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| Anne Dorval in Mommy. Photo: Les Films Seville |
The full Canadian programming announcement doesn’t appear until August 6, but TIFFgoers can expect to see at least a few of the bigger and/or Canuck selections next Monday. North American premieres for Cannes Con like Xavier Dolan’s Mommy and David Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars seem particularly likely. Mommy seems like the surest contender with its Oscar-friendly release date and Cannes reception. (We'll have more on Mommy in August if/when it appears in the line-up. Ditto Tu dors Nicole, which had a positive reception in the Un Certain Regard programme.) Cronenberg, on the other hand, previously did the Telluride/Toronto thing with A Dangerous Method, so Maps could be downplayed at Toronto since Telluride frequently offers a near cut-and-paste job of Cannes’ official selection. That seems very unlikley, though, since Cronenberg would presumably pick Toronto. Maps distrib eOne also seems less likely to do a Telluride deal, however, than Method’s distributor Sony Pictures Classics, so Toronto will probably repatriate Cronenberg’s premiere status.
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| Julianne Moore in Maps to the Stars. Photo: eOne Films. |
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| Denys Arcand's An Eye for Beauty. Photo: Les Films Seville. |
Aside from Dolan and Cronenberg, Denys Arcand’s An Eye for Beauty could hypothetically
receive its non-Quebec premiere even though it opened quietly to disappointing
reviews when it hit Quebec theatres during Cannes. Major Québécois directors
Jean-Marc Vallée and Philippe Falardeau will almost undoubtedly be at TIFF with
the Reese Witherspoon one-two punch of Wild
and The Good Lie, respectively, but
their foray into Hollywood means at least two Canadian directors won’t be
making a splash with Canadian films. (But we’ll likely cheer them on and take
credit for their work, anyways.) Few other high-profile Canadian directors have
anything on the horizon or, if they do, their projects are American. This
probably means that TIFF 2014 will be a year of discovery on the Canadian
front, which is rather exciting.
Here are some Canadian films that Cinemablographer.com
thinks we could see on the festival circuit this fall.
Hellions
It just wouldn’t be TIFF without a Bruce McDonald movie. McDonald
might be the most high-profile Canadian director making a world premiere in the
Canadian line-up. Hellions sees
McDonald back in Pontypool mode as it
offers a horror/thriller about a nightmarish Halloween night where one teen
must survive a trio of trick-or-treaters who favour tricks. Robert Patrick
stars (probably not as the teenager) alongside a Canuck cast that includes
Rachel Wilson, Chloe Rose, and Rossif Sutherland. Considering the chills Pontypool inspires merely from the
confines of a radio booth, one hopes that Hellions
will offer more of the director’s funky black humour. After bringing the mojo
to the festival last year with The Husband, let’s cross our fingers that McDonald brings it back again.
Midnight Madness, maybe?
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| Xavier Dolan and Catherine Keener in Elephant Song. |
Elephant Song
This film seems like an obvious choice. Xavier Dolan stars
as a patient at a mental hospital who manipulates a prominent, yet troubled
psychiatrist played by Bruce Greenwood. Add Catherine Keener and Carrie-Anne
Moss in supporting roles, and Elephant
Song equals hefty draws for both Can Con and star power. Elephant Song also marks the latest film
from director Charles Binamé, who made the acclaimed, popular, and multi-award-winning
Maurice Richard biopic The Rocket.
Binamé’s credits, which include the 2002 box office hit Séraphin: un home et son péché, don’t feature a TIFF premiere
unless one goes all the way back to 1998’s Le
coeur au poing, though, but if he aims to make another splash on the
Canadian film scene, a TIFF premiere with a cast this notable could do it. Les
Films Séville/eOne has Canadian distribution and the film has reportedly been
done shooting for a while, so is it waiting to make its debut at Toronto?
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| Sophie Desmarais in Gurvo and Anna |
Gurvo and Anna
Ah, here’s one I really hope to see in the line-up. I missed
Rafaël Ouellet’s Camion when it played
at the festival in 2012, and I’ll make sure not to make the same mistake with Gurvo and Anna. I love Camion’s beautifully sparse,
slice-of-life über-Québécois-ness, so I’m very intrigued to see Ouellet’s
upcoming ultra-literate Anglophone pic Gurvo
and Anna. The film, which reportedly wrapped filming in March, stars Sarah Prefers to Run’s Sophie Desmarais as
a student caught up in a passionate relationship with her literature professor,
who develops a Chekhovian affair inspired by his obsession with the short story
“The Lady with the Dog.” Ambitious-sounding literary picks are enough reason to
be excited, but fans of Camion will
be especially eager to hear that Gurvo
and Anna features another score by Mentana, which is reason alone to look forward to Ouellet’s latest given
how much the soundtrack
is a highlight of Camion.
Ballin'
instead of brawlin. DISCO ballin' that is. #AaronBrooks
and @DustinWMilligan
http://t.co/1XbO4xNMsE
pic.twitter.com/X1K9FbbmF9
—
Bad City (@BadCity1976) June
16, 2013
Bad City
The spirit of Canuxploitation lives on in Carl Bessai’s Bad City! Bessai, one of Canada’s most
prolific and diverse filmmakers, follows-up this year’s noir-spoof No Clue with the Canuxploitation parody Bad City. Canuxploitation, in a
nutshell, encapsulates an oft-maligned window of Canadian exploitation/B-Movie
cinema produced in the 1970s and 1980s that is largely characterized by campy/shoddily-produced
cash grabs enabled by nefarious tax loopholes. (Visit Canuxploitation.com for the ultimate
guide to these hidden “gems.”) Bad City
promises a riotous primer on this era of Canadian cinema as Bessai and company
(the cast includes Dustin Milligan and Aaron Brooks) have fun with this meta-movie
produced by a hack dentist looking to cash in. Bad City pays homage to the maple-syrupy schlock-fests that, for better or for worse, define
an era of Canadian film. (Mostly for worse.)
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| James Franco and Wim Wenders on the set of Everthing Will Be Fine. |
Everything Will Be Fine
If Canuxploitation characterizes a past chapter of Canadian
cinema, then the wonders of international co-production define Canadian film in
the present. Wim Wenders’ upcoming Everything
Will Be Fine marks one of several high-profile Canuck co-pros that could
tip the numbers for Canadian content at this year’s festival. (Others include Suite Française and Life.) This Montreal-shot film is an endeavor between Canada,
Germany, and Norway that stars an impressive range of Canadian and
international actors from Rachel McAdams to Marie-Josée Croze to James Franco to
Charlotte Gainsbourg. The film covers all the bases for Can Con, world cinema,
star status, street cred, and Oscar fodder the festival needs to please
everyone, so it would be a surprise not to see it in the programme if it’s
ready in time for the festival. Everything
Will Be Fine reportedly marks a return to 3D for Wenders after his great
2011 dance doc (and TIFF selection) Pina,
so TIFF-goers can expect to enjoy the film in the cushy surroundings of the
Lightbox.
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| Mathieu Denis directs Corbo |
Corbo
Corbo appeared in
the Canada Cannes market earlier this year, so a TIFF slot is certainly
possible. Dramatizations of the actions of the Front de libération du Québec
(FLQ) are fairly rare in Canadian film, which is surprising since they
present such a dramatic chapter of history. (Although there are Pierre
Falardeau’s Octobre and last year’s Le maison du pêcheur.) Corbo zeroes in on events that preceded
the October Crisis,
namely, the death of 16-year-old idealist Jean Corbo (played by Anthony
Therrien) who joined a movement for social revolution but died during an
explosion caused by a bomb he planted. Antoine L’Écuyer (It’s Not Me, I Swear!) and Karelle Tremblay (Amsterdam) star as Corbo’s fellow radicals.
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| Violent |
Violent
Violent looks like a likely get for the Discovery programme of the festival, since it marks the feature directorial debut of We Are the City drummer Andrew Huculiak. This Canuck-Norwegian co-pro was shot in Norway using a predominantly Norwegian-speaking cast, which is pretty ambitious for a first time filmmaker. When asked about Norway in an interview with Straight, the director simply admits that Scandinavia is a bit of an obsession. Violent certainly looks dreamy from its promising trailer, and that soundtrack by We Are the City sounds like enough of a draw for fans. It could maybe lead to an obsession, since Violent is also getting some pretty great reviews out of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival where it recently had its world premiere. The Playlist gives it good word, saying, “when Violent hits its drummer’s-rhythm stride it becomes more than the sum of its parts, beautiful as they are: it becomes a sincere expression of a generous curiosity about some of life’s bigger questions…” Violent’s fellow Karlovy Canuck Je suis à toi also earned some good buzz at the festival including a Best Actor prize for Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, so we hope to see that at TIFF as well!
Seances
Here’s where the Toronto/Telluride thing could get awkward. Guy
Maddin, strange as he is, started shooting Seances
last June in a project that aimed to deliver 12 short films in 13 days. The
films would reportedly then become both an interactive experience and a feature
film made in collaboration with the NFB and Phi Films. (The project actually
began with a shoot of 18 films at the Centre George Pompidou in Paris back in
2012, but that’s another spell.) Sounds promising, eh? Yes, but Maddin is also serving
as the guest programmer for the Telluride Film Festival with his wife Kim
Morgan. The bold, if necessary, stipulation that films
couldn’t double-dip in Toronto and Telluride waters if they wanted to keep their
plum premiere slots during TIFF’s opening weekend could put Maddin in a
sticky situation between festival frenemies. The ultra-exclusive Telluride
isn’t really the kind of place where people go to see a Maddin movie, though,
so the question might all be a moot point. It seems like a film worth discussing in the frenzied line-ups, anyways!
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| Deepak (Vinay Virmani) and Natalie (Adrianne Palicki) in Dr. Cabbie. Photo: eOne Films. |
Dr. Cabbie
Canadian production? Check. Toronto-based shoot? Check.
September release date? Check. International film production with Bollywood’s Salman
Khan? Check. Same day release in Canada and India? Check and check! Dr. Cabbie could follow several commercially
oriented Canadian flicks to debut at TIFF with a theatrical release hot on their heels. (See Inescapable and The Art of the Steal for recent
examples.) The film also marks a crossover into Anglophone Canadian film for
Quebec’s Jean-François Pouliot, whose La
grande séduction enjoyed an English remake that nabbed a Gala slot at the
fest last year. There are many reasons to suspect Dr. Cabbie will show up at Roy Thomson Hall, or at the very least
somewhere in the festival line-up since, in additions to the reasons above, the film is one of several titles for
which IMDb already has a curious TIFF release date. Let’s hope that Dr.
Cabbie arrives at the red carpet on elephants as Breakaway did in 2011—that was wild!
