TIFF Lineup: Female Directors & Prestige Adaptations
Thursday, August 9, 2012 at 12:00PM Paolo here. We should probably give in and see what this year's Toronto International Film Festival has to offer! Toronto marks the unofficial start of awards season, inflating or deflating much hyped movies and performances. Speaking of which, the locals can experience the star power of actual would be contenders. Within the space of ten days, TIFF gives its paying audience access to a year's worth of art house cinema - these movies will be trickling out in limited release for at least a year to come.
Fine reasons to be excited but I have more personal reasons, too.
Reason no. 1 They're bringing back some classics.
They're under the Cinematheque programme, spotlightling restorations like Dial M for Murder in 3D, Loin du Vietnam - a collaborative anti-war project involving a handful on 1960's auteurs like Godard, Agnes Varda, William Klein Alain Resnais and (RIP) Chris Marker. There's also Roberto Rosselini's Stromboli and Roman Polanski's Tess, the latter being an adapation of a Thomas Hardy novel that I've been reading the past month or so. Which brings me to reasons two, three and four... after the jump.
Reason no. 2 Books.
A prestigious film festival presumably boasts a line-up of ambition movies that come from equally prestigious source material. This helps us catch up on our reading. I myself have unofficially signed up for a suicide pact to finish Anna Karenina just in time for the premiere of Joe Wright's movie. Mira Nair's The Reluctant Fundamentalist - they're making a movie out of that!? - is based on a New York Times bestseller and a book that has found its way into a few college-level classes. It's set in the Middle East, where a Pakistani man with a colorful past named Changez (Riz Ahmed) runs into a conspicious American. Changez' girlfriend Erica, pictured above, is played by Kate Hudson, but I'm not worried about that... yet.
Also in the TIFF line-up is an adaptation of Dangerous Liaisons set in 1930's Shanghai starring Zhang Ziyi (do you still love her?). Stephen Chbosky adapts his own novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower and will take us back to high school. There's also Great Exectations, which will hopefully make us forget that Mike Newell is the man behind Prince of Persia. But we're not just doing novels here as Joss Whedon takes on Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing with his regulars like Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof.
Ginger and Rosa stars Elle Fanning (right) and Jane Campion's daughter Alice Englert (left)
Reason no. 3 Female directors.
In addition to Mira Nair there are also Margarethe von Trotta, Ruba Nadda and Sally Potter, offering movies like Midnight's Children, Hannah Arendt, Inescapable and Ginger and Rosa respectively. There's hopefully a lot of conflict, history rage and visual newness within these movies, two of them from directors of colour. Another reason to geek out is directors and their muses: Ruba Nadda is reuniting with her Cairo Time leading man dreamboat Alexander Siddig; Sally Potter - yes, Orlando's Sally Potter - is focusing her lens on Elle Fanning's potential as an actress.
One more female director: You can laugh but Peaches' directorial rock opera debut Peaches Does Herself is also a tantalizing prospect for the scantily-clad electro riot-grrl within us. It might be the closest thing Toronto has to The Paperboy. Besides, an entry in the Lost of Translation soundtrack shouldn't be Peaches' only contribution to cinema.
Peaches
These female directors have international and Canadian connections, the latter being Reason no 4. The festival's Canadian content was announced yesterday. Sarah Polley offers up a documentary about a family but adds a Rashomon-like spin to it in Stories We Tell. Inch'Allah, about a Quebec doctor in the West Bank, is brought to us by the same Academy-Award nominated team behind Monsieur Lazhar. This next title sums up everything we expect in a quirky comedy - My Awkward Sexual Adventure - featuring Cosmopolis actress Emily Hampshire. Lastly there's I Declare War, and there's nothing I like better than kids taking a summer war game too far.
Yesterday's TIFF press release won't be the last. More selections to come.
- Are you attending TIFF?
- Which films are you excited to read about?
Adaptations, Canada, Directors, Francophile, Ginger and Rosa, Kate Hudson, Peaches, Ruba Nadda, TIFF, Tess, books, film festivals
Reader Comments (11)
You mention female directors, you mention CanCon, you mention TIFF as the start of Oscar betting, you mention the film by name, but you fail to mention that Deepa Mehta (director of Fire, Earth and Oscar-nominated Water) is the filmmaker behind Midnight's Children coming to TIFF.
I'm still waiting for CWC, Mavericks and Masters programs to complete their lineups. Those three continure to be the most exciting for me every year. But regarding the question you pose at the end, yes, I will be attending :)
I'll be interested to see what they can do with Midnight's Children onscreen.
I'm very excited for TIFF. 'Midnight's Children' and 'Anna Karenina' are my top picks. (I actually just finished the latter book last week: keep on truckin'... it's worth it!) I want to see everything, really.
Oh, and word on the street is that The Paperboy IS playing. (YES!)
Yes, will be going to Toronto for the fest. Excited for some of these titles - especially Loin du Vietnam, which I missed in NYC a few years ago - and like Amir can't wait for the rest of the lineup to be announced. Especially the Masters program. Hoping I'll get to see the latest Alain Resnais film, among others.
A restored Tess? Hubba hubba! I shan't be able to get to Toronto to see it, but hopefully it will turn up a little bit closer to home.
Danny/Sean/Pat: A Deepa Mehta mention was in one of the earlier drafts of his piece but adapting Rushdie is a daunting task (Love his work). And I'm trying to be as nice about this as possible but I've seen Mehta's earlier movies and I feel very ambivalently about them.
And yes, the Anna Karenina trailer makes me nervous but I've never seen a bad Joe Wright movie yet.
I haven't seen The Paperboy in the line-up but sign me the eff up for that!
Amir/Roark: The Contemporary World Cinema has always passed in flying colours for me ever since they've included stuff like Meek's Cutoff and A Separation. I can't wait to see what CWC and the Masters program will bring this year.
Edward L. I feel like there's some kind of succinct nature to Polanski's work and I want to see him go all out in a sweeping epic yet still feel his irreverent voice.
Oh, The Paperboy hasn't been announced officially yet. A friend was just talking to some publicists at the Canadian press conference who told him that they're repping Paperboy and On the Road. (It's been TIFFileaks galore for the festival this year!)
For the record: I will always love Ziyi Zhang.
Of Mehta's films, the only one I really enjoyed greatly was Fire (one viewing about 10 years ago no less) so it wasn't love for her that made me comment. Just thought she deserved mention as one of many women challenging herself at TIFF this year. :)
Pat: Nicole and KStew? Two of the most ambivalently received actresses working today? God. Anyway I love Nicole, I love Toronto but together they make for a weird relationship.
TB: Yes! I love Zhang's rebelliousness and fire and waify, willowy beauty.
Danny: I'll begrudgingly admit that Mehta is an establishment in the film industry in this country. And there are some institutions that don't consider her Canadian which is a loss for us. But still, the final product....