SHELDON KENNEDY’S STORY FOCUS OF DOC
Movies at Rendezvous With Madness film festival explore issues of mental health and addiction
Rendezvous With Madness delivers a bruising hit with the Canadian doc that launches its 23rd annual slate of films that explore issues of mental health and addiction. Playing its world premiere on the fest’s opening night on Friday, Swift Current provides a frank account of the sexual and psychological abuse suffered by former NHL player Sheldon Kennedy at the hands of his former coach Graham James.
Nor did Kennedy’s ordeal end with the revelations that rocked the hockey world when the player went public with his story in 1996. The film is just as frank about Kennedy’s efforts to numb his feelings of rage and shame until finally getting sober in 2004.
Though Kennedy’s courage and subsequent work to raise awareness would ultimately have a huge impact on hockey programs, the Penn State scandal suggests that sexual abuse remains an ugly secret in many other corners of the sports world. Swift Current also ventures far beyond the confines of locker rooms by paralleling Kennedy’s experiences with those of two young abuse survivors.
Kennedy and director Joshua Rofé will both attend a Q&A session after Swift Current plays the Bloor on Friday at 7:45 p.m. (It also plays an encore screening on Sunday at 11 a.m. at the Workman Arts Theatre.)
That’s just the first in RWM’s busy program of screenings, talks and other events until Nov. 15. Another must-see in the fest’s first week is Mike Hoolboom’s new short Scrapbook, a mesmerizing film that the Toronto filmmaker crafted out of recently discovered footage of kids at a “development centre” in Ohio in the 1960s. It plays on a program on Sunday at 8 p.m. at the Workman Arts Theatre.
Another doc making its Canadian premiere, An Autobiography of Michelle Maren is a similarly affecting documentary about one American woman’s experiences with mental illness, depression and the porn industry.
Maren — who’s both the film’s subject and its co-director with Michel Negroponte — takes part in a panel discussion after the screening on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.
More picks at Rendezvous With Madness in next week’s Projections.
REEL ASIAN
The annual festival of Asian cinema sure knows how to put on a spread. The bounty of Toronto premieres screening this week at AGO’s Jackman Hall includes such worthies as
The Royal Tailor (Friday at 9:15 p.m.), a visually sumptuous Korean period drama, and Miss Hokusai (Saturday at 9 p.m.), a widely acclaimed anime flick that purports to reveal the truth about the 19th-century artist who’s credited for some of the most iconic images in the history of Japanese art. The Hong Kong crime thriller Port of Call ( Wednesday at 8:45 p.m.) and a tasting-enhanced presentation of the new foodie doc Off the Menu: Asian America (Thursday at 7 p.m.) provide two more reasons to indulge at Reel Asian.
LIZ AND MARILYN AT LIGHTBOX
TIFF Bell Lightbox pays tribute to two of Hollywood’s most iconic leading ladies with a double retro entitled Liz and Marilyn: Black and White in Colour.
The series begins with career-best outings for both of its subjects. Monroe shines as the bewitching if perennially befuddled singer who is wooed by Tony Curtis’s phony millionaire (he also plays her bandmate in drag) in Billy Wilder’s rarely bettered 1959 comedy, Some Like It Hot. It plays Saturday at 2:30 p.m.
Then on Sunday at 6 p.m., Taylor goes for broke as the boozy, combative wife of Richard Burton’s equally volatile prof in Mike Nichols’ ruthless 1966 adaptation of Edward Albee’s
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
The series continues with many more essentials before putting a bow on it on Jan. 7.
INTERNATIONAL DIASPORA FILM FESTIVAL
A showcase of worthy international titles that includes several Toronto premieres, the IDFF returns to the Carlton for its 15th annual edition until Sunday.
Though a good many selections reflect the festival’s focus on the Iranian diaspora, the program is also sufficiently diverse to include The Waiting Room (Saturday at 5:20 p.m.), local director Igor Drljaca’s precisely rendered character study about a Bosnian actor coping with the after-effects of war while trying to make a new life in Toronto, and Anywhere Else (Sunday), a family drama by Berlin-based Israeli director Ester Amrami. The IDFF wraps up on Sunday at 8:30 p.m. with Fifi Howls From Happiness, a doc profile of Iranian artist Bahman Mohassess.
TORONTO SOUTH AFRICAN FILM FESTIVAL
Because four film festivals on one weekend in November just isn’t enough, the TSAFF takes over the Bloor for two days of strong docs and features from South Africa. Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony (Saturday at 1 p.m.) is a powerful primer on the role of music in the struggle against apartheid. Just as strong is Rough Aunties (Sunday at 1 p.m.), a film by veteran doc maker Kim Longinotto about a group of women striving to protect Durban’s most vulnerable children. One of the newest features on offer,
Ballad for a Storymaker is an update of a hugely popular ’80s television series about a journalist’s quest for a missing writer. It plays Sunday at 7 p.m.
IN BRIEF
An indie thriller by Calgary director Jeremy Thomas, Ally Was Screaming begins a run at the Carlton on Friday.
It’s a banner week for big-screen anime at Cineplex — The Anthem of the Heart opens Friday at the YongeDundas location and the new Ghost in
the Shell movie plays select locations Thursday at 7 p.m.
Al Pacino gets to yell “Attica! Attica!” as much as he likes when Dog Day Afternoon continues its retro run at the Royal on Saturday and Sunday.
Feeling unduly deprived of Benedict Cumberbatch-ery? Select Cineplex locations host encore presentations of the National Theatre’s production of Hamlet Saturday to Wednesday.
The latest VHS-era oddity to be rediscovered by the Royal’s Laserblast series, Dangerous Men plays Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.
The Royal’s weekly bounty of cult flicks also includes a 35 mm print of the ’80s doomsday flick Miracle Mile with a Q&A by director Steve De Jarnatt on Thursday at 8 p.m.