TIFFG - The Toronto International Film Festival announces 27 international selections to screen this September after premiering at film festivals the world over. Programmers have brought back some of the finest titles from Cannes, Berlin and beyond, to screen as part of the 33rd edition of the Festival running September 4 - 13, 2008. The official website for the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, tiff08.ca, will go live on Friday, June 27, 2008. Ticket packages for TIFF08 will be available for purchase by Visa† cardholders as of 10am on Monday, July 7, 2008, and by cash, debit or Visa as of 10am on Monday, July 14, 2008. Purchase online at tiff08.ca, by phone at 416-968-FILM or 1-877-968-FILM or in person at the TIFFG Box Office at Manulife Centre, 55 Bloor Street West (main floor, north entrance). Box Office hours are 10am to 6pm, Monday to Saturday.

GALA PRESENTATION
The Good, The Bad, The Weird Kim Jee-woon, South Korea North American Premiere
Drawing inspiration from Sergio Leone’s 1966 classic The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Kim (The Foul King, TIFF 2000) returns to TIFF with the first-ever “kimchi western.” This is also South Korea’s biggest budget movie ever. In the 1930s, Northeast Asia lies in chaos. The Korean Peninsula has fallen to Japanese Imperialists. Many Koreans have retreated to the vast wilds of Manchuria, including a thief named Tae-gu (The Weird). A train robbery lands Tae-gu with a mysterious map promising untold treasure, but cold-blooded hitman Chang-yi (The Bad) and bounty hunter Do-won (The Good) are also hot on the trail of the map. On the heels of them all is a larger, more powerful cast of characters, including Chinese, Russian and Korean bandits, the Japanese army and the Korean resistance. In true western style, it all builds towards the climactic final showdown – a breathtaking bullet ballet. Starring Jung Woosung, Lee Byung-hun, and Song Kang-ho, The Good, The Bad, The Weird is a Barunson Co. Ltd. Film Division and Grimm Pictures production, produced by Choi Jae-weon and Kim Jee-woon, and executive produced by Miky Lee.

SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS
Adoration Atom Egoyan, Canada North American Premiere
The twelfth feature film from celebrated Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan. High school student Simon (Devon Bostick) is caught up in family history, technology and a shocking and explosive lie that intertwines the lives of his uncle (Scott Speedman) and his French teacher (Arsinée Khanjian), while forcing him to reconcile conflicting memories of his deceased parents (Noam Jenkins and Rachel Blanchard).

Un conte de Noël Arnaud Desplechin, France North American Premiere
A dysfunctional family, torn apart by illness, death and loss, come together for Christmas in the North of France. Exploring the relationships among them, one by one they open up to acceptance, forgiveness and understanding. Winner of a Special Prize at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, Desplechin’s (Rois et Reine, TIFF 2004) Un Conte de Noël stars Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Paul Roussillon, Mathieu Amalric, Anne Consigny, Melvil Poupaud, Emmanuelle Devos and Chiara Mastroianni.

Entre les murs Laurent Cantet, France North American Premiere
From celebrated filmmaker Laurent Cantet (Vers le Sud, TIFF 2005) comes the winner of the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Armed with the best intentions, François and his fellow teachers prepare for a new year at a high school in a tough neighbourhood. Cultures and attitudes often clash in the classroom – a microcosm of contemporary France and the world at large. François’s extravagant frankness often takes his students by surprise, and his ethics are put to the test when his students begin to challenge his methods.

Gomorrah Matteo Garrone, Italy North American Premiere
Power, money and blood – these are the “values” that the residents of the Province of Naples and Caserta have to face every day. They hardly ever have a choice, and are almost always forced to obey the rules of the “system,” the Camorra. Only a lucky few can even think of leading a normal life. Five stories are woven together in this violent scenario, set in a cruel and apparently imaginary world, but one that is deeply rooted in reality. Winner of the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.

MASTERS
24 City Jia Zhang-ke, China North American Premiere
A state-owned factory in Chengdu is shut down, giving way to a luxury apartment complex called 24 CITY. Reflecting on the life of work that binds them all, old workers, factory executives and yuppies assemble the history of China. Written and directed by filmmaker Jia Zhang-ke (Still Life, TIFF 2006; Useless, TIFF 2007), 24 City stars Joan Chen, Zhao Tao, Lv Liping and Chen Jianbin.

Four Nights with Anna Jerzy Skolimowski, Poland/France North American Premiere
From influential Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski comes the story of Leon, a hospital worker who once witnessed the brutal rape of Anna, now a young nurse working in the same hospital. Secretly forcing himself into her life, and her bedroom, Leon develops an intense fixation with Anna that begs the question, “how far will he go?”

Of Time and the City Terence Davies, United Kingdom North American Premiere
Acclaimed British director Terence Davies (Distant Voices, Still Lives; TIFF 1988) returns to his native Liverpool and to his filmmaking roots to capture a sense of the city today and its influences on him growing up in the late 40s and early 50s.

Le Silence de Lorna Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, Belgium/France/Italy North American Premiere
Lorna, a young Albanian woman living in Belgium, becomes entangled in a sham marriage orchestrated by mobster Fabio, an arrangement that will end in murder if Lorna chooses to keep silent. Best Screenplay winner at Cannes 2008, Le Silence de Lorna is written, directed and produced by two-time Palme d’Or winners Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (L’Enfant, TIFF 2005).

Three Monkeys Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey/France/Italy North American Premiere
Winner of Best Director at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Climates, TIFF 2006) tells the story of a dislocated family battling the odds to stay together by covering up the truth.

REAL TO REEL
Blind Loves Juraj Lehotský, Slovakia North American Premiere
Finding one’s place in this world is not an easy thing for any person, but how much more difficult can it be for someone who is blind?

VISIONS
Liverpool Lisandro Alonso, Argentina/France/Netherlands/Spain/Germany North American Premiere
During an Atlantic crossing, Farrel asks the captain of the freighter he is sailing for permission to go ashore at the next port. He wants to visit the place where he was born to find out if his mother is still alive.

Service Brillante Mendoza, Philippines/France North American Premiere
The Pineda family operates a run-down movie house that shows sexy double features. While they endure each other’s sins and vices, the matriarch, Nanay Flor, receives a long-awaited court decision on the bigamy case filed against her estranged husband.

VANGUARD
Waltz with Bashir Ari Folman, Israel/France/Germany North American Premiere
One night in a bar, an old friend tells director Ari Folman about a recurring nightmare. The two men conclude that there’s a connection to their Israeli Army mission in the Lebanon War in the early 1980s. An astonishing and powerful animated feature that journeys into the director’s memory in search of some missing pieces.

DISCOVERY
Hunger Steve McQueen, United Kingdom North American Premiere
Winner of this year’s Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Hunger follows Bobby Sands and the other political inmates of Northern Ireland’s Maze Prison in 1981 as they seek to gain special category status for republican prisoners.

Medicine for Melancholy Barry Jenkins, USA Canadian Premiere
Two African-American twentysomethings wake up in bed together having no recollection of how they arrived there. Wandering the streets of San Francisco, the pair meditate on issues of race, class, identity and gentrification, exploring sights of the city less seen in today’s cinema.

The Paranoids Gabriel Medina, Argentina International Premiere
At once an unmotivated procrastinator, fearsome hypochondriac and unenthused children’s party entertainer, Luciano is on the fast track to nowhere. When his successful friend arrives from Spain, Luciano is forced to face the realities of his own uninspired existence.

Salamandra Pablo Agüero, Argentina/France/Germany North American Premiere
In the valley of El Bolson in Patagonia – a haven for renegades from all over the world – Alba and Inti try to build a normal life as mother and son.

Three Blind Mice Matthew Newton, Australia International Premiere
Tension mounts between three young Australian naval officers as they hit the streets of Sydney before being shipped out to Iraq. Written and directed by Matthew Newton, who also stars.

Tony Manero Pablo Larraín, Chile/Brazil North American Premiere
Santiago de Chile, 1978. Dancer Raúl Peralta is obsessed with imitating Tony Manero, John Travolta’s character in Saturday Night Fever. His quest for stardom seems within his grasp when a TV station announces a Manero impersonation contest.

Tulpan Sergey Dvortsevoy, Germany/Switzerland/Kazakstan/Russia/Poland North American Premiere
Before he can realize his ambition of becoming a shepherd, Asa must first get married. Tulpan, his sole prospect for a future bride, rejects Asa due to his big ears. But Asa refuses to give up. Winner of this year’s Un Certain Regard Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA
Acne Federico Veiroj, Uruguay/Argentina/Spain/Mexico North American Premiere
At age 13, Rafael loses his virginity thanks to arrangements made by his older brother. His first kiss, however, proves harder to get.

Linha de Passe Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas, Brazil North American Premiere
In the heart of São Paulo, four fatherless brothers try to find a way out from their preordained paths. Reuniting directors Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries, TIFF 2004) and Thomas, Linha de Passe garnered Best Actress (Sandra Corveloni) at Cannes 2008.

O’Horten Bent Hamer, Norway/Germany/France North American Premiere
In the driver’s cab of a train journeying through the Norwegian countryside, Odd Horten is on his penultimate journey from Oslo to Bergen. Tomorrow he’ll make his last trip. But, for the first time in almost 40 years, he will arrive too late and miss his last departure.

Lion’s Den Pablo Trapero, Argentina/South Korea/Brazil North American Premiere
Julia awakes in her apartment one morning, pregnant and in the company of the bloodied bodies of two men who had been her lovers. In an instant, her life becomes that of a single mother in prison.

Restless Amos Kollek, Israel/Germany/Canada/France/Belgium North American Premiere
Recently discharged from the Israeli army, Tzach travels to New York to confront his father Moshe, a struggling artist who left his family behind some twenty years ago.

Revanche Götz Spielmann, Austria North American Premiere
Alex is an errand boy; Tamara, a prostitute. Entwined in a forbidden love affair, both are determined to escape the Viennese brothel where they work. But carrying out their plan proves fateful once police officer Robert walks into their lives… [Full Story]

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Canada.com, Canada - The Toronto International Film Festival has announced its opening film for the 2008 incarnation of the world renowned fest, choosing Canadian filmmaker Paul Gross’s Passchendaele.

The First World War epic will kick off the 33rd annual festival on Sept. 4 and stars Gross, Caroline Dhavernas (Hollywoodland), Gil Bellows (The Shawshank Redemption) and Joe Dinicol (Diary of the Dead).

“It is rare that Canadians get to experience their own histories via the moving image, particularly on the big screen,” said Piers Handling, director and CEO of the Toronto International Film Festival Group in a statement. “We are honoured to open TIFF 2008 with a work as personal and passionate, as significant to both Canadian film and Canadian history as Passchendaele.”

The film follows Michael (Gross), a physically and psychologically wounded veteran of the war who returns home and falls in love with the nurse who cares for him (Dhavernas). After her brother (Dinicol) enlists, Michael returns to the front to protect him and the two are swept up in the climactic battle known as Passchendaele… [Full Story]

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CityNews - Actress Michelle Nolden was thrilled to get a part in the big screen adaptation of The Time Traveler’s Wife, based on Audrey Niffenegger’s bestselling 2003 novel. It’s too bad the day she filmed her big scene opposite star Eric Bana she was under the weather.

“Eric was such a gem to work with. He was really sweet. I was sick as a dog that day we were filming and I think he was afraid that I might barf on his shoes,” Nolden relates to CityNews.ca in a recent interview at the Birds and Beans café in Etobicoke, recalling the day-long shoot aboard Chicago’s L train.

The Brantford, Ont.-born actress plays Annette de Tamble, mother to Bana’s time-travelling protagonist Henry de Tamble. Though the story is set in The Windy City much of the filming was done in the GTA, notably around the University of Toronto campus. Rachel McAdams also stars in the film, which is expected to screen at the Toronto International Film Festival in the fall before a Christmas Day opening… [Full Story]

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The GATE - Maple Pictures and The GATE are giving movie fans in Toronto a chance to win one of twenty double passes for a screening of the new comedy/drama Young People Fucking, which hits theatres on June 13.

Young People Fucking was directed by Martin Gero, and written by Gero and actor Aaron Abrams. Screened during the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, the movie was a fan favorite that sold out in record time.

You must be over the age of 18 to enter this contest. The screening takes place on Thursday, June 12 at 7:00 PM in downtown Toronto, and just a reminder folks, transportation to and from the screening is not included in this contest… [Full Story]

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Screen Daily - Laurent Cantet’s The Class (Entre Les Murs) has taken this year’s Palme d’Or.

The film is a Paris classroom drama-documentary based on a novel by Francois Begaudeau, who plays a teacher in the film working in a tough Parisian neighbourhood.

Screen’s four-star review describes it as offering “a rich microcosm of today’s multi-ethnic French population.”

Jury president Sean Penn said the decision to give the award to Cantet’s “amazing, amazing film” was unanimous.

It was the first Palme D’Or win for a French film since Maurice Pialat’s Sous Le Soleil De Satan in 1987.

The jury Grand Prix went to Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah. Screen described the film as “probably the most authentic and unsentimental mafia movie ever to come out of Italy”.

The Jury Prize was won by Paolo Sorrentino’s Il Divo, which Screen described as “enjoyably original, lurid, sardonic political opera.”

Best director was Nuri Bilge Ceylan for Three Monkeys.

Steve McQueen’s Hunger about IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands took the Camera d’Or prize.

Benicio Del Toro won best actor for Steven Soderbergh’s Che (click for review), while Sandra Corveloni won best actress for Linha De Passe… [Full Story]

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GreenCine Daily - Shy courtship, stark landscapes and a spirited supporting cast of livestock make Tulpan a vivid, intensely enjoyable debut feature from former documentarian Sergei Dvortsevoi. The Kazakhstan-set film hardly breaks new ground, in both setting and mood pitching its tent very close to The Story Of The Weeping Camel. But it similarly blends intimate, gentle fiction with a strong dose of ethnographic observation, to immensely charming effect. Received rapturously at its screening in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard strand, the film will be an audience-pleaser at festival s and, though not specifically targeted at children, should play well at events with a kids’ angle. Theatrical exposure is likely to be modest, but robust ancillary life seems likely.

The setting is a windblown, dusty plain - Betpak Dala, or ‘Hunger Steppe’ - in southern Kazakhstan, where young Russian-speaking sailor Asa (Kuchinchirekov) has travelled from Sakhalin to join his sister Samal (Yeslyamova) and her family. Samal’s husband Ondas (Besikbasov) is a herdsman tending a large flock of sheep. Asa’s dream - which he has illustrated, as per tradition, on his sailor’s collar - is to have his own herd one day. But to do that he needs to find a bride. The film starts with his nervous courtship of the coy Tulpan, daughter of a neighbouring couple, whom Asa tries to impress with his tales of the sea. But the couple are apparently deterred by Asa’s wildly embellished description of encounters with marine life, while the bashful Tulpan, who stays stubbornly out of sight throughout the film, is turned off by the size of Asa’s ears. The courtship scenes are a hoot, with photographic evidence produced to show that Asa’s ears are smaller than those of England’s Prince Charles.

Getting nowhere with Tulpan, Asa is also falling foul of his brother-in-law, who’s not convinced the lad has the makings of a herder. Meanwhile, Asa’s breast-obsessed, tractor-driving buddy Boni (an exuberantly entertaining performance by Baisakalov) tries to persuade the landlocked mariner to try better times in the city. But Asa sticks to his guns, and eventually wins his spurs as a shepherd by delivering a lamb - and giving it the kiss of life - in an extraordinary extended take that’s shot for real, and that combines the ‘yuk’ and ‘aah’ factors to showstopping effect… [Full Story]

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Screen Daily - Wim Wenders muses on love, death and his perennial bugbear, the ‘Crisis of the Image’ in The Palermo Shooting, a metaphysical thriller cum philosophical essay that marks another step on the downwards slope for this once-vital film-maker. Unwisely cast, leadenly written and ultimately farcical in its earnestness, The Palermo Shooting is a glossy travelogue-thriller with metaphysical pretentions, and one of the low points of this year’s Cannes Competition. Unlikely to fare well in the market, the film may also find festivals preferring to tactfully take a rain check.

An overbearingly-glossy first half centres on the travails of Finn, played by German rocker and moody scowler Campino. Finn is a successful photographer with a major reputation in the art world, but has a sideline working on slick fashion shoots with the likes of actor-model Milla Jovovich - seen here very pregnant and playing herself. Fascinated by digital photography and its possibilities for visual manipulation, Finn is accused by a high-minded student of betraying ‘real’ images. Meanwhile, he suffers from elaborate, vaguely Cocteau-esque nightmares involving his dead mother and a mysterious bald cloaked figure (Hopper), whose true identity isn’t too hard to guess.

After a close shave in his sports car, Finn wakes up in a tree, has a whimsical conversation with an amateur shepherd, then decides to visit Palermo, ostensibly to take more photos of Jovovich in a ‘real’ setting, but really to pursue his own metaphysical quest… [Full Story]

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Screen Daily - A man is rushing back home to his wife but a double-parked car blocks his way. He searches in vain for the driver and encounters a variety of persons who cannot or do not want to help him. When he finally gets home the next morning, he is a different person - not only because he is adorned with a gigantic black eye, but because he has learned to see the world differently.

Moving confidently from one episode to the next and one style to another in the tracks of his main character, director/cinematographer Chung Mong-hong has made a distinctive calling card here, smartly zipping through the different genres from tearjerker to gangster. Though not 100 percent convincing by itself as a story, such reservations fade in the light of strong performances from a solid ensemble cast with impeccable credentials, including some of the better known faces in Taiwan and Hong Kong cinema. Arthouse seems likely, and perhaps more in Asia where handsome lead actor Chen Chang is a sought-after name. Undoubtedly, Chung Mong-hong has established himself as a name to watch here and his next will be eagerly-awaited – if only to work out which genre he’ll plump for.

Once Chen Mo (Crouching Tiger’s Chen Chang) parks his car next to a patisserie called Cream (just like the film’s production company), troubles start to pour in, one after the other. First he offends the sales lady, then he finds out he can’t leave because someone has double parked next to him. This being Mothers’ Day in Taipei, the police are too busy to help. In his efforts to unearth the owner of the vehicle and convince him to move it away, he stumbles upon an old couple and their grandaughter; a former Chinese cop turned ruthless pimp (Leon Dai) and one of the girls he exploits (former model Peggy Tseng); a one-armed barber (Jack Kao) cooking fish-head soup; and an unemployed tailor (Chapman To) on the run from the mafia, to name but a few. In every case, there is an expansion plus flashbacks to support the characters… [Full Story]

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Cinematical - Adoration, the newest film by critically acclaimed filmmaker Atom Egoyan, is a beautifully evocative film, though some may find its convoluted storyline distracting. In many respects, the film very much evokes one of my favorite films, The Sweet Hereafter, Egoyan’s 1997 Palme d’Or and Oscar nominee*. Where The Sweet Hereafter dealt with the impact of guilt and grief in a small community following a tragic school bus accident, in Adoration Egoyan deals with grief and loss on a more personal level, while also blending in ideas about the subjective nature of reality and identity in a technological age. In a world where who we are can be invented, reinvented, and broadcast to the world via chat rooms and virtual reality avatars, can we ever really know another person — or even ourselves?

The story centers on a young boy, Simon, (Devon Bostick), who, while completing a school assignment translating a newspaper story about a man who planted a bomb on his pregnant girlfriend, spontaneously re-imagines the story as if the couple were his own parents, and he the unborn child his father plotted to blow up along with his mother and 400 other innocents on a flight to Israel.

Simon’s French teacher, Sabine (Egoyan’s wife, Arsinée Kanjian) who also teaches drama, encourages him to read his story to the class as if he really is the son of the couple in the newspaper story. When he puts his story out on the internet, though, it starts to have an impact he never imagined: His friends, random folks philosophizing about terrorism, and the actual survivors of the botched bombing attempt are all drawn into his story and react to it… [Full Story]

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