TIFF 2014: Short Cuts Canada Program 2 Reviews

The deeper meaning of human interaction and personal relationships seems to be the unifying concept behind the shorts in this year’s second, Quebec filmmaker heavy Short Cuts Canada package. In the best of the shorts, Elizabeth Lazebnik’s Russian language meditation Liompa, an old man on his death bed realizes that not only will be not […]

TIFF 2014 Interview: Colin Geddes

It’s a sweltering late July afternoon, but I’m still sitting down over a cup of warm tea at Canteen in the lobby of the TIFF Bell Lightbox and talking to Colin Geddes the day after most of his choices for the heavily watched and buzzed about Midnight Madness and Vanguard sections had been announced. (Really […]

TIFF 2014: Infinitely Polar Bear Review

Infinitely Polar Bear Gala Although somewhat awkwardly mounted by first time director Maya Forbes, her retelling of her own childhood with a bipolar father in late 70s Boston holds a wealth of empathy and emotion that more than makes up for any technical shortcomings. Not long after suffering a severe manic episode, Cameron (one of […]

SummerWorks 2014: The Water Thief Review

The Water Thief Juried Series A hauntingly clever blend of cinema, live musical accompaniment, and movement, there’s nothing else quite like The Water Thief at this year’s festival. Wordless, fantastical, and existential, this story of an old man in a coastal community that finds his final remaining days on Earth haunted by ghosts from the […]

SummerWorks 2014: Unintentionally Depressing Children’s Tales

Unintentionally Depressing Children’s Tales Juried Series Definitely not for kids, but not as “depressing” as the title suggests, writer Erin Fleck and director Maya Rabinovitch’s whimsically staged telling of four fractured fairy tales with melancholic undertones blends stage reading and gorgeous puppetry beneath a cozy, elaborate blanket fort with the audience gathered around on the […]

This Week at The Bloor: 8/8/14

Three vastly different, but good films open at The Bloor this week. The entertaining expose An Honest Liar, a look at the stigma of addiction in The Anonymous People, and the emotional, personal, and impressionistic Elena.

Home Entertainment Review: Oculus

Oculus (Mike Flanagan, 2014) – It can be a hard thing for a critic to admit, but sometimes we can be wrong. I’m having a hard time remembering a movie I was as wrong about as I was with Oculus, though. When I first watched it several months ago at the Toronto International Film Festival (while […]

Home Entertainment Review: Kingdom Come

Kingdom Come (Paiman Kalayeh, John Lyons Murphy, 2012) – I’ve been recently working on writing a piece about questions you should never ask at a Q&A following a screening at a film festival. One of those questions is “Was it a struggle to get this film made?” I say you shouldn’t ask that not because […]

Home Entertainment Review: Discopath

Discopath (Renaud Gauthier, 2013) – For most people, hearing disco music pumping through the speakers inspires most people to get up, boogie and dance the night away or giggle and remember how silly the 70s were…most people that is.  Discopath is blood spattered ode to the giallo and indie horror of the 1970’s and early […]

Films in Brief: 7/25/14

The low key thriller The Privileged and the food advocacy documentary GMO OMG return to the city after a festival screening and a previous engagement, respectively. One isn’t very good, one is unconscionably terrible.

This Week at The Bloor: 7/25/14

This week at The Bloor, looks at music therapy for Alzheimer’s patients in the uneven, but moving Alive Inside and a rallying cry against the rich American right wing in Citizen Koch.

Interview: Sara Driver

We talk to filmmaker Sara Driver on the eve of a TIFF Bell Lightbox retrospective of her work about her influences, ghosts that have stayed with her, and what working in New York City used to be like.

TIFF Announces First of Many 2014 Selections

TIFF didn’t announce an opening night film alongside today’s announcements of Galas and Special Presentations for their 2014 festival this September, but they announced plenty to get people excited for the event.

Shorts Weather

Beat the heat with some shorts as the Shorts That Are Not Pants screening series returns to the Carlton in Toronto this Thursday.