Festival heralds great female filmmakers
Showcase launches Tuesday with a big bash at the Royal
Founded in 2001 by local filmmaker Leslie Ann Coles, the Female Eye Film Festival has established itself as a valuable counter to the gender bias that prevails in the movie business just as it does in so many industries.
High-minded goals aside, it’s also showcased a whole bunch of great work by female filmmakers and the latest edition is no different.
The festival launches Tuesday with a gala and reception at the Royal — the slate includes the world premiere of Reign, a teen drama by recent Humber College grad Corey Misquita, and an onstage conversation with Lea Pool, the highly esteemed Quebecois filmmaker who’s been named the honorary director of this year’s FEFF.
The program continues with several programs of Canadian and international shorts along with such featurelength works as Lutah (Thursday at 1:30 p.m. at the Small World Theatre), a documentary about underheralded American architect Lutah Maria Riggs.
A new feature by Toronto filmscene stalwart Valerie Buhagiar, The
Anniversary is an alternately caustic and heartfelt drama about a couple whose 20th-anniversary celebration goes way off the rails.
The ever-agile Colin Mochrie and Shaw Festival vet Deborah Hay lead the cast in the FEFF’s closing night selection, which plays the Royal on June 20 at 6 p.m.
Open Roof Festival
Toronto moviegoers will have a bounty of outdoor screening options as summer heads into high gear over the next few weeks. But out of all the choices, the Open Roof Festival may be the most tantalizing thanks to its signature Wednesday-night combo of — to borrow the fest’s favourite hashtag — #moviesmusicbeer. The sixth annual program begins at 99 Sudbury on Wednesday with Kurt
Cobain: Montage of Heck and a live set by Tomi Swick — advance tickets are sold out but a limited quantity will be available when the doors open at 7:30 p.m.
Open Roof Festival continues with a Toronto-heavy slate of films that includes Pretend We’re Kissing (July 22), Guidance (July 29) and Diamond Tongues (Aug. 19).
Niagara Integrated Film Festival
Surely the most aromatic of June’s many film festivals, the NIFF combines screenings with ample opportunities to enjoy the region’s food and wine. The Peller Estates Winery hosts the opening gala event on Thursday. It features the new First World War drama Testament of Youth, with director James Kent in attendance. The program continues to June 21 at a variety of other special venues and includes Canadian premieres for several Sundance breakout titles, including The Diary of a Teenage Girl, Advantageous, The Overnight and People, Places, Things. There’s also a special preview screening of Pixar’s Inside Out at the Landmark Cinemas in the Pen Centre on Friday and a generous serving of foodie-friendly docs.
The Nightmare and The Human Centipede 3
The Royal scores big with horror fans by presenting what is possibly the year’s scariest movie and another that’s probably the most disgusting.
The director of Room 237 — the ingenious doc about the many hidden meanings of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining — Rodney Ascher returns
with The Nightmare, an inquiry into the very freaky and little-understood phenomenon of sleep paralysis.
Fascinating and extremely unnerving, The Nightmare plays the Royal on Sunday and Monday. Then on Thursday at 9:30 p.m.
Rue Morgue magazine’s monthly CineMacabre Movie Nights tests viewers’ thresholds for the sick stuff with the Canadian premiere of The
Human Centipede 3. In case you couldn’t guess, it’s the second sequel to director Tom Six’s instantly infamous horror movie about a diabolical surgeon’s scheme to fashion a whole new creature out of some very unfortunate human victims.
Yes, it will be repulsive. The plus side: there’s a prize giveaway!
More at Toronto Japanese and Italian Contemporary film fests
Local viewers can continue to enjoy new movies from two of the world’s most illustrious film cultures this week. The TJFF continues at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre (6 Garamond St.) with Toronto premieres for such features as Giovanni’s
Island (Saturday at 4:15 p.m.), an animated family film about a friendship between a Japanese boy and a Russian girl, and The Vancouver Asahi (Sunday at 7 p.m.), a period drama about a Japanese-Canadian baseball team that trounces competitors and faces prejudice on the West Coast on the eve of the Second World War. The ICFF delivers recent Italian favourites such as The Chair of Happi
ness, the final comedy by the late director Carlo Mazzacurati — Friday, 9 p.m., at the Colossus in Vaughn and Monday, 7 p.m., at Lightbox.
In brief
á In an exhibition that opens Friday in the Lightbox’s HSBC Gallery, TIFF presents two new 35 mm installation works by British art star Tacita Dean and the team of Daniel Young and Christian Giroux.
á The X-Files’ William B. Davis costars in Focus, a Canadian workplace comedy that plays the Royal on Saturday and Sunday.
á In a special event for National Aboriginal Month, Jesse Wente introduces a free screening of Alanis Obomsawin’s landmark doc Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance at the Lightbox on Saturday at 3:30 p.m.
á A local series devoted to movies that celebrate all that is grrl-y, the MUFF Society presents Josie and the
Pussycats at the Carlton on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
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