All those other Toronto film festivals in September Toronto Urban Film Festival
Staging a cinematic event during TIFF can either be considered foolhardy or seizing the moment
It may seem like a courageous — and potentially foolhardy — idea to stage any kind of cinematic event while the Toronto International Film Festival is thoroughly dominating our cultural landscape. Then again, there are surely some benefits of braving the chaos when the city is so stuffed with busy industry folk and viewers eager to see just about anything and everything on offer.
An annual showcase and talent incubator for Caribbean filmmakers and their work, Caribbean-Tales is one of several fests running in tandem with TIFF over the next two weeks — given that the CTFF is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, perhaps the strategy isn’t so crazy after all.
The CTFF launches its slate of screenings at the Royal on Wednesday at 8 p.m. with Pan! Our Musical Odyssey, a suitably percussive new doc about the pan drum’s development in Trinidad and Tobago. The program further expresses its musical bent with a screening of Lee Scratch Perry’s Vision of Paradise (Sept. 17 at 9:25 p.m.), a recent primer on the legendary eccentric master of dub reggae. Many more features, docs and shorts play the Royal through to Sept. 19, when the CTFF wraps up with a LGBTQ-themed program that includes Mala Mala, a portrait of nine members of the trans community in Puerto Rico. Another event that proves there is no escape from movies in September, TUFF returns for its annual takeover of the TTC’s hundreds of subwayplatform screens.
Billed as North America’s largest commuter film festival, TUFF presents silent minute-long films, videos and animated works by remarkably time-conscious artists from all over the world. In addition to the TTC exposure, TUFF selections can also be seen on the Pattison Onestop network of screens in over 40 Canadian shopping centres and on the 60-foot video billboard at Yonge and Edward. (More prosaically, they can also be seen on TUFF’s website.) Awards for the best in the fest will be determined by voters and a jury led by guest judge Patricia Rozema. TUFF runs Sept. 12-20. Toronto Independent Film Festival Meanwhile at the Carlton, makers of micro-budget and no-budget films find a haven at a scrappy event known as the Toronto Indie (which makes for a catchier and possibly less litigious name than the more obvious acronym).
The sixth annual edition launches Thursday at 6 p.m. with Us, a new Canadian comedy that blends animation and live action to tell the tale of old friends reuniting for a blowout. New American titles at the Toronto Indie include Girl on the Edge, a teen drama written by Blue Valentine cowriter Joey Curtis and starring Peter Coyote, Gil Burrows and the late Elizabeth Pena in one of her final roles — it plays Sept. 12 at 9:15 p.m. The Toronto Indie’s array of features, docs, shorts and music videos continues to Sept. 19.
See film-fest.ca for schedule and more info. The Situated Cinema And finally, in what may be the most unique event running in parallel to TIFF, the local experimental media arts group Pleasure Dome celebrates its own 25th anniversary by inviting viewers into the Situated Cinema, a portable theatre that will travel to three different locations around town, including TIFF’s own Festival Street. Curious viewers can enter the specially designed and fabricated structure at the corner of King and Peter (Thursday to Sept. 13), the 8-11 Gallery (Sept. 14-16) and Artscape Youngplace (Sept. 17-20). Once inside the microcinema, they can behold pilgrimage, a new four-minute experimental 16 mm film loop by Halifax filmmaker Solomon Nagler — who also cocreated the cinema — and his regular collaborator Alexandre Larose.
That is way cooler than watching Netflix on your phone. The Journey Home A determined boy mounts a quest to reunite a polar bear cub with its mother in the Canadian north in The Journey Home, a family-friendly adventure film that debuted on the festival circuit last year under its original title of Midnight Sun. ER’s Goran Visnjic and Bridget Moynahan appear as two of the non-child/non-bear characters in the latest feature by Ottawa-born director Roger Spottiswoode.
The Journey Home opens Friday in Toronto. In brief
The one and only Miss Ross logs some serious screen time during the Carlton’s four-flick Motown Film Festival on Saturday and Sunday — admission is free but donations go to support the Toronto Star Fresh Air Fund.
A true-life tale of killerclub kids, Party Monsters plays the Revue’s Art for Eternity program on Thursday at 9 p.m.
The AIDS Walk for Life presents a drag-tastic double-feature fundraiser at the Carlton on Thursday with The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert at 7 p.m. and Kinky Boots at 9 p.m.
Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window plays free screenings at select Cineplex theatres as part of the Classic Film Series on Sept. 13 and 21. Projections returns Sept. 25, after a TIFF break. Email: jandersonesque@gmail.com