Creature features, Van Damme, young heroes slated for TIFF
Last Updated: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 | 4:06 PM ET
CBC News
Jean-Claude Van Damme confronts reality in the movie JCVD, which will open the Toronto film festival's Midnight Madness program. Down-and-out action star Jean-Claude Van Damme, movies featuring a handful of heroic kids and more than two dozen avant-garde films and videos are among the latest additions to the Toronto International Film Festival bill.
Organizers announced on Wednesday the lineups for three programs: the popular Midnight Madness, the challenging and artistic Wavelengths and the family-friendly Sprockets.
The action- and horror-focused Midnight Madness opens with JCVD (France/Luxembourg/Belgium), starring Van Damme as himself. In director Mabrouk El Mechri's film, Hollywood's faded "Muscles from Brussels" must deal with being an ordinary Joe when caught in the middle of a real-life heist.
The late-night lineup will also include:
- The Burrowers (USA) - A recovery troop searching for settlers who have mysteriously disappeared falls prey to the unexpected culprits.
- Deadgirl (USA) - The discovery of a naked, presumably dead girl in an abandoned asylum tests the friendship of two teens.
- Sexykiller (Spain) - A medical school's attempt to uncover the bloody serial killer within the community leads to victims returning to life.
- Detroit Metal City (Japan) - Based on the popular manga, the film follows a bubbly pop musician trying to maintain his own life and woo the girl of his dreams, while maintaining his undercover identity as a death metal rocker.
- Not Quite Hollywood (USA/Australia) - A documentary about Australia's maverick filmmakers of the 1970s and 1980s.
- Acolytes (Australia) - A trio of high schoolers who decide to blackmail a murder suspect see their scheme go awry.
- Chocolate (Thailand) - The director and action choreographer of the martial arts hit Ong-Bak reunite for this film, about a female martial arts savant who decides to collect some long-unpaid debts to help her cancer-stricken mother.
- Eden (France) - A sci-fi tale that begins with a man finding himself at the bottom of a cave next to a corpse.
- Martyrs (France/Canada) - A woman who, as a child, disappeared for a year seeks vengeance on the family she believes responsible.
Wavelengths will feature 26 films and videos by a host of established and emerging artists, separated into six distinct programs:
- Films by Nathaniel Dorsky and Jean-Marie Straub
- Lost and Found
- Horizontal Boundaries
- RR
- Trips
- When It Was Blue
Finally, a quartet of kids films making their world premieres will make up the Sprockets lineup:
- Krabat (Germany) - A 17th century-set film based on the Otfried Preuler bestseller about a 14-year-old miller's apprentice who discovers his master is an evil sorcerer involved in the dark arts.
- Mia et le Migou (France/Italy) - A young heroine's decision to rescue her trapped father from a construction site brings her into contact with the Migou, a mysterious species who protect an important tree threatened on the same construction site.
- The Secret of Moonacre (U.K./Hungary/France) - A 13-year-old orphan set to live with relatives happens upon an ancient curse and embarkes on a quest to undo it.
- Sunshine Barry & the Disco Worms (Denmark/Germany) - An earthworm living a dull existence decides to become a disco music star.
The Toronto International Film Festival gets under way Sept. 4 and runs through Sept. 13.
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