INDEPTH: TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL 2004
The good news and the better news
CBC News Online | September 3, 2004
Dan Brown will be attending the Toronto International Film Festival for its entirety, from Sept. 9 to 18. Throughout the festival he will bring you reports on the latest Canadian films. Read his dispatches and follow his comments by clicking on the links.
For fans of Canadian cinema, there's good news and there's bad news about this year's edition of the Toronto International Film Festival.
First, the good news: there are lots of Canadian titles being screened. Out of a total of 253 features, the festival's organizers are boasting that 40 qualify as Canadian (and that figure doesn't even take into account other features that have connections to Canada).
The bad news is that the heavyweights of Canadian filmmaking – your Arcands, your Cronenbergs, your Egoyans – are conspicuously absent. If you're looking for the Really Big Names, this year's festival won't be much fun for you because apparently none of them had anything to offer when the submission deadline came around.
Hmmm … come to think of it … maybe this isn't bad news at all. Maybe the lack of established directors will mean that up-and-coming filmmakers – the ones who don't normally get a chance to step into the spotlight, the ones who would otherwise have been crowded out – will have a better shot at grabbing an audience, as well as headlines.
Maybe what this means is that 2004 is the year to be someone like Rob Stefaniuk, the director who's making his feature debut with the science-fiction comedy Phil The Alien, about an extraterrestrial who crash-lands in a small town in Ontario's north and almost immediately develops a drinking habit. (It's the only movie that stars Joe Flaherty as a talking beaver – now that's Canadian content.)
So scratch that first sentence. The truth is that there's good news and there's good news about the 29th annual Toronto film fest.
Here are just a few of the films that I will be endeavouring to report on in the next couple weeks:
• Childstar. Starring Twitch City and waydowntown alumnus Don McKellar, this one is about a 12-year-old sitcom star from the U.S. who runs amok while in Canada making a runaway production. The premise sounds like fertile comedic ground for the always droll McKellar, but then again didn't David Spade's Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star also look good on paper?
• Wilby Wonderful. Judging by the advance publicity material, this Daniel MacIvor-directed picture could be a delightful slice of life. With turns from reliable Canadian stalwarts like Maury Chaykin and Paul Gross, it takes as its setting a fictional small town on the East Coast. Of course it's small – otherwise, why would it be on the East Coast?
• Shake Hands With The Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire. This documentary is about the Rwandan genocide in 1994, so there's no excuse for it not to be gripping. Besides, in the post-Fahrenheit 9/11 world we all love docs now, don't we?
• A Whale Of A Tale. Directed by Peter Lynch, the guy who brought us Project Grizzly, this doc tries to explain how a chunk of whalebone was discovered underneath Toronto during the excavation of a new subway line in the city's downtown, hundreds of kilometres from the nearest salt water. The story sounds so strange, I'm sure you can come up with your own zinger.
• Acapulco Gold. From André Forcier, this film examines the claims of the Eternal Colonel, a man living in Mexico who may or may not be Elvis Presley. Experts analyse everything from his handwriting to his bone structure and discover he is, in fact, a whale. Naw – just pulling your leg.
• The Limb Salesman. This very mannered science-fiction flick was directed by Anais Granofsky. Yes, the same Anais Granofsky who played Lucy on the various Degrassi television shows. And here's the kicker: this isn't the first feature film she's directed. That unsettling sensation passing over you is the feeling you experience when your age catches up with you.
• The Love Crimes Of Gillian Guess. Hard Core Logo director Bruce McDonald is behind this retelling of the story of Canada's most famous juror. Remember Gillian Guess? She's the woman who slept with the accused guy during that trial, maybe it was out in British Columbia. Yeah, that sounds like something that would happen in B.C.
• Jiminy Glick In Lalawood. It may be hard to believe, but Martin Short has made an entire film about Jiminy Glick, his answer to all the idiotic interviewers he has faced over the years. First, the character was a bit player on Short's short-lived talk show. Then he was the basis for a whole show. Now he's the central figure in a movie. Next up: the Jiminy Glick channel. You heard it here first.
As for what you can expect from these reports: more of the same. If you clicked on last year's coverage, you will have no doubt noticed that the focus was exclusively on Canadian film. That's not going to change this time around.
One of the great ironies of the festival is that the films themselves often get lost amid all the stories focusing on the celebrities who temporarily descend on Toronto. You won't find that kind of gossip here, however. If you want to know which director is dating which starlet and the name of the chic Toronto eatery where all the A-listers are dining, this isn't the website for you. I'm going to let other media outlets answer those questions.
This isn't a blog; it's not an effort to describe the experience of attending the festival. If you're looking for reviews of the homegrown films that may one day show up at your local theatre, however, then consider this your invitation to surf by regularly. The definition of "Canadian" that I'm going to use when deciding which films to highlight is going to be somewhat elastic, so anything with a connection to the Truth North is fair game for these reports. And maybe, just maybe, there will be a gem or two among them.
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Dan Brown is the site's senior arts editor/reporter. Before joining us he was a lineup editor and senior writer for Newsworld International. Dan helped to launch the National Post's Arts & Life section, where he was a columnist and reporter. A former editorial writer, copy editor and journalism instructor, Dan has degrees from three universities.
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