Queer TIFF: "Touch Me Not"

TIFF kicks off today!! In addition to our regular coverage, Chris Feil will be covering a sampling of the festival's LGBTQ global cinema...

Adina Pintilie’s Golden Bear-winning piece of experimentation and sexual reflection Touch Me Not opens on a landscape of the naked male body, anonymous and alien, shot with a deliberate distance that doesn’t deceive the film’s tension between curiosity, impulse, and terror. While this quickly establishes the psyche of Pintilie’s piece, it is about to become far more personal, with its players all playing themselves or versions thereof. Its fourth wall is never broken because it was never built in the first place.

The film centers largely on two emotionally stunted characters (or “characters”), struggling to experience both physical and emotional connection...

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More Fall Festival Happenings!

Chris here with more news for the fall festivals! We're counting down the days until Nathaniel and I are in Toronto, and TIFF just announced all of their Canadian titles to be seen at the festival. Most notorious among them is the delayed Xavier Dolan film The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, which will be a world premiere. Producers had previously noted that the film would be likely for the fall fests, but it's post-production woes made those comments a bit in flux. Regardless, we are very curious to see Dolan's first English language effort and his bursting cast that includes Jacob Tremblay, Natalie Portman, and Kit Harrington (but not Jessica Chastain, left to the cutting room floor).

Another noteworthy announcement is that the New York Film Festival has chosen its closing film: Julian Schnabel's Venice-bound Van Gogh biopic starring Willem Dafoe At Eternity's Gate. The film joins that fest's opening night The Favourite and centerpiece Roma, which will each play other festivals. It had been unclear in the past few months if the film would be released in time for the 20189 Oscar season but CBS films looks to open the film in November. Can we bank on Dafoe as one of our Best Actor sure things this year? And could Schnabel return after The Diving Bell and the Butterfly got so close to Oscar?

TIFF Galas & Special Presentations Announced

by Nathaniel R

TIFF is around the corner y'all. Excited we are since it means the prestige film season and another round of Oscar madness is about to begin. For the first time TIFF has allowed The Film Experience two press passes so Chris Feil and Nathaniel R (that's me) will both be covering in real time for the whole fest from September 6th through the 16th. Today TIFF has announced the 47 films that will be featured in their Galas and Special Presentations sections. These are the two sections wherein you'll usually find the mainstream awards hopefuls shoulder-to-shoulder with more traditional festival fare and world cinema premieres. TIFF usually has hundreds of films so this is just the first announcement. 

The full list containing masterpieces and duds and everything inbetween (though we won't know which-is-which-is-which until we see them) is after the jump!

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TIFF & NYFF & Middleburg Wrap-Ups

Another autumn whizzes by and with it a look back on the festivals we've covered. Here's everything we reviewed from TIFF and NYFF and Middleburg this year in case you missed it. Reviews from Jason Adams, Manuel Betancourt, Nick Davis, Sean Donovan, Murtada Elfaldl, John Guerin, Chris Feil, and Nathaniel R

TIFF 2017

the films 
The Breadwinner •  Darkest Hour • 
Death of Stalin • Disaster • Downsizing • 
Euphoria • Film Stars Dont Die in Liverpool • 
First They Killed My Father • 
The Florida Project • Happy End • I, Tonya • 
The Killing of a Sacred Deer • Kings • 

Lady Bird • Lodgers • Mademoiselle Paradis • 
Mary Shelley • mother! • 
Never Steady Never Still • On Body and Soul • 
The Racer and the Jailbird • Revenge • 

The Seen and Unseen • The Shape of Water • 
Sheikh Jackson • Thelma • 
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri • 
Tigre • Western • The Wife • Zama

parties, events, randomness
greatest party photo ever • "I'm Armie" • 
Helena Bonham-Carter • mother! moods • 
portraits from the fest • PODCAST FINALE

NYFF 2017

the films 
Arthur Miller: Writer • BPM (Beats Per Minute) • Before We Vanish • 
Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat • 
Faces Places • Félicité • First Reformed • The Florida Project • 

Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold • Lady Bird • Let the Sunshine In • 
The Meyerowitz Stories • Mrs Hyde • Mudbound • The Rider • Spielberg •
Thelma

 parties, events, randomness 
red carpet prayer • PODCAST FINALE

MIDDLEBURG 2017

the films
Darkest Hour • A Fantastic Woman • Last Flag Flying • Mudbound •
Novitiate • Wonderstruck

parties, events, randomness
James Ivory talk • Nicholas Britell in concert

Podcast: Festival Goodies Opening Very Soon

Nathaniel, Nick, Joe and Chris (who all attended TIFF together) discuss highlights from this past month of festivals, some of which are just opening in theaters.

Index (42 minutes)
00:01 Florida Project, Professor Marston...
07:00 Mudbound, First They Killed... and BPM
14:50 Under the radar beauties like Disappearance and A Fantastic Woman (and the joy of festivalling with Nick Davis)
27:00 Hoping to see again: Lady Bird, On Body and Soul, Three Billboards
34:00 We JUST saw: Mr Gay Syria, Spoor, and Wonderstruck
41:00 Byeeee

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Related Reading
Three Billboards (Chris's review)
Downsizing (Nathaniel's first impression)
First They Killed My Father (Joe's review)

Festival Fun. Coming Soon