Images Festival takes over the town
Two docs being shown here have already earned acclaim on the international circuit
Daring docs at Images: The Images Festival heads into high gear this weekend with screenings, exhibitions and performances all over town. Especially notable are the Toronto premieres of two audacious docs that earned acclaim elsewhere on the international fest circuit. Screening Wednesday at 4 p.m. as one of Images’ many “happenings” at Chinatown Centre Mall, The Iron Ministry is the latest by J.P. Sniadecki, a director who’s part of the Harvard University team behind such “sensory ethnographic” docs as Foreign Parts and People’s Park. Filmed over three years, his new film offers indelible views of China’s ongoing transformation as work continues on what will be the world’s largest railway network.
On April 17 at 8 p.m. at AGO’s Jackman Hall, Images presents Storm Children (Book One), the first in a planned series of documentaries by Filipino master Lav Diaz about the aftermath of the 2013 typhoon that killed more than 6,000 people and displaced millions in the Philippines. Using his signature very-long-take style, Diaz is less interested in the woes of the affected communities than the resilience displayed by its youngest members as they turn this zone of devastation into a place for play and exploration. Images continues to April 18. Lost Soul: Tales of film productions that fly off the rails are irresistible to movie nerds and the one in a new documentary is especially wild. Presented at Rue Morgue magazine’s monthly CineMacabre Movie Nights at the Royal, Lost Soul delves into the history of one of the most critically savaged flops of the 1990s: the 1996 adaptation of H.G. Wells’ science-fiction classic, The Island of Dr. Moreau.
As David Gregory’s doc reveals, the film had been a dream project for its original writer-director, rising genre filmmaker Richard Stanley. Had the production retained its initially modest scale, it might’ve yielded another cult hit along the lines of Stanley’s 1990 breakout Hardware.
Instead, New Line Studios pushed for bigger names, thereby increasing the budget and the headaches for Stanley. Marlon Brando was cast as Dr. Moreau, the enigmatic scientist who has filled a remote island with a community of animal-human hybrids. Toting an ego that was just as vast as his legendary co-star, Val Kilmer was to play Moreau’s nemesis but switched roles not long before production when he complained of having to work too hard.
Even before Brando arrived and began living up to his reputation for on-set eccentricity (and boy, did he ever), the situation at the set in northern Australia had deteriorated to the point that Stanley was fired only a few days into shooting. He was replaced by John Frankenheimer, which proves to be just one more weird turn in a lurid saga of power struggles, hurricanes and hard-partying extras. Stanley’s talk of warlocks and hexes seems entirely par for the course. Ready to share yet more stories of this true-life disaster movie, David Gregory participates in a Skype Q&A after the screening on Thursday at 9:30 p.m. Toronto Silent Film Festival: Toronto’s annual extravaganza of silent cinema continues with screenings all over town to Tuesday. Among the highlights is a lecture by historian and accompanist Ben Model on silent comedians’ manipulation of film speeds at the Royal on Saturday at 1 p.m. — it’s followed by a screening of Harold Lloyd’s 1923 hit Safety Last! Casa Loma once again serves as a suitably old-timey venue for 1920s The Penalty, a Lon Chaney crime thriller that plays Monday at 8 p.m. The TSFF wraps up at Innis Town Hall with Erich von Stroheim’s 1919 feature debut Blind Husbands on Tuesday at 7 p.m. Feminist Porn Awards: Founded in 2006 by local adult store Good for Her as a celebration of screen erotica that defies the stereotypes and conventions of mainstream pornography, the Feminist Porn Awards presents its 10th edition of superior smut Wednesday to April 17. Events include a spotlight on director Erika Lust and a suitably steamy selection of shorts at the Royal on Wednesday at 7 p.m. and a program of clips from nominated films at the Bloor on Thursday at 9:30 p.m. The gala event follows on April 17 at the Capitol, a midtown venue that has rarely seemed saucier. Dial M for Murder: Alfred Hitchcock’s sole foray into stereoscopic cinema, Dial M for Murder, returns to the Lightbox as part of TIFF Cinematheque’s spring season of archival essentials. A restoration of Hitchcock’s 1954 thriller — starring Grace Kelly as a woman who evades a hired killer thanks to a handy pair of scissors — plays Tuesday to April 21. jandersonesque@gmail.com