A SOCA KING, A DESIGN DEITY AND SOME FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Japanese rockers, a John Cho drama and Spielberg’s debut all among filmgoers’ options
CaribbeanTales + T.O. Indie film festivals: Though TIFF will inevitably consume a massive amount of the city’s media attention, screen space and hair spray in the next two weeks, there’s always some room leftover for other film events. Toronto’s annual showcase for films and filmmakers from the Caribbean, the CaribbeanTales International Film Festival, launches Wednesday with Machel
Montano: Journey of a Soca King, a new doc about one of Trinidad and Tobago’s most successful musicians. Montano will also be among the guests for the event at the Royal and at a repeat on Thursday at Cineplex’s Morningside Cinemas. The festival then returns to the Royal for a program of new features, docs, shorts and TV projects that runs Sept. 13-20 before wrapping up with a closing gala at the Scotiabank Theatre on Sept. 21.
Meanwhile at the Carlton, the Toronto Independent Film Festival (T.O. Indie for short) tries to lure some viewers east down the street with its slate of micro-budget and no-budget movies. This year’s edition includes
Garage Rockin’ Craze, a suitably scrappy look at Japan’s garage-rock scene that screens Sept. 11, and The
Honor Farm, an American horrorcomedy that played SXSW and Fan- tasia and makes its Toronto premiere on Sept. 15.
Columbus: A new American indie drama that plays a limited run at TIFF Bell Lightbox this weekend, Columbus stars the indispensable John Cho as a young man who has to travel to the titular city in Indiana after his estranged architect father falls ill. While stuck there, he makes a connection with the place’s impressive array of modernist buildings and a local woman, played by Split’s Haley Lu Richardson. At the film’s Sundance premiere in January, the low- key style of writer-director Kogonada garnered comparisons with such masters of restraint as Yasujiro Ozu, which is high praise indeed. Columbus plays the Lightbox Friday to Sunday. REM: Rem Koolhaas Documentary: Revered for his revolutionary ideas about the use of space, Dutch architect and designer Rem Koolhaas is the subject of a new film portrait that opens at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema this weekend. The Seattle Central Library and the Casa da Musica in Porto are two of the buildings with starring roles in the film by Rem’s son Tomas Koolhaas. All the Cities of the North at MDFF: A favourite of cinephiles at the Locarno, New York and Rotterdam film festivals — Cinema Scope magazine put it in its Top Ten for 2016, too — All
the Cities of the North is an enigmatic first feature by Bosnian filmmaker Dane Komljen. The influence of Godard and Tarkovsky is not hard to spot on his story about taciturn men eking out some kind of existence amid the ruins of an abandoned holiday complex. MDFF presents the film’s Toronto premiere at the Royal
on Thursday. Food Evolution + Hot & Spicy food
films: There are some of us who can never have enough Neil deGrasse Tyson in our lives. The indefatigably enthusiastic and erudite science personality serves as the narrator for
Food Evolution, a new film that tackles urgent questions about GMOs, food security and other edible and inedible matters, and which runs this week at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema.
Also this weekend as part of Harbourfront Centre’s Hot & Spicy Food Festival, the NFB co-presents 20 Foodie Films, a tasty array of shorts and features concerning things you eat and drink. The program of free screenings on Friday through to Monday at the Marilyn Brewer Community Space includes The Fruit
Hunters and Theatre of Life.
In Brief:
á Something slimy bursts out of John Hurt’s chest every day this week thanks to the Carlton’s weeklong run for Alien Friday to Sept. 8.
á The Royal marks the 25th anniversary of Degrassi High’s somewhat trauma-inducing final episode with a special event Friday that includes a screening, a cast Q&A and a bus tour.
á This weekend’s pre-TIFF slate at the Lightbox includes Steven Spielberg’s deadly-trucker debut Duel on Saturday and a rare showing of Fritz Lang’s two-part fantasy epic Die
Nibelungen on Friday and Saturday. á A documentary about the McMichael Collection’s unique merger of art, craftsmanship and fretboards, The Group of Seven Guitar Project, plays select Cineplex screens Tuesday and Sept. 9.
Projections returns Sept. 22.