Toronto having taken the actor prize at Cannes.

On the hometown front, Sarah Polley and David Cronenberg are the two heavyweights with their new films Take This Waltz and A Dangerous Method, but look out for my dark horse Philipe Falardeau's Monsieur Lazhar, which is hot off of two big wins at the Locarno festival, Guy Maddin's Keyhole with Jason Patric and Isabella Rosselini and Cafe De Flore, the new drama with warm advance buzz that brings Jean-Marc Vall ee back to the familiar territory we discovered in his 2006 festival hit C.R.A.Z.Y.

Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road, Bug) is an expert at portraying disturbed men and Take Shelter is being talked-up as his best performance yet, his time in another small-town southern drama from the director of the powerful Shotgun Stories (which also starred Shannon as the eldest brother on one side of a bitter family feud).

Albert Nobbs is no ordinary butler in a movie where Glenn Close appears to have the early lead among the lady thesps for Oscar gold. Directed by Rodrigo Garcia, who made the wonderful Nine Lives and last year's Mother & Child, (one of the most unfairly neglected films of 2010). Garcia specializes in humanist movies that depend on the attention paid to his characters, particularly women, so it's no surprise that Close's performance here is being hyped as one of her very best.

Steve McQueen scored a huge hit a couple years back with the intense prison-strike film Hunger and his new film Shame is about to put him on the A-list. Opening to rave reviews at Telluride over Labor Day weekend, Shame stars Michael Fassbender as a sex addict.

Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud were the directing team that brought us the inspired tale based on Satrapi's younger life and portrayed unforgettably in the animated Persepolis in 2007. They're back with their second feature Chicken With Plums, another big Telluride opener that recently scored terrific buzz. I have no idea what the film is about however Persepolis and a warm opening for this new one is enough for me to have it in my schedule.

From Colombia in Maria Full of Grace to Albania in the Forgiveness of Blood, Joshua Marston from California stays in foreign film territory. It isn't about the drug trade so it may not find the audience that Maria had however the Forgiveness of Blood is just as good. Marston is an assured director who involves us so deeply within his characters that the plot becomes secondary to us. Caught this one at a pre-fest screening and it's one of the year's best films, even if it doesn't break through the way Maria did.

The docs I'm looking forward to most are Into the Abyss from Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man, Rescue Dawn, Cave of Forgotten Dreams), a director who has never made an unworthy film; Pina, the modern-dance doc from Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas), and the Last Gladiators from Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side and Client 9 director Alex Gibney.

TIFF runs from Sep. 8-18 this year, and don't worry, if the movie you wish to see is blotted out in red on the big boards, same-day tickets are typically released for over 80% of all films for those who can get to the festival box office well before it's 7 a.m. opening. Barring that, there is always the Rush lineup, where it is advised by me to find yourself about 90 minutes before showtime.

Enjoy the festival and make sure you check us out at xavierpopdoestiff.com for all of the reviews you need for people by people so that we actually understand what is going on.

Posted

Shahid shakes a leg in Mausam!


I am quite excited just thinking about Mausam as it looks like a beautiful love story that was ready to take the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival by storm, until it was announced that its premiere and screenings were being canceled - why? Censorship. Don't ask me! It seems the only thing stopping a film from being released in Bollywood these days is censorship. Oh well!

I am a fan of Shahid Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor. Two young Bollywood starlets, popular and talented in their own right.

Now, I'm not sure whether this love story will play out over all four seasons or OVER DECADES, because Shahid Kapoor is dancing to quite a modern, techno flavored beat while sporting the look of a Pilot from the 1920's, but enough!  This is a Bollywood film, so the love story, the music and the color matter most. Well, at least in this case!

Song Trailer - Mallo Malli

Source: Bollywood Hungama

Posted

Xavierpop's MovieJay runs down his picks for #TIFF11

When the morning air gets that familiar autumn crisp, for movie-lovers in Toronto, that can only signal one thing: the start of the good movie season. A time where sequels and TV remakes give way to more thoughtful movies, many of which will premiere at the most important film festival on the planet for movies - the Toronto International Film Festival.

Over 300 feature films will play over 11 days during this, the 36th edition of the festival, (and my 17th personally).

My first TIFF movie?

"Leaving Las Vegas" at Roy Thomson Hall. That's when TIFF showed movies on a dozen screens. Just two years later I saw "Life Is Beautiful" at the magnificent Elgin Theatre. Within a couple of years after the Elgin opened for TIFF movies, the Varsity Cinemas expanded and became the home of press/industry screenings while the multiplex Scotiabank Theaters entered the fray along with the Isabel Bader Theatre. This year the Prince ss of Wales Theatre has been tapped to open several big opening-weekend movies, adding more lustre to an already huge and exciting ten day extravaganza.

Like most festival veterans, I seem to be forever tinkering with my schedule, trying to fit in all the movies I want to see only to get sidetracked when the buzz starts to swell on a particular movie just when I feel like my schedule was settled. I always start with looking at the director vs the actor and then just grow my list from there as various factors come into play.

So after all my research/frustration/enjoyment, I now give you my movies to look for this year, all of which I can't wait to see and will write more about on our sister site http://xavierpopdoestiff.com as the festival gets going this Thursday:

Probably the most anticipated film of the festival is Drive, and it's also an exception to the rule I just wrote about for selecting movies as director Nicolas Winding Refn is coming off of Valhalla Rising, a movie that is presently scoring a 5.8/10 at imdb.com. It stars Ryan Gosling as a Hollywood stunt man and has a lot of hype coming from Cannes as Refn walked away with the directing prize.

Also from Cannes is the Artist about silent-era film star George Valentin starring the French actor Jean Dujardin (who you may remember from last year's wonderful family drama Little White Lies). Dujardin comes to Toronto having taken the actor prize at Cannes.

On the hometown front, Sarah Polley and David Cronenberg are the two heavyweights with their new films Take This Waltz and A Dangerous Method, but look out for my dark horse Philipe Falardeau's Monsieur Lazhar, which is hot off of two big wins at the Locarno festival, Guy Maddin's Keyhole with Jason Patric and Isabella Rosselini and Cafe De Flore, the new drama with warm advance buzz that brings Jean-Marc Vall ee back to the familiar territory we discovered in his 2006 festival hit C.R.A.Z.Y.

Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road, Bug) is an expert at portraying disturbed men and Take Shelter is being talked-up as his best performance yet, his time in another small-town southern drama from the director of the powerful Shotgun Stories (which also starred Shannon as the eldest brother on one side of a bitter family feud).

Albert Nobbs is no ordinary butler in a movie where Glenn Close appears to have the early lead among the lady thesps for Oscar gold. Directed by Rodrigo Garcia, who made the wonderful Nine Lives and last year's Mother & Child, (one of the most unfairly neglected films of 2010). Garcia specializes in humanist movies that depend on the attention paid to his characters, particularly women, so it's no surprise that Close's performance here is being hyped as one of her very best.

Steve McQueen scored a huge hit a couple years back with the intense prison-strike film Hunger and his new film Shame is about to put him on the A-list. Opening to rave reviews at Telluride over Labor Day weekend, Shame stars Michael Fassbender as a sex addict.

Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud were the directing team that brought us the inspired tale based on Satrapi's younger life and portrayed unforgettably in the animated Persepolis in 2007. They're back with their second feature Chicken With Plums, another big Telluride opener that recently scored terrific buzz. I have no idea what the film is about however Persepolis and a warm opening for this new one is enough for me to have it in my schedule.

From Colombia in Maria Full of Grace to Albania in the Forgiveness of Blood, Joshua Marston from California stays in foreign film territory. It isn't about the drug trade so it may not find the audience that Maria had however the Forgiveness of Blood is just as good. Marston is an assured director who involves us so deeply within his characters that the plot becomes secondary to us. Caught this one at a pre-fest screening and it's one of the year's best films, even if it doesn't break through the way Maria did.

The docs I'm looking forward to most are Into the Abyss from Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man, Rescue Dawn, Cave of Forgotten Dreams), a director who has never made an unworthy film; Pina, the modern-dance doc from Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas), and the Last Gladiators from Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side and Client 9 director Alex Gibney.

TIFF runs from Sep. 8-18 this year, and don't worry, if the movie you wish to see is blotted out in red on the big boards, same-day tickets are typically released for over 80% of all films for those who can get to the festival box office well before it's 7 a.m. opening. Barring that, there is always the Rush lineup, where it is advised by me to find yourself about 90 minutes before showtime.

Enjoy the festival and make sure you check us out at xavierpopdoestiff.com for all of the reviews you need for people by people so that we actually understand what is going on.

Posted

#TIFF11 Festival Announces Free Programming

One of the cool things about TIFF is the free programming  that the festival offer to patrons every year. This year's list is out and of note is Mark Cousins' epic 15-hour documentary The Story of Film.

The question is who is going to stay for the whole thing?

Oh Look! A press release:

Toronto International Film Festival Announces Free Programming

Toronto â€" The 36th Toronto International Film FestivalÃ' today announced its free programming which includes screenings of the World Premiere of Mark Cousins’ epic 15-hour documentary The Story of Film: An Odyssey; Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb’s This is Not a Film â€" a day-in-the-life portrait of filmmaker Jafar Panahi, under house arrest in Iran; and the screening of the winner of the 2011 Cadillac People’s Choice Award. Also open to audiences free of charge is a City to City Panel of filmmakers and programmers exploring the emerging film scene in Buenos Aires as well as a special discussion to accompany the Future Projections installation James Franco and Gus Van Sant: Memories of Idaho.

“The free Festival programming we are presenting honours the Festival’s tradition of celebrating filmmakers and film. Among them the important work of Cousins, Panahi and Mirtahmasb will offer audiences a window into the history and current situation of artists and cinema around the world,” said Piers Handling, Director and CEO, TIFF. “We are happy to be able to offer this access to special screenings and discussions to Festival audiences.”

Free Programming includes:

This is not a Film Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, Iran (Toronto Premiere)

Sentenced to six years in prison and banned from writing and making films for 20 years by the Islamic Republic Court in Tehran, Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi waited for the verdict of his court appeal for months. Through the depiction of a day in his life while he’s on house arrest, Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb (a documentary filmmaker and former assistant director) offer audiences an overview of the current situation of Iranian cinema.

The Story of Film: An Odyssey Mark Cousins, United Kingdom (World Premiere)

Filmed on four continents over six years, this epic 15-hour documentary tells the story of innovation in the movies based on the acclaimed book of the same title by Mark Cousins. Featuring exclusive interviews with legendary filmmakers like Stanley Donen and Abbas Kiarostami, The Story of Film: An Odyssey is a passionate, cinematic journey across 11 decades of cinema, and a thousand films. The film will be screened first in five instalments of three hours each, every morning at 10am from Monday, September 12 to Friday, September 16. On the Festival’s final weekend the film will be screened again: eight hours on Saturday, September 17 and seven hours on Sunday, September 18.

Cadillac People’s Choice Award Winner screening

Once the ballots have been counted, and the winner revealed, the fan favourite film of the Festival will screen on the last day of the Festival â€" Sunday, September 18 â€" at Ryerson Theatre. The winner will be announced that morning.

City to City Panel

Filmmakers whose works are featured in the Festival’s City to City spotlight on Buenos Aires, Festival programmers and industry professionals join together for a lively and interactive discussion of the emerging film scene in Buenos Aires.

A special discussion to accompany James Franco and Gus Van Sant’s Memories of Idaho (1991; 2010 and 2011)

Saturday, September 10 in TIFF Bell Lightbox

In 1991, Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho and its central performance by River Phoenix had an enormous cultural impact, not least on a budding young actor named James Franco (127 Hours, James Dean). Now Franco has collaborated with Van Sant to create Memories of Idaho, a meditation on the seminal film in multiple parts. At the work’s core are two new films, projected sequentially, in a darkened, generic space. The first film, My Own Private River, is a feature-length chronological reassemblage of excised scenes and alternate takes from the original shoot, radically foregrounding Phoenix. The second film, Idaho, comes from one of three scripts Van Sant used to create the original film, its Super-8 texture meant to be a “ghost” of his original conception. Van Sant contributes ghosts of his own, large-format photographs of actual Portland street hustlers who appeared in, and provided inspiration and source material for, the film. Present ed at TIFF Bell Lightbox Atrium, 350 King Street West. September 8 to 18. (*One of the film elements of “Memories of Idaho,” My Own Private River, was previously shown at Gagosian Gallery Los Angeles, February 26 to April 9, 2011.)

Tickets for This is Not a Film, The Story of Film, the Cadillac People’s Choice Award winner and City to City panel will be available on a first-come, first-served basis from the relevant venue box office two hours prior to start of the screening.

Admittance to the Memories of Idaho discussion will be granted on a first-come, first-served basis. Space is limited.

 

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