Results tagged “tiff2009”

                     

By now, all the red carpets are rolled back up and sitting in a broom closet at the Elgin (or something, wherever they keep them), Clooney's handsome footprints are stored away for another long year, and all the hottest celebs have flown off to resume being glamourous in their own cities. We're sad, kinda, but we'll always have our special memories of another TIFF gone by. And even better/lazier than memories, we have photos! Now that the shots flowing into the Torontoist Flickr Pool have slowed to a safe trickle, we gladly brings you the best (or just the most celeb-y) of the lot. Eat 'em up.

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A veteran of the Toronto theatre scene, playwright and producer trey anthony is best known for turning her one-woman play 'Da Kink in my Hair into an international success story, selling out the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto, as well as shows in London (U.K.) and San Diego. She has earned four Doras and four NAACP awards and created a national television series based on the play. Trey is currently producing her brother's debut play, Secrets of a Black Boy, which opens September 23.

Yesterday, while diehard TIFF-goers were well into their second screenings, Torontoist was getting a preview of the future of the festival: the Bell Lightbox. Spanning the northwest corner of King and John, the enormous 175,000-square-foot space already feels like TIFF Central, despite being at present uniformly grey, dusty, and full of building materials. Artistic Director Noah Cowan, who has encyclopedic knowledge of seemingly every detail of the project, has been shuttling media through for the past few weeks, trying to promote fundraising efforts, which is paying off. After hearing what's in store for the Lightbox, it's no wonder benefactors are coming forward.

Today’s Picks

The TIFF screening of Giuseppe Tornatore's Baarìa on Tuesday night at the Elgin Theatre had all the makings of an incredible film festival premiere: the director was there, and so were his stars; the theatre was packed with excited filmgoers; the popcorn was pretty good—and so, thankfully, was the movie. We're doing our detailed reviews elsewhere, but suffice it to say that Baarìa gets a recommendation. With all that in mind, you might wonder why the crowd let out a long "BOOOOO!" in unison during the programmer's introduction, prior to the film.

This year's edition of TIFF marks the first time in quite a while that the opening film—Creation—isn't a "Toronto film" in some sense. But don't think that that's an indicator the festival has forgotten its hometown roots.

Today’s picks

Today’s Picks

Today’s Picks

MUSIC: The Canadian Music Café is held in conjunction with TIFF every year to help get Canadian music noticed by the international media in Toronto for the festival. This year, fifteen Canadian artists and groups will take to the stage at the Hard Rock Cafe on Yonge Street in hopes of snagging that elusive film deal that will get their music on the big screen and hopefully into viewers' iTunes after the show. Some of the performers are already known names, like Hawksley Workman and Amy Millian (both playing on Thursday), but most of them are more obscure or up-and-comers. Today, Stef Lang, Spiral Beach, Emma-Lee, Winter Gloves, and Jets Overhead will be playing. Hard Rock Cafe (279 Yonge Street), 1–5 p.m. daily until Thursday, FREE.

                            

Ahead of this year's Zombie Walk on October 24, organizers held a "Special Directors Cut Edition" Saturday to celebrate director George Romero—already a Toronto resident—becoming a Canadian citizen, as well as the premiere of his new film, Survival of the Dead. Several hundred zombies gathered in Alexandra Park before the walk, and there was a very un-undead-like buzz of excitement as participants fretted over their torn rags and seeping wounds in anticipation of meeting the cult director at their destination, Yonge-Dundas Square. Organizer Thea Munster warned zombies not to mutter "brains" within earshot of Romero, as his zombies do not speak. However, no one mentioned the half-dozen or so people dressed as security agents from the Umbrella Corporation (a creation of the Resident Evil franchise).

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ART: The University of Toronto Mississauga's Blackwood Gallery has an ambitious exhibition opening today that will explore and explode Sir Issac Newton's law of gravity. In "Fall Out" each of the nine participating artists explore different aspects and interpretations of the notion of falling or falling out. Some of the concepts explored by the artists involve the pulling of one body to another, the "physiological and psychological impact of gravity," and the fallout of actions or epiphanies. In October, "Fall Out" will have a partner, "Fall In," which will premiere with nine more artists responding to the pieces presented in "Fall Out." University of Toronto Mississauga, Blackwood Gallery (3359 Mississauga Road North), 11 a.m.–5 p.m., FREE.

Today's Picks

Today's Picks

Today’s Picks

And so begins that magical time of year when folks in Yorkville are twice as well-dressed and half as nice to you: TIFF! As usual, we'd be pleased as punch if you'd all be such dears as to point your eyes, ears, and digital picture-taking devices in the faces of Hollywood's best and brightest. Did you just see Oprah Winfrey stumble off the patio of Hemingway's? Was that seriously Werner Herzog in a dust-up with Snoop Dogg? Is Michael Moore canoodling with Megan Fox again (the celebrity list is super wacky this year)? Deliver your finest/funniest/dreamiest celebrity encounters to tips@torontoist.com so we can figure out how to best spend our week living the dream of being a well-fed gossip rag.

The Toronto International Film Festival begins tonight with opening-night gala Creation, a controversial choice not because of the subject matter (Charles Darwin) but because it's only the third time a non-Canadian film has opened the festival. Surprising, but Festival Co-director Cameron Bailey stated that they "fell in love with this movie," and we felt it was the one that set the tone to have the kind of conversations they "hope will happen around the film fest."

In an earlier TIFF post, we joked that the film Five Hours From Paris won our award for the "worst summary we've ever seen from TIFF" with: "In a suburb of Tel Aviv, an Israeli cab driver who longs to fly and a Russian music teacher who is soon to board a plane find out that romance is only a cab ride away."

Toronto International Film Festival announcements come thick and fast in the months leading up to the festival each year, and it quickly becomes hard to work out just what’s being announced and why you should care. After all, it’s not until the festival’s been going for a few days and enough buzz has built that you realize that you’ve got tickets for exactly the wrong unheard-of director, or this year’s un-coolest country, or all of the films that Cameron Bailey selected (that last one’s a killer). Yeah, if we could bet on TIFF, I’m sure we’d end up broke—did you foresee Slumdog Millionaire winning everyone’s hearts and minds at Toronto only to go on and nab a ton of Oscars a couple of months before TIFF 2008 even started? If so, you should let us know what your picks are (maybe in the comments? Actually, no, wait, just tell us, the Oscar odds right now must be insane). Anyway, we’re going to try to pick over the announcements so far and work out what’s interesting before we reach the festival, which runs this year from September 10 to 19. Warning, though: we’re going to concentrate on the best-known names because in most cases they’re all we have to hang on to.