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Cinéfranco 2011

by James McNally on March 20, 2011

in Cinéfranco,Film Festivals

Cinéfranco 2011

Cinéfranco is Toronto’s fest­ival of films in the French lan­guage. The 14th annual fest­ival takes place for the very first time at the TIFF Bell Lightbox (with addi­tional screen­ings at the NFB Mediatheque) from March 25th through April 3rd, fea­turing films from all over the French-speaking world, with selec­tions from France, Canada (Québec, Ontario, and New Brunswick), Algeria, Morocco, Belgium, and Switzerland. All films are sub­titled in English, and tickets are avail­able at the cinema for $12 each.

This year’s fest­ival will screen 27 fea­tures, 7 doc­u­ment­aries and 10 shorts. There will also be a series of debates on various topics, and a master class with Moroccan film­maker Driss Chouika. I’ve been a big fan of this well-run fest­ival for the past sev­eral years and it def­in­itely gives you a sense of the breadth of fran­co­phone cinema. Watch for some reviews in the weeks to come and def­in­itely check out the Cinéfranco site for the schedule and a descrip­tion of the films.

Tagged as: #cinefranco11, algeria, belgium, france, morocco, quebec, switzerland

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European Union Film Festival 2010

by James McNally on November 14, 2010

in Film Festivals

European Union Film Festival 2010

Finally ditching the goofy name (it was pre­vi­ously known as the Eh! U European Film Festival), the European Union Film Festival returns for its sixth edi­tion from November 18th through the 30th at the Royal Cinema. Featuring 21 films from 21 European coun­tries, the fest­ival offers free admis­sion to all films thanks to the sup­port of the various con­su­lates who coordinate the fest­ival each year.

What I love most about this fest­ival, other than the free tickets, is its demo­cratic nature. Each country may only be rep­res­ented by one film, so the usual behemoths of European cinema (France, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Spain) are on a level playing field with the smaller coun­tries (Cyprus, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovenia) whose cinema we rarely get a chance to see. Last year fea­tured six films that were offi­cial sub­mis­sions for the Best Foreign Film Award at the Oscars, and although this year fea­tures fewer high-profile films, it prom­ises more dis­cov­eries. Not many of these films have played yet in Toronto, and most likely won’t return, so don’t miss your chance to see what’s hap­pening in some of the less glam­orous corners of European cinema. The price is cer­tainly right. Here are a few highlights:

Les Barons

Thursday November 18, 8:30pm — Les Barons (Belgium, 2009, Director: Nabil Ben Yadir): A group of working-class bud­dies in a Brussels neigh­bour­hood cel­eb­rate idle­ness and the good life, des­pite the dis­ap­proval of the older gen­er­a­tion. I missed this when it played at CineFranco earlier this year, but it looks like a charming comedy set amongst the north African com­munity in the New Europe.

Disco and Atomic War

Saturday November 20, 6:00pm — Disco and Atomic War (Estonia, 2009, Director: Jaak Kilmi): This doc­u­mentary played at Hot Docs this past spring and I’ve heard great things. It’s a slyly comic essay film that explores the hypo­thesis that Finnish TV broad­casts of American shows that reached Estonia during the 1980s helped bring down the Communist system of the USSR.

Landscape No. 2

Thursday November 25, 6:00pm — Landscape No. 2 (Slovenia, 2008, Director: Vinko Möderndorfer): A simple art theft turns into some­thing more sin­ister when the burg­lars also steal a valu­able doc­u­ment from the end of World War II. This was Slovenia’s Oscar sub­mis­sion for 2009.

Be sure to explore the fest­ival web site for more inform­a­tion. The best way to show that Toronto appre­ci­ates European film is to make an effort to see it. Free admis­sion means you have no excuse!

Tagged as: #euff10, belgium, estonia, europeanfilmfestival, slovenia

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Cinéfranco 2010

by James McNally on March 23, 2010

in Cinéfranco,Film Festivals

Cinéfranco 2010

Cinéfranco is Toronto’s fest­ival of films in the French lan­guage. The 13th annual fest­ival runs from March 26th through April 3rd at the AMC Yonge and Dundas Cinemas, fea­turing films from all over the French-speaking world, with films from France, Québec, Ontario, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Switzerland. All films are sub­titled in English, and tickets are avail­able at the cinema for $10 each.

This year’s fest­ival will screen 30 fea­tures and 10 shorts with a spe­cial focus on films from Switzerland. In addi­tion, the Opening Night Film, Le Divan du Monde (Everybody’s Couch), is the first fic­tional fea­ture by a fran­co­phone Ontarian dir­ector in more than 20 years.

Tagged as: #cinefranco10, belgium, cinefranco, france, luxembourg, quebec, switzerland

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Eh! U European Film Festival 2009

by James McNally on October 28, 2009

in Film Festivals

Eh! U European Film Festival 2009

Now in its fifth edi­tion, the Eh! U European Film Festival seems to be really hit­ting its stride. Billing itself as “the free film fest­ival” (since all screen­ings are sub­sid­ized by the various European con­su­lates), this two-week fest­ival is really a gift to the city’s cinephiles. This year fea­tures 26 films from 23 coun­tries, and among them are no fewer than six sub­mis­sions for the Foreign Language Academy Award. I’ll high­light those six, but be sure to check the fest­ival site for others, as well as the schedule. Screenings mostly take place at the Royal Cinema, with the excep­tions of the opening night film, The Karamazovs (Czech Republic) which plays at the Bloor Cinema, and the closing film, El Greco (Greece) which will screen at the Varsity. In addi­tion to the high-profile films listed below, I can per­son­ally recom­mend an older film from Belgium in the pro­gramme, The Alzheimer Case (review), which screened at TIFF back in 2004.

The fol­lowing are offi­cial sub­mis­sions by their coun­tries for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film:

P.S. For the curious, here’s the com­plete list of sub­mis­sions for Best Foreign Language Film.

Tagged as: #euff09, austria, belgium, bulgaria, europeanfilmfestival, france, germany, netherlands, romania

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TIFF 2009: Preliminaries, Part 3

by James McNally on August 26, 2009

in Film Festivals,TIFF

Today the full schedule was announced and I picked up my TIFF pro­gramme book. There are way more films than I’ll be able to see, but here are a few more that I’m hoping not to miss:

Mr. Nobody

Mr. Nobody (Director: Jaco van Dormael): No recently announced film had me more excited than this one. Jaco van Dormael dir­ected the incred­ible Toto le héros (1991) but has taken a very long sab­bat­ical from film­making. This film, his first in 13 years, seems remin­is­cent of Toto, which makes me very happy indeed. Jared Leto plays Nemo, at 120 the oldest living man in the year 2092. He’s also the last mortal, since advances in stem-cell tech­no­logy means nobody has to die any­more. But Nemo is dying, and coming to terms with a life­time of memories, not all of which can be real. Or can they?

Official site of the film (French)

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Dogtooth (Kynodontas)

Dogtooth (Kynodontas) (Director: Giorgos Lanthimos): A family where the teen­aged chil­dren are not allowed to leave the house, are taught the wrong words for everything, and are sexu­ally “relieved” occa­sion­ally by one of their father’s employees? This sounds like a social exper­i­ment gone wild, and the reviews from Cannes were puzzled but pos­itive. It’s some kind of satire, prob­ably about the fear of sex as a corrupting/liberating force, but the stills I’ve seen (and that poster!) have me curious just to look at it. Note: The embedded trailer below is not work-safe. There is some brief nudity.

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Hiroshima

Hiroshima (Director: Pablo Stoll): From the co-director of Whisky (2004) comes a “(mostly) silent musical” about the director’s brother Juan, who is unable to com­mu­nicate except through his music. As lead singer of a band, Juan has oppor­tun­ities to express him­self, but without music, finds him­self cut off from the world and people around him. This prom­ises to be quite moving, since Stoll’s long­time co-director Juan Pablo Rebello took his own life in 2006 and the film is being talked about as a tribute of sorts to him. The descrip­tion doesn’t quite make clear whether Juan Stoll is acting or just playing him­self, which adds another layer of poignancy to the story.

Tagged as: #tiff09, belgium, greece, uruguay

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