TORONTO IS A PUZZLE

This is my first time at TIFF, and I have to admit, it is a puzzle. Look at this picture — that’s only the press and industry screenings! Notice the puzzlement and confusion of the professionals, even.

I also find the transportation system puzzling, and spend a lot of time in taxis. Everyone likes to complain about traffic in Toronto and it is de rigeur to show up to a screening at the AMC Theatres panting and sweating.

I had two films premiere this weekend (three cheers!!) and they were very well-received (three cheers!!) But mostly every buyer I meet looks sad, trudging down the street. They say, “there is nothing to buy. Nothing. I want a film. Where are the films to buy?” This is sad for them but, frankly, very exciting for those of us on the selling side. I can’t imagine buyers walking around desperate to spend money a few years ago. Things are looking up for us. Here is a sales person, Michael Lerman of the Film Sales Company, looking up:

and another one, Dana O’Keefe from Cinetic, looking sharp in front of the poster for his new film, TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, which he had sold long ago.… Read the rest

FIVE QUESTIONS FOR “THE LONELIEST PLANET” DIRECTOR JULIA LOKTEV

With The Loneliest Planet, the follow-up to her acclaimed feature Day Night Day Night, writer/director Julia Loktev builds a piercing drama around the contrast between a beautiful wide-open landscape and the ugliness of a momentary, possibly reflexive, moment of human behavior. In the film, an adventuring couple (Gael Garcia Bernal and Hani Furstenberg) trek through the Georgian mountains with a for-hire guide (Bidzina Gujabidze). A violent encounter changes everything. But in Loktev’s world, the hurt comes not from gunplay or kidnappings but from something more subtle. We asked Loktev about the relationship of landscape to story, about silence, and about the progression of her filmmaking.

Filmmaker: The Loneliest Planet deals with the dynamics within one couple’s relationship. Are these dynamics a product of the extreme situation they find themselves in, or are they fissures you think exist, perhaps unseen, within couples in everyday situations?

Loktev: The central rupture in the film is something no woman wants to imagine the man she loves would ever do, could ever do. The rupture happens at what might just be the happiest time in this couple’s relationship. They’re in love, they’re getting married in a few months, they’re traveling, which may be the thing that brings them closest together. So the rupture is not an extension of building tensions, but a sudden stark interruption of all that came before. It really comes out of nowhere and throws them off course, off balance. At the same time, to look at your question another way, I suppose it is a kind extreme version of what happens in relationships every day. A microscopic gesture, possibly unintended, quite likely unintended, a small misstep, and suddenly you feel unloved, suddenly everything shifts.

Filmmaker: You scouted various locations before shooting in the Georgian mountains. What was specific about this location for you, and why there as opposed to another locale?

Loktev: I was born in Russia, so I grew up with this mythical image of Georgia. Georgia was the vacation paradise, the jewel of the Soviet Union. My mom trekked across the Caucasus when she was in university, … Read the rest

FIVE QUESTIONS FOR “PARADISE LOST 3: PURGATORY” DIRECTORS JOE BERLINGER & BRUCE SINOFSKY

In the mid ’90s filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky traveled to West Memphis, Arkansas for a documentary they were making for HBO on the gruesome murders of three boys and the trial of the three teens who were charged. The film, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, gave the trail nationwide interest as Berlinger and Sinofsky revelaed a case that was hardly open and shut. Coerced confessions as well as questionable evidence and testimony made viewers uncertain if the three defendants — Jessie Misskelley, Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin — were guilty and the fight to free the West Memphis 3 was born. The 18 year journey for the filmmakers that has led to the sequel, Paradise Lost 2: Revelations and support from celebrities like Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder and Johnny Depp was to conclude with Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory. But weeks before finishing the cut for TIFF news broke that the West Memphis 3 would be freed. With a new ending premiering at the New York Film Festival, Berlinger and Sinofsky must now decide if this is when they put down their cameras or if there’s a story after the freeing of the West Memphis 3.

Filmmaker: Tell us a little about what your film is about?

Berlinger: It’s rare that filmmakers have an opportunity to cover a story with an 18 year perspective and involvement, where the passage of time changes the nature of the information you have gathered.  Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory chronicles the 18-year odyssey of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley, three teens incarcerated for a horrifying crime they maintain they did not commit. In our latest installment, we tried to make the film a self-sufficient viewing experience, so that you don’t have to have seen the previous films to fully comprehend this complicated case. However, for fans of the series, old facts are reexamined, new evidence is revealed and new suspects are scrutinized.

Sinofsky: Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory is a continuation of the trilogy which started with Paradise Lost and Paradise Lost 2: Revelations. … Read the rest

FIVE QUESTIONS FOR “PAUL WILLIAMS STILL ALIVE” DIRECTOR STEVEN KESSLER

As director Stephen Kessler notes in his documentary, Paul Williams Still Alive, in the ’70s, the tiny blond singer was everywhere. He could be found on daytime game shows (The Gong Show) and nighttime dramas (The Love Boat), on The Muppets as well as in the lead of a Brian DePalma film (The Phantom of the Paradise). And then he faded from the cultural limelight. How much of his disappearance can be explained by the simple fact that people — audiences and performers — get older? Or does the fade of Williams’ quirky and emotional star say something deeper about the state of our culture? For Kessler, the subject was also a re-entry to the feature business; it’s been over a decade since his films The Independent and Vegas Vacation. We talked to him about all of this, as well as what he’s learned from directing commercials.

Filmmaker: When did you first encounter Paul Williams? And when
did you first decide to make a documentary about him?

Kessler: About five years ago, I was looking around online to buy an album from one of my favorite dead entertainers, Paul Williams. As it turned out, he wasn’t dead. I found out he was playing a gig up in Winnipeg. That’s where I met him.

Filmmaker: How did you first approach Paul about the documentary? How did you sell him on it?

Kessler: In Winnipeg, I told Paul I wanted to make a doc about him, and he turned me down. I told him that most people didn’t know his music anymore, and they should. And a film could help that. And he told me that I could film him for that one day, and we’d see how it went. That was the beginning of almost three years of filming.

Filmmaker: The film seems to trade on the idea that Paul Williams is a little bit of a “lost” figure in terms of cultural recognition. For you, this film seems to come after a decade-plus break since your last film. What have you been … Read the rest

FIVE QUESTIONS FOR “YOUR SISTER’S SISTER” DIRECTOR LYNN SHELTON

With Your Sister’s Sister, writer/director Lynn Shelton brings a top-flight cast (Emily Blunt, Rosemarie DeWitt, Mark Duplass and Mike Birbiglia) to an isolated island cabin on Puget Sound for a tale of grief, romance, and sibling rivalry. Duplass plays Jack, still reeling over the death of his brother a year earlier. Iris (Blunt), his best friend and dead brother’s ex, suggests he get his bearings at her father’s cabin, and there he’s unexpectedly confronted by Hannah (DeWitt). Needless to say, things get complicated in this latest from one of independent film’s most compelling new auteurs.

Via email we asked her about quick schedules, isolated places and, of course, sisters.

Filmmaker: Like your second film, My Effortless Brilliance, this feature takes your characters to a removed location, where their dramas unfold. What attracts you to this kind of set-up, and what role does the location play in this film?

Shelton: I love nothing more than to kidnap an entire cast and crew, dragging them off to the wilderness to make a movie. It is my fantasy scenario. It means that, for the duration of the shoot, there’s really no retreat from the film’s world back to “the real world.” Everyone gets to hang out together after the work day is through, bonding over lovely dinners and bottles of wine and campfires and saunas (and midnight screenings of the original Conan The Barbarian!) and it makes our time on set together that much more familial and comfortable and, therefore, fruitful.

As for how the location relates to the story of this film, it’s essential in this case. Being physically removed from the civilized world helps the characters feel less confined by the normal strictures of that world, which aids in propelling the story forward at its outset. And, ultimately, being stuck in the same house on a remote island together acutely intensifies the resulting tensions between the characters as the drama unfolds.

Filmmaker: Did your way of making films have to adapt in any way to the presence of Emily Blunt and Rosemarie DeWitt, both of whom are coming … Read the rest

FREE AT TIFF

There are some great films/events going on during TIFF that are free of charge. See below.

This is not a Film Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, Iran (Toronto Premiere)
Sentenced to six years in prison and banned from writing and making films for 20 years by the Islamic Republic Court in Tehran, Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi waited for the verdict of his court appeal for months. Through the depiction of a day in his life while he’s on house arrest, Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb (a documentary filmmaker and former assistant director) offer audiences an overview of the current situation of Iranian cinema.

The Story of Film: An Odyssey Mark Cousins, United Kingdom (World Premiere)
Filmed on four continents over six years, this epic 15-hour documentary tells the story of innovation in the movies based on the acclaimed book of the same title by Mark Cousins. Featuring exclusive interviews with legendary filmmakers like Stanley Donen and Abbas Kiarostami, The Story of Film: An Odyssey is a passionate, cinematic journey across 11 decades of cinema, and a thousand films. The film will be screened first in five instalments of three hours each, every morning at 10am from Monday, September 12 to Friday, September 16. On the Festival’s final weekend the film will be screened again: eight hours on Saturday, September 17 and seven hours on Sunday, September 18.

Cadillac People’s Choice Award Winner screening
Once the ballots have been counted, and the winner revealed, the fan favourite film of the Festival will screen on the last day of the Festival – Sunday, September 18 – at Ryerson Theatre. The winner will be announced that morning.

City to City Panel
Filmmakers whose works are featured in the Festival’s City to City spotlight on Buenos Aires, Festival programmers and industry professionals join together for a lively and interactive discussion of the emerging film scene in Buenos Aires.

A special discussion to accompany James Franco and Gus Van Sant’s Memories of Idaho (1991; 2010 and 2011)
Saturday, September 10 in TIFF Bell Lightbox 
In 1991, Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho and … Read the rest

FIVE QUESTIONS FOR “BUNOHAN” DIRECTOR DAIN SAID

It’s tempting to refer to Dain Said’s Bunohan as the Malaysian director’s debut film, but Said rides to Toronto on the tailwinds of notoriety stemming from the banning of his proper debut, Dukun. That film dealt with black magic and murder — the latter word being one meaning of his latest film’s title. (“Bunohan” also refers to a local village.) A violent tale involving three estranged brothers, the film is set within the worlds of kickboxing, murder-for-hire, and real estate, and it weaves brutal realism with elements of mythological fantasy. We talked to Said about Malaysian cinema, fight scenes and that first feature.

Filmmaker: Since your first film has quite notoriously been little seen outside of Malaysia, do you consider this film your debut? Or is it a progression, or change of pace, from that previous work?

Said: My first film was not shown in Malaysia, thus no one there has seen it. So by that token I guess you could say Bunohan is my feature debut. Especially since the seed of the idea for Bunohan, and the story flow was written way before I started on the other film. So Bunohan, was close to me, and I kept working at it, albeit in between other jobs to make a living and pay the bills. It’s a familiar story for most independent filmmakers around the world. Then I took a couple of months out in 2008 and wrote the first draft, and a year later taking betwen 3-6 months to the final draft.

There is a change in terms of the pacing and approach, for the obvious reasons that the story is very different, but I do think both films share a kind of darkness, in their themes and concerns; the primordial elements, such as the belief in magic and/or supersttion that pervades and exists in our culture and society, however modern we seem to be. I see it as a kind of underlying seepage that works through both films. LIke the black water swamp in Bunohan, that seems to flow and bring these lives together but … Read the rest

FIVE QUESTIONS FOR “RAMPART” CO-WRITER-DIRECTOR OREN MOVERMAN

The Rampart scandal, which caused a huge black eye for the LAPD in the ’90s, has been sensationalized on TV shows like The Shield and movies like Training Day, but if The Messenger showed us anything it’s that Oren Moverman is not interested in embellishing anything in his films, so his latest, Rampart, should be no exception. For the film he reteams with The Messenger star Woody Harrelson who plays a corrupt LAPD cop who must come to terms that with the scandal the fun is now over. And if having Moverman and Harrelson making a film together again isn’t exciting enough, try this on for size: Moverman shares screenwriting credit with legendary L.A. pulp novelist James Ellroy.

Filmmaker: Tell us a little about what your film is about?

Moverman: Rampart is the story of Dave Brown, a dirty LAPD senior lead officer who refuses to change his cowboy ways around the time of the Rampart scandal (1999) in Los Angeles when police officers were accused of serious crimes and change was inevitable. The film is an interior, strict point-of-view exploration of Brown’s relationships with his daughters, colleagues and enemies as the sins of his past actions start catching up with him and he is forced to face himself in the mirror.

Filmmaker: What’s the most shocking thing you learned about the Rampart corruption scandal?

Moverman: Sadly, there is very little left that is shocking about the Rampart scandal. We have grown used to these outrageous stories, some true some false, but all on record and therefore a reality. A lot of people were hurt, families were ripped apart, friends were at each other’s throats. Lies were told on all sides. Crimes were committed. Race relations heated up. Communities took up arms. What interested me most about looking at one character who lives in the world of the scandal is exploring male behavior, behavior that is infused with a sense of power and sexuality and superiority, and then picking it apart and watching the consequences unfold with compassion and humanity. It’s quite a challenge. But the scandal itself … Read the rest

FIVE QUESTIONS FOR “YOU’RE NEXT” DIRECTOR ADAM WINGARD

With his features Home Sick, Pop Skull and A Horrible Way to Die, Adam Wingard is carving out a reputation as one of the most imaginative and visually sophisticated directors working in modern horror. His films are mindful of genre conventions, finding ways to subvert them through unexpected characterizations that have real psychological depth. His latest movie reinvents the home invasion thriller. We spoke to Wingard about blood, style and directing other directors.

Filmmaker: Your previous film, A Horrible Way to Die, tweaked the serial killer genre by setting it within the world of addiction and recovery, and exploring those emotional dynamics. Your new film takes up the “family under siege in their home” genre. What sort of twists have you incorporated this time?

Wingard: I think it’s always best when approaching a specific sub-genre to imagine what do I not like about what these movies do. When [writer] Simon [Barrett] and I asked that question about home invasion films we both concluded that there seemed to be too often an emphasis on simply punishing characters with pain, murder, and rape. The horror world has been totally sodomized by shocking scenarios, and we decided to make ours more of a fun ride, one that doesn’t punish its audience or take itself too seriously.

Filmmaker: What’s the secret to depicting intense violence without creeping out your cast and crew? Or, do you like to creep them out?

Wingard: Anyone that has to get bloody and wear appliances knows they have my sympathy. I hate asking someone to do something I would never want to do. Sticky things freak me out. As a matter of fact I hate everything about fake blood, the way it smells, the way it slimes around and sticks to things. I wish CG blood was better so I wouldn’t even have to associate myself with it, but such is the way things are. Unfortunately I like things of a certain quality these days and I would hate to rely solely on VFX to take care of gore; however they have contributed a few times … Read the rest

FIVE QUESTIONS FOR “URBANIZED” DIRECTOR GARY HUSTWIT

With Urbanized, filmmaker Gary Hustwit brings his celebrated documentary trilogy to a close. Beginning in the world of typography by exploring a single font in Helvetica, the series gained weight by moving to the world of objects in Objectified and now telescopes miles overhead to examine contemporary urban design. We spoke to Hustwit about what’s changed and what’s stayed the same as he has produced — and distributed — these stylish and intellectually engaging films.

Filmmaker: Your previous two design oriented docs have wound up dealing with subjects other than the the explicit ones of their titles. For example, Helvetica deals in part with corporate messaging, and Objectified about commodity culture and the future role of the object. What areas of discussion does Urbanized lead the viewer into?

Hustwit: I’m always fascinated by how design affects our daily lives, and how a lot of people are oblivious to it. When you walk out your front door, the path of your life that day is controlled by the design of your city: where you work, how you get there, what you do after work, the conditions you live in… it’s all determined by design. So I guess the main area of discussion is why do cities look and work and feel the way they do, and how does it affect all of us, every minute of every day.

Filmmaker: The subject of your film — the design of cities — seems almost a utopian one given the levels of dysfunction in our current political and economic landscape. Is progressive, intelligent city planning a realistic possibility today?

Hustwit: There’s so much political and commercial influence on the shaping of cities, versus really designing them for a better quality of life for citizens across socio-economic lines. Cities can be designed to make peoples lives better, and that’s what we look at in the film, creative solutions to universal issues that face all cities today. I think if citizens demand smarter approaches to urban issues, and get involved in the public discourse, better cities are definitely possible.

Filmmaker: Along with big conversations … Read the rest