Not yet officially announced, but the Christopher Columbus film starring Gael García Bernal appears to be headed to the Toronto International Film Festival, according to a Reuters article. Even the Rain begins with the making of a period film in Bolivia about Christopher Columbus’ pioneering voyages to the Americas. The plot then covers how the filmmakers and cast are caught up in latter-day violent protests in 2000, against Bolivian government plans which could have forced peasants to pay for water they had previously obtained for free. The plot has a further twist, because an extra in the fictional film is also leading protests. Screenwriter Paul Laverty, a long-time collaborator with director Ken Loach, is involved with this modest-budget Spanish production, whose cast are mainly non-professionals.

Since it was announced in the TIFF lineup, nothing much has been revealed about Michael Winterbottom’s latest project, The Trip, except that the story revolves around two good friends (Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon) on a road trip to the Lake District in Northern England. There’s now a teaser clip from the comedy, with the characters chatting amusingly in their car. Check it out below for some good ol’ English humour.

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Wow! That’s all we can say after watching the new trailer for Aronofsky’s Black Swan. This could be perhaps Natalie Portman’s darkest role, starring as a ballet dancer who finds herself in competition with a new rival played by Mila Kunis. Recently, Portman compared this film to Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, and we can see shades of that horror-thriller in the below teaser.

One of the Midnight Madness films announced last night was John Carpenter’s The Ward. Starring Amber Heard (TIFF 2006’s All the Boys Love Mandy Lane), the psychological thriller is about a young woman haunted by ghosts. The full plot outline is below, along with 3 great pieces of footage behind the scenes of the film:

THE WARD is an intense psychological thriller set in a mental institution where a young woman, Kristen is haunted by a mysterious and deadly ghost. As danger creeps closer, she comes to realize that this ghost might be darker than she could have imagined.

Kristen, early 20’s wakes to find herself bruised, cut, drugged and held against her will in a remote ward of Chamberlain Psychiatric Hospital . She is completely disorientated, with no idea why she was brought this place and no memory of her life.

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The quality isn’t the greatest, but here’s a Chinese trailer for Wu Ershan’s The Butcher, The Chef & The Swordsman, aka Legend of the Kitchen Knife. The martial-arts comedy stars Ando Masanobu, Ben Chang You and Kitty Zhang, and was one of three Midnight Madness films announced on Twitter tonight by programmer Colin Geddes. The other 2 films are Guy Moshe’s Bunkaru (Josh Hartnett, Demi Moore, Woody Harrelson) and James Gunn’s Super (Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, Liv Tyler). The remaining MM lineup (which will likely include James Wan’s Insidious, Julien Carbon and Laurent Courtiaud’s >Red Nights and John Carpenter’s The Ward) will be announced at 11am Tuesday.

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In Machete Maidens Unleashed!, cult cinema documentary director Mark Hartley takes a look at genre filmmaking in the Philippines, at a time when B-films dominated the 70s and well into the 90s. Hartley’s previous TIFF 2008 film, Not Quite Hollywood, covered low-budget, exploitation filmmaking in Australia. In this latest trailer (which was taken off YouTube earlier for too many breast scenes), we get a quick look at some of the interviews, as well as a montage of 1-second clips from jungle prison movies, blaxploitation and kung-fu hybrid films. Enjoy!

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It looks like Passion Play, the new drama-thriller with a star-studded cast including Megan Fox, Mickey Rourke and Bill Murray, will be making an appearance at the Toronto International Film Festival. According to an article from THR, the film directed and written by Mitch Glazer and co-produced by Daniel Dubiecki (Up in the Air) will premiere at TIFF. Rourke plays a troubled musician, while Fox is a winged sideshow attraction and they “rescue each other from dangerous circumstances.” The star of the TIFF 2008 film, The Wrestler, recently described Fox as “probably the best young actress I’ve ever worked with.”

Titles in the Midnight Madness and City to City programmes are to be announced Tuesday morning and many cult/horror fanatics are looking forward to this year’s MM lineup. One of the films we expect to hear tomorrow is Red Nights (Les Nuits Rouges du Bourreau de Jade), a Hong Kong-French production that is being described as a “fetish-mystery thriller”. Directed by Julien Carbon and Laurent Courtiaud (scriptwriters of Johnnie To’s Running Out Of Time), it stars Chinese actress Carrie Ng and Chinese-French speaking actor Stephen Wong Cheung-Hing, playing a female Cantonese Opera singer. Some photos taken on set can be seen below. Here’s the synopsis from their website:

During the reign of the first emperor of China, an ingenious torturer concocted an elixir that paralysed its victim’s limbs, while increasing the sensitivity of their nerve endings tenfold. Kept in a jade skull, the elixir could provoke sensations in infinite variations – everything from erotic caresses to appalling lacerations. Haunted by the desire to experience the extreme sensations caused by the elixir, the executioner kills himself with his own poison, intensifying his death experience. His pursuers never found the skull, which had been concealed within a large imperial seal. But the curse of the jade skull, responsible for its creator’s death, will endure within the seal, bringing misfortune to all of those who possess it. Until today…

Described as a “very short, very dark family drama”, Animal Control is the story of Larry, who picks up road kill along the highway for Animal Services. He discovers a dead dog, Sammy, who is still alive and a new friendship grows. You can watch a trailer for the short film below. It’s also one of the first films at TIFF to announce its schedule on their website:

Public 1: TIFF Bell Lightbox 2 Sept 15 9 PM
Public 2: Jackman Hall-AGO Sept 17 2:45 PM

We’ve got over 60 official trailers and teasers on our Trailers page now! Watch out for more in the next few days.

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Canada’s own Steve Nash is trying out the director’s chair for the first time with a documentary on legendary runner, Terry Fox. The NBA superstar said his film has been selected for the Toronto International Film Festival and will be titled Into the Wind.

“It’s great, really exciting,” the Phoenix Suns point guard said in an interview Friday at his Fitness World & Sports Club in Vancouver. “I feel very flattered. I am not Scorsese. I know that, so I am going to try and enjoy it and learn as much as I can.”

The documentary is produced as part of a series of 30 sports documentaries by ESPN called “30 for 30″. Last year at TIFF, Peter Berg presented his ESPN project Kings Ransom, which focused on the hockey great, Wayne Gretzky.

Source: The Globe and Mail