Toronto International Film Festival

TIFF Announces New Venue; Programming Team

Nigel M Smith — Mon, 14 May 2012 14:34:21 GMT

The Toronto International Film Festival (September 6 -16) has added a venue to its upcoming edition, and announced its programming team.

The new venue will be the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema, located in Toronto's Annex neighborhood, and equipped to hold appoximately 710 guests. Previously known as the Bloor Cinema, the recently revotated Bloor Hot Docs Cinema serves as the primary venue for the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, and a year-round showcase for documentary programming in the city. [Go HERE for more information on the cinema.]

And below, find the names of this year's team of programmers with bios provided by TIFF:

Canadian Features: 
Steve Gravestock has been selecting Canadian feature films for the Festival since 2004. Gravestock also programs films from Scandinavia, the Netherlands and the Philippines. Gravestock is also responsible for year-round Canadian programming initiatives for TIFF, including Canada's Top Ten.

Agata Smoluch Del Sorbo is a Canadian features programmer for the Festival. This marks Smoluch Del Sorbo’s eighth year with the Festival; during this time she has held several positions, including serving as Head Programmer for the Canadian short film section and Manager of Canadian Programming.

Short Cuts Canada:
 Alex Rogalski has been a programmer with the Festival since 2007. In addition to programming Short Cuts Canada, Rogalski programmes the Student Film ShowcaseTM, Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival and the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in Toronto.

Magali Simard is currently a Senior Coordinator of Film Programmes for TIFF. She brings her experience in the Canadian film industry and her knowledge of Quebec cinema to her third year of programming Short Cuts Canada. Simard also programs the Student Film Showcase.

Wavelengths:
Andréa Picard has worked for TIFF since 1999, and was a member of the TIFF Cinematheque programming team for 12 years. She has curated Wavelengths, the Festival’s critically-acclaimed avant-garde programme, since 2006 and has contributed to the Festival’s Visions and Future Projections sections.

TIFF Kids: 
Elizabeth Muskala is the Director of the TIFF Kids International Film Festival and has been with the organization since 1996 in a number of capacities.

Future Projections: 
Noah Cowan is the Artistic Director of TIFF Bell Lightbox and drives the curatorial vision for the organization’s year-round programming. Cowan currently programs TIFF Cinematheque titles, international films and Future Projections, the celebrated city- wide meeting of the visual arts and cinema.

TIFF Docs and Mavericks:
 Thom Powers 
Powers has been an International Documentary Programmer for the Festival since 2006. He is also responsible for the Festival’s Mavericks conversation series. Powers is the Artistic Director for the weekly documentary series “Stranger than Fiction” at Manhattan’s IFC Center, and for the DOC NYC festival.

International Features:
Cameron Bailey 
City to City, Western Europe, South Asia, the Caribbean and USA
 As Artistic Director of the Festival, Bailey is responsible for the overall vision and execution of Festival programming. He has been programming for the Festival for over 13 years.

Dimitri Eipides 
Eastern Europe, Central Europe and Central Asia 
Eipides has been with the Festival since 1988. His extensive programming career began with establishing the Independent Filmmakers Cooperative in Montreal in 1969. In 1971, Eipides founded the Festival International du Nouveau Cinéma et de la Vidéo de Montréal, where he served as Director until 1994.

Giovanna Fulvi
 East and South East Asia
 Fulvi has been programming for TIFF since 1996. She is based in Italy and works as a programming consultant for the Torino Film Festival and International Film Festival Rotterdam. Fulvi is currently the Head of Acquisitions for Filmauro in Rome.

Colin Geddes 
Midnight Madness and Vanguard 
A programmer with the Festival since 1998, Geddes’ additional programming efforts include TIFF Cinematheque, the Asian rep theatre Golden Classics Cinema and FantAsia Toronto. In 2010, Geddes was appointed Festival Director for ActionFest.

Piers Handling 
Western Europe, Italy, Poland and USA 
Handling is the Director and CEO of TIFF, responsible for leading both the operational and artistic growth of the organization. He has held this position since 1994.

Michèle Maheux
 Ireland, United Kingdom and USA 
Maheux is the Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of TIFF and is primarily responsible with oversight of organization's operational and revenue generating needs and plans. Each year, she delights in dabbling in the artistic for Festival.

Rasha Salti 
Africa and the Middle East
 Salti, an independent film and visual arts curator and writer, joined the Festival in 2011. She was a film programmer and creative director of the New York-based ArteEast, where she directed two editions of the biennial CinemaEast Film Festival.

Diana Sanchez
 Spain, Portugal and Latin America
 With the Festival since 2002, Sanchez has been involved in a variety of other festivals and cinematic presentations. She is currently the Artistic Director for the International Film Festival of Panama, a programme consultant for the International Film Festival Rotterdam and a senior programme consultant for the Miami International Film Festival.

Jane Schoettle 
Australia, New Zealand, Israel and US Independent 
Schoettle has worked with TIFF since 2002 and is the founder and former Director of the TIFF Kids International Film Festival (formerly the Sprockets Toronto International Film Festival for Children and Youth). She also works extensively as an independent script consultant.

Venice Film Festival Announces its Market in a Crowded Fall Season

Sydney Levine — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 14:41:00 GMT

The Venice Film Festival's new artistic director Alberto Barbera has announced that France’s Pascal Diot will head the new Venice Film Market. Pascal has been a producer and an international sales agent and distributor. He is well known and very well respected, even loved, by the industry as is Alberto Barbera. The Film Market will take place durng the first few days of the Festival which begins August 29 and runs through September 8.

Aside from the festival films, sales companies will offer other films as well in order to entice the number of buyers who attend. There will also be a Digital Video Library to show the films not selected for the festival, a Business Center and an Industry Club. Conferences, panel discussions, networking events will be held and a special catering servie will offer (yummy) Venetian fare. There will also be a new specific catering service with the Lido’s premises offering the appropriate facilities. The probelm with Venice, aside from its back to back timing with TIFF, is that facilities on the Lido are very expensive.

While North Americans will attend Toronto which begins September 6, the first Thursday of the month and shows many of the same films as Venice. It will be interesting to see what trade attendance figures will be in Venice and if it will impace Rome which unrolls the following month.

The irony is not lost on the industry watching these developments, that this event, long desired by former festival director Marco Mueller, has finally arrived just as the International Film Festival of Rome has announced Marco's accession to position of its director along with an expanded market component as well. The seventh edition will be held October 18-26. Last year 820 partipants from 49 countries screened 140 films. There were 280 buyers and 93 sellers.

To cap up this busy fall, Moscow (the Film Festival is held in June) has announced October 15 to 20 as the dates for its Red Square Screenings. Russia’s main film-financing agency, the federal fund for social and economic support to the film industry, is launching Red Square Screenings. The head of the Cinema Fund, Yelena Romanova, who also installed modern booths for international sales agents from Russia at this year's EFM, said she developed the concept of Red Square Screenings from the models of Unifrance's annual screenings of French films and Ventana Sur. It will be organized by the initiative group RAC (Russians Are Coming!) and headed by producer Yevgeny Gindilis, known for running the CentEast international event, held in Warsaw every fall. 40 to 50 films from Russia and neighboring countries such as Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan will be screening in competed format and as works in progress. The idea is good, the big question is, who will have the energy to attend yet another market? And if the films are sales worthy won't they already have screened in either Venice, Toronto or Rome?

Toronto Film Fest Selects Mumbai For 2012's City To City Program

Peter Knegt — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 02:46:09 GMT

It was announced today that the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival's City to City programme will focus on Mumbai.

“Past editions of City to City explored how filmmakers represented their urban landscape. This year we'll shift the scope of the programme to showcase filmmakers living and working in Mumbai, regardless of where their films are set," said TIFF Artistic Director Cameron Bailey, who is currently in Mumbai participating in FICCI FRAMES, the global media and entertainment convention. “There's been an exciting evolution recently that's seen local independent films emerge to contrast with Bollywood's dazzling commercial movies. Whether you call it Mumbai or Bombay, this city is a massive player in the global film world, and a place I've grown to love in all its diversity. Toronto audiences are in for a thrill this September.”

This is the fourth year for the City to City series; cities featured in past programmes include Tel Aviv, Istanbul and Buenos Aires. The announcement of the City to City lineup will be made in August. The 37th Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 6 to 16, 2012.

Jennifer Westfeldt On Her Accidental Directing Debut, 'Friends With Kids'

Nigel M Smith — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:26:50 GMT

"Kissing Jessica Stein" co-scribe and star Jennifer Westfeldt is back with another New York-centric romantic comedy, "Friends With Kids" (opening this Friday). This time, she also directed it -- though that wasn't her intent.

Westfeldt and Adam Scott star as a pair of single Manhattanites who decide to have a kid together, despite not being romantically attached. Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig, Chris O'Dowd and Westfedt's longtime partner, Jon Hamm, are the friends who don't know what to make of the idea. And complications ensue when Westfeldt's character falls for the soon-to-be father to her child.

Westfeldt sat down with Indiewire to discuss her first foray behind the camera and why it's been so long since her last script, "Ira & Abby" (2006).

You sure like to keep fans of your writing waiting.

I've made three films in 10 years, with perfect five-year intervals (laughs). I had to write this essay for Landmark Theaters, where our film is playing, and I was trying to make sense of this weird, unintentional trilogy I seem to have made about my take on life phases.

Now you're well known as a director/writer, but "Friends With Kids" marks your first stab at directing. How did that all come about?

We didn't mean for it to. We met with a bunch of different directors. We were in conversations with Jake Kasdan ("Bad Teacher") to direct it. We has wanted to work together for such a long time and he's a great talent.

With an indie film, you have all these balls in the air, where, you know, Adam (Scott) is available now, and there's this one window where this person is available, and the money's coming together and we just haven't had the dealmaking done. There's so many moving parts to get an indie film off the ground. We knew the cast we wanted and they were all attached, but they all had pending schedules. We had to find the magic three weeks when everyone was going to be available. You're not gonna get that opportunity more than once, and it came in the dead of winter last year in the worst New York winter in 45 years. And that's just when everyone could do it.

Jake Kasdan was still in post on "Bad Teacher," so he convinced me to do it myself. All of my producing partners were pushing me to take the reins on it. So, Jake cut a deal with me. He said, "What's your biggest worry?" And I said, "Well, I'm acting in most of this, and I don't want to compromise the performance or the directing, because there's so many hours in the day." And Jake said he'd be on set and be a second set of eyes while I'm on camera, and he did. And he was there every shooting day when I was working as an actress. It was an amazing solution and he became a really influential, creative producer on set.

We were an indie band and everybody pooled their resources and worked together. My DP, Will Rexer, was endlessly patient with me and generous and we spent so much time in prep, because I wasn't sure I would be able to translate things as I saw them to the crew.

I know what actors need. I know how to help actors feel comfortable and confident and get the performance. But as far as shotlisting and camera crews, I really wanted to make sure I was 100% prepared. So, it was just 24/7 of us going moment-by-moment and shot by shot and going through each scene and figuring out how I wanted the blocking to go with me playing all the parts with no dollars and no time. He really helped me figure out a game plan. And then half the time the plan gets thrown out because the kids have a meltdown or we lost our day or there's suddenly 24 inches of snow. You have to keep reinventing as you go, but it was great to be so comfortable with the essence of what we're going for so you can do a 180 in the moment.

It's funny how your first directing gig happened by sheer coincidence. It feels like such a natural progression for you as an artist.

It never was on my radar. I spent time in the editing room on both of my other two movies, watching as a producer, so I had been involved with everything in a peripheral way, so post didn't scare me. The shoot scared me. On the first few films, I was working 18 hours a day, but this one was 24 hours a day. I had the shakes and I lost my voice. Things happen and you have to keep dealing with them.

Writing and directing and editing are all endless jobs. They're all jobs you never feel like you can complete. In acting, the curtain goes up at 8 and it's got to go down by 11. There's something really liberating about that because you might have a wonderful performance or it might not be great and then you get up and do it again the next day. You could edit a film for four years and never feel done with it. You're so aware of wanting to exhaust every permutation and constantly put it in front of fresh eyes to get a fresh perspective because you no longer have one.

With all the hats you were wearing, what did you do to focus on set and deliver what's a pretty endearing performance?

The truth is that Jon (Hamm) was there, Jake was there, Will was there and they're all people I inherently trust so much. I've known Adam for 15 years as well, so there's a real comfort in working with people you believe in and trust. We were all kind of there for each other.

The thing about an indie film is that there are so many joys and the pitfalls. Nobody is making money and nobody has trailers and there's none of the things that people expect actors to get. What that means is that everyone is there for the right reasons. It feels very pure, like you're back in college and doing a play in your dining hall. It's a funny thing when you're up against it and everyone bonds together. Every person with a ton of experience thought it would be impossible to get this movies made. It was under $10 million. And with this script in particular, there were so many locations and so many kids who are getting older, and so many seasons. So you expect it to be four months of shooting and $40 million dollars. But, whatever, I'm an Aquarian. You get emboldened by the fact that it's impossible.

Seems like you're really close with most of the people involved.

Well, Jon and Adam and I go back. I've known Adam for fifteen years, and his wife Naomi (Sablan) is a producer, and her first job as a producer was "Kissing Jessica Stein." So there's a full-circle familial atmosphere to this.

And Kristin (Wiig) and Maya (Rudolph) have worked together for years and years and Jon has worked with them. And Eddie Burns is good friends with Will Rexer's family. And Megan's (Fox) husband Brian (Austin Green) did a movie with Adam a few years ago.

Did you go to Ed Burns for any advice? He's an old hat at the directing/writing/acting game.

He was actually quite busy, but on the set, he was like, "You seem calm." And of course I wasn't calm. And the first day we shot was that walk-and-talk near Brooklyn Promenade, so it was like 9 degrees and we sat shivering in a van when we could. He was such a good sport and so was everyone on the project.

Are we going to see you direct anything else down the road?

Definitely not soon, but if something comes along and I feel like I have something to bring to it...and we have more time to prepare.

Cinando has Changed Its Look and Its Tools

Sydney Levine — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 11:14:00 GMT

For a low price of $115 a year, you can have the industry's only database dealing in rights licensing as it takes place throughout the year at the major film markets. Cannes Marche inaugurated Cinando in partnership with FilmFinders (the company I founded in 1988 and left in the hands of IMDbPro in 2009) in 1999 and was named Cannesmarket.com. At that time the database listed companies, executives and movies, market locations and screening times. FilmFinders kept comprehensive rights availabilities for its subscribers.

It has grown since then from listing all the titles being sold by all international sales agents on a market by market platform and cross linking titles with their producers, to including streaming and downloading films for screening, trailers, pix, and mobile apps currently being developed and already including iPhone. iPad will be next as will a mobile offline screening room.

Cinando has grown to work with European Film Market, AFM, Ventana Sur, Hong Kong's Filmart, Karlovy Vary, San Sebastian, Toronto, and Pusan International Film Festivals. Subscriptions to the service are included in registration to these events.

Cinando is the extension of the markets in that it lists current market line-ups by all sales agents. Going one step further, when provided by the distributors themselves, it shows which films are licensed to which distributors. In my opinion this is an important and key advantage, though in the Screen international review of current database website February 10 it is not emphasized. At this point it is up to the distributors to enter the market information. If Filmtrack decides to go public with what they call "The Holy Grail" -- what is available to be licensed to whom and when-- as FilmFiinders did so long ago then they will offer Cinando some stiff competition on that front. Principals Jason Kassin and his brother Stephen Kassin allude to launching this very concept via RightsTrade in Cannes this May.

Another great feature is in the ISAs' lineup where films' origins by country are showed along with where the film premiered and when the record on it was created. Very helpful. The films available for screening are also shown on the ISA's landing page.

Jerome Paillard, Executive Director of the Cannes Marche, is quoted as seeing a possible emergence of direct distribution (via streaming or downloading) as a potential growth area for Cinando. I like that too. I wonder if the sales agents would be generous enough to offer affiliate marketing possibilities if such online distribution does develop.

Variety recently covered the year round B2B VOD movie download services which allows authorized movie executives to burn DVDs (at $1.58 a pop) as well as watch via streaming (free) that Cinando is also now providing.

Cinando offers 2,500 films online and 20,000 titles. It currently has 35,000 registered members and 5,000 frequent users.

Its new interface was launched for Berlin. It's cleaner and yet more comprehensive with a top menu for personal items and a second set of tabs closer into the main page which are related to the database itself, four spaces to put your own company more actively "in the mix", more visible news and more visible films available for screening online and uniquely to Cinando an attendance list for festivals.

LGBT rights in Indonesia and Asia and the World And The Panorama Section of the Berlinale

Sydney Levine — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 15:30:01 GMT

Children of Srikandi world premieres in the Panorama section of the Berlinale. But the producers still need a bit of finishing funds. They have 20 days left and with a bit of effort it should be possible! Five of the filmmakers will be in Berlin to present this about lesbians in Indonesia and how their history is merged into the myths and gods of the country.

Children of Srikandi's crowdfunding campaign on IndieGoGo to raise post-production finances of about US$5,000 has raised all but US$977.

If a person only gives $10, then pledges to invite 10 others to do the same and if 50 people do this they will have raised the total of $ 5,000. And so the chain of micro giving will continue and grow.

It's a daring film and often dangerous to those involved in its creation.

It is extremely important for the women to finish this film in order to screen it in Indonesia and in the world and to show their own point of view. There are alreasdy many requests from international festivals who want to screen our film in their program.

The Film Collaborative also has two LGBT films in Panorama: Vito on Vito Russo and Leave It On The Floor which has a unique festival arc of world premiering at LAFF, Canadian premiering at TIFF and now European premiering at the Berlinale.

Festival Scope opens “Labels”

Sydney Levine — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:25:00 GMT

Finally a way to track festival winners that eliminates our need to track all festivals separately. Festival Scope, the online platform known for providing film professionals with online screening of films from more than 60 of the most prestigious international film festivals (including Berlinale, Rotterdam, Locarno, Venice, Cannes' Directors' Fortnight and Critics' Week, Toronto and San Sebastian) has developed a new section. The section is called "Labels" and is aimed at providing additional visibility to the films awarded in festivals or selected by partner organizations. The "Labels" has been launched with a special partnership with FIPRESCI, the International Federation of Film Critics. On the FIPRESCI page Festival Scope presents a selection of films that have been awarded the FIPRESCI Award. About 30 titles are already available for screening, including recently awarded Salesman (ISA: EOne) (awarded in Torino), The Tiniest Place (Mar del Plata), Eighty Letters (Thessaloniki), Yatasto (Viennale). More will be added throughout the year. Klaus Eder, General Secretary of FIPRESCI says: "Our aim is not only to present, at festivals, the critics' prize to the films we like. We also wish to help them [get a larger audience]. Festival Scope offers a wonderful chance to make our engagement better known to the professionals of cinema and to provoke the interest of other festivals and of buyers.

One of my first reactions on reading thus far was that this seems more self serving on FIPRESCI's part than inclusive of winners in general. I realize that I have absorbed an industry criticism of FIPRESCI itself which deserves further investigation. My criticism is that, in creating a label of its own prizes on a general platform, it is furthering its own mission. FIPRESCI, a critics' organization, chooses one festival per country to put their labeled prize upon, and to the outsider their endorsement automatically carries a sort of prestige. However, I have heard from one top festival director that they then impose certain rules upon that festival and to this festival director, they represent a sort of mafia. As I said, this merits greater investigation, perhaps I or another reader will write a blog upon FIPRESCI itself.

As I read further, I realize that the Festival Scope "Labels" extends beyond FIPRESCI itself, and as such is a boon to people seeking certain types of films. One of the labels presents the Global Lens 2012, Global Film Initiative’s critically acclaimed independent world cinema exhibition and distribution platform. The line-up includes ten award-winning narrative feature films from around the world including Morteza Farshbaf's darkly comic road trip, Mourning (Iran, ISA: Wide) (FIPRESCI Prize and New Currents Award, Pusan IFF) , Paula Markovitch's The Prize (Mexico, ISA: Urban Media) (Silver Bear, Berlin IFF and Best Film, Morelia IFF) and Toll Booth, Tolga Karaçelik's acclaimed Turkish "everyman" story.

Santhosh Daniel from Global Film Initiative says “We’re honored that Global Lens is one of three inaugural “labels” on Festival Scope, as the distinction not only reflects a recognition of quality, but also a mutual respect for the impact our two organizations can create by working together.” I stand with Santhosh here. The Global Film Initiative is a great platform honoring seldom heard voices from countries upon which the camera rarely focuses.

Last but not least, Festival Scope dedicates a showcase to Binger Filmlab, the Amsterdam-based organization welcoming the best and brightest filmmakers providing them intensive series of labs, workshops and events. Selected filmmakers are presented to the international film community together with their previous work. Already highlighted the films by Darius Devas from Australia, Caroline Kamya from Uganda, Jonathan Ostos Yaber from Mexico and Kevin Meul from Belgium. The Binger is very dear to me, as Jeanne Wikler, a longtime American resident of The Netherlands and a documentary filmmaker herself, invited us for many years to be coaches. She created a warm and welcoming environment ("Gezellig") which to this day retains this atmosphere, even at their Cannes Reception Days where we are always warmly greeted by Greetje Schuring, Assistant to the Directors and by former Binger participant, now Artistic Director, Marten Rabarts and by the beautiful longtime film event organizer Daan Gielis Head of Talent & Communications. In raising startup funds for this event from the government she was aided by former parliament member Gamila Ylstra who is now CEO of Binger. Jeanne herself is now the Director of the Institute of The Netherlands in Paris. Gamila Ylstra states, “Festival Scope is the perfect partner for Binger Filmlab: a unique platform for film professionals that enables us to showcase previous work and contextualize the projects and filmmakers in our Writers and Directors Labs. We are honored to be part of this!” I find this use of Festival Scope especially appealing in light of current government moves to cut cultural events; Festival Scope helps prove that such organizations as Binger contribute to the world's well-being in the context of cultural freedom is very important. Alessandro Raja, founder of Festival Scope, says: "We are thrilled to widen the scope of our activities with the creation of the "Labels". It’s an additional way for us to contribute to the promotion of the films we like and that play a significant role in today’s and tomorrow’s cinema".

I think Festival Scope should go further in award posting; let FIPRESCI have its and let others have their own pages if they merit it. Certainly Binger and The Global Film Initiative merit pages of their own.

Madonna Defends "W.E.": "I know that I did the best that I could do."

Peter Knegt — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:27:00 GMT

Whatever audiences may make of Madonna's "W.E.," she says she's satisfied with her work.

[This interview was originally published during Indiewire's coverage of the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. "W.E." opens this Friday, Feb. 3.]

"I know that I did the best that I could do," Madonna told Indiewire of directing and co-writing "W.E.," which had its North American premiere last night at the Toronto International Film Festival. "I pay attention to reviews where I know people are reviewing my work. When they're letting me -- the person, the human being -- get in the way, then I don't really give it much credence. At the end of the day, I made the film to be judged as a film. Not for people to compare it to me."

The film made its first appearance just over a week ago at the Venice Film Festival, where critics were quick to pounce on Madonna's second directorial effort (after 2008's "Filth and Wisdom"). The reception in Toronto seemed to be much more in line with Madonna's ideals, as the general reaction among Toronto audiences suggested criticisms may have been somewhat blown out of proportion.

"I understand that that's going to happen," she said. "I knew going into this that people were going to sometimes get their opinion of me mixed up and muddled in with my work. So of course I always appreciate it when people really review my film and stick to the film."

The film explores Wallis Simpson (Andrea Riseborough), who became the Duchess of Windsor when she married King Edward VIII; and Wally Winthrop (Abbie Cornish), a modern-day, fictional mirror of Simpson who is searching for her own fairytale romance. Weaving their narratives, the film examines how each woman overcomes obstacles in their quests to be who they are.

For Madonna, it's a story of female empowerment that fits quite nicely into her near 30-year career as an iconic entertainer.

"It's knowing that you're in charge of your destiny and knowing that you don't have to live your life according to other people's plans or expectations of you," she said of the film. "I mean, that's always been a been a big message in my work. The freedom to express yourself and be who you are and not limit yourself. And that's a big message in the film: You're in charge of your destiny. You don't have to live the life that everyone else expects you to live."

Madonna said that she was initially drawn to the project simply out of a fascination with Simpson as a historical figure.

"I thought that the choice that Edward VIII made to give up the throne for this woman posed a lot of questions in my brain," she said. "One was the idea of whether he did it for love. Was it the greatest romance of the 20th century?"

Another question was trying to understand her as character and what she had to offer.

A scene from "W.E."

"As I investigated and did research into her, I realized she had been treated very unfairly in the history books and didn't turn out to be any of the things that were first presented to me," Madonna said. "So then that made me think about the whole idea of the cult of celebrity and our idea and our obsession with famous people and how unfairly they usually treat them because we don't allow them to become human beings. We paint them as either black or white and there's no nuance or subtlety. The idea of duality doesn't exist."

Clearly, Madonna knows a thing or two about those ideas. And she teamed up with her longtime collaborator and friend Alek Keshishian (director of Madonna doc "Truth or Dare") to write the screenplay.

"I had written 'Filth and Widsom' with Dan Cadan, an English writer who is actually quite funny and he lent himself very well to that subject matter," she said. "But when I started doing research on the story of the Duke and Duchess, at first I thought about writing with Dan again but then I thought I needed to write with someone who, like me, had spent a lot of time in England but is an American. I think a lot of times when you're an outsider and you come into a place you see things in a way than someone that's from that place can't see. That gives you an interesting and sometimes more objective point of view."

Once the script was set and shooting began, Madonna made clear she got quite the kick out of exploring various cinematic techniques.

"I really love camera movement," she said. "I love tracking shots and I love steady cam. I love the way the camera has a real human feeling to it when it's not locked off. That camera becomes an animal or a creature or a character in the film as well. It adds a sense of intimacy to the story and a sense of lyricism. And then there's a kind of dance that occurs. That was really important to me."

She said that one of the films that she used as an inspiration for the camera work was "La Vie En Rose."

"I love long takes with no cuts and there's two shots in that movie that were five minutes long," she said. "They had absolutely no edits and they were just so beautiful in the way they moved around the apartment. You never got bored and it was so beautiful. I wanted to do that. So I did it!"

What Madonna also did was continue to delve into what is perhaps the most male-dominated of all her many professions.

"I think directing is perceived as a man's job," she said. "And every once in a while, I would say to myself, 'This is a man's job.' Because, you know, there is no time for grooming. You know, I could only shave my legs once every two weeks. Forget about showing up to work being able to think about what I'm wearing or combing my hair. Most of the time I felt like a truck ran me over. So it's not a terribly feminine feeling to show up on the set making a film.

"On the other hand, being a woman really came in handy when it came to nurturing the actors and spending time with the girls and dressing them. And the boys! I loved dressing everybody. I loved putting the finishing touches on everyone. From the handkerchief in the pocket of Edward's suit to the cufflinks... The jewelry, the hair, the final pin in the hair... Everything. I loved doing that stuff. I don't want to categorize people, but I'm not sure how many men would be interested in that part of the job. Well, some."

The Weinstein Company will release "W.E." in December, at which point audiences across North America can judge her most ambitious foray into filmmaking. By that point, Madonna says she will be busy with her other job.

"I'd like to make more films," she said. "But what's next for me is I'm going to make a record. I've already started writing music and it's a nice change because I've been working on this movie for three years. And you know, songwriting is a much more visceral exercise than making films. I love them both, but when you're a filmmaker you really live in your head and it's nice to play the guitar and, you know, move around."

TIFF Expands Its Youth Festival Sprockets Into Two Separate Events

Nigel M Smith — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:14:59 GMT

TIFF today announced two new film festivals directed toawards children and youth. The events -- TIFF Kids International Film Festival and TIFF Next Wave Film Festival -- will replace the Sprockets Toronto International Film Festival for Children and Youth, effectively dividing its programming into two distinct events for two age groups.

TIFF Kids International Film Festival (April 10-22) will be geared towards children aged 3 to 13. TIFF Next Wave Film Festival (May 10-12) will engage youth aged 14 to 18.

"We’ve had the pleasure of seeing our children’s film festival grow at a phenomenal pace into one of the most prominent and respected in the world, one that is extremely successful with children in elementary and middle schools and with teen audiences," said Shane Smith, Director of Public Programmes, TIFF. "It’s fitting that as we celebrate our 15th anniversary, we separate our programming into two festivals that allow us to broaden and deepen the selection and experience for each audience, as well as their families and educators. We’re beyond excited to be presenting both the TIFF Kids International Film Festival and the TIFF Next Wave Film Festival this year."

The two events will place an emphasis on interactive programming, including gaming and group activities in a digital environment.

For more info go here.

Wim Wenders' 3D Dance Tribute "Pina" Is Both Gorgeous and Slight

Eric Kohn — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 18:14:36 GMT

The selling point of Wim Wenders' documentary "Pina" is twofold. It's an intriguing opportunity to see another New German Cinema legend explore the possibilities of 3-D technology in nonfiction, close on the heels of Werner Herzog's "Cave of Forgotten Dreams." And beyond any cinematic trickery, Wenders' subject speaks for itself. Setting his sights on the vibrant and marvelously expressionistic dance movements of the late Pina Bausch, Wenders combines reminiscences of the experimental choreographer (who died in late 2009) with vivid examples of her work. More than anything else, the movie is a better Pima primer than any Wikipedia page could provide.

"There are situations that leave you utterly speechless," Bausch says in an early voiceover, as dancers from her Tanztheater Wuppertal company twirl through dirt with tribal intensity. "All you can do is hint at things." In Bausch performances, however, hints aren't equatable with subtlety. Her extraordinary takes on the compositions of Jun Mikayke and others find dancers rendering their physicality as emotional abstraction--embracing, arguing and seducing without saying a word. You could place a static camera in front of these people and they would still radiate with singular brilliance.

But the 3-D, of course, makes the intensity all the more intense. Wenders eschews complex maneuvers and lets the effect beef up the atmosphere and dimensionality of the dancers' motions. Scenes featuring the entire company benefit from the effect's mesmerizing quality as much as a tense, intimate piece involving two dancers in a seemingly eternal cycle of caressing and breaking apart.

For reasons solely related to the nature of the art, the use of 3-D in "Pina" unquestionably features the best application of the effect this year, ahead of substantial attempts by both Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. However, Wenders' stylistic decisions aren't on par with his technical ones.

At both the Toronto and New York Film Festivals this year, "Pina" wasn't the only dance-centered documentary from a major auteur filmmaker; Frederick Wiseman's superior "Crazy Horse," a vérité look at the Paris cabaret, luxuriates in the club's celebration of sensuality while using backroom chatter to underscore the process behind the performance. It connects the dots but never dominates Wiseman's focus.

By contrast, whenever Wenders cuts away from a dance to include reminiscences of Pina ("She had the most extraordinary eyes!"), the movie suffers. The choreographer's untimely death during early production of the documentary infuses its narrative structure and suggests a celebratory wake. The dance community may appreciate that, but it distracts from the work.

As a result, "Pina" is inferior to another dance-centered production from two much younger filmmakers: Henry Joost and Jody Lee Lipes' "NY Export: Opus Jazz," a phenomenal treatment of Jerome Robbins' 1958 ballet shot throughout New York City. While the setting adds fresh context to the ballet, it also works in congress with the movements rather than functioning as padding to material that doesn't need it.

"Pina" is a beautiful, heartfelt ode and a delicious feast for the eyes, but not an essential work of art on its own terms. Wenders shows the strengths of the work but never arrives at a greater understanding of it. I've seen the title written as "Pina" and "PINA," the latter an apparent attempt to overstate the larger-than-life quality of the choreography. Despite the grandiose intentions, the movie deserves the lower-case treatment.

Criticwire grade: B+

HOW WILL IT PLAY? Sundance Selects picked up "Pina" after its strong reception in Berlin earlier this year and it continued to find a healthy response at other festivals. It may not make the cut for awards season (although it's on two shortlists, for documentary and foreign film), but it inhabits a niche that moves beyond the cinephile community and should help it perform well in limited release when it opens on Friday.

How Glenn Close's Cross-Dressing Performance In "Albert Nobbs" Makes the Movie

Eric Kohn — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:15:36 GMT

"Albert Nobbs" was a longtime passion project for Glenn Close, and it's easy to see why. Adapting George Moore's 1927 short story "The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs," about a Victorian-era Dublin woman who spends decades disguised as a man to find work, Close--co-producer, co-screenwriter and star--portrays the lead character with a conviction best described as chameleonesque. With her trim, masculine hair cut and robotic gaze, Close inhabits Nobbs' paranoid existence with the full weight of women's oppression bearing down on her. She is the movie.

The rest of the material simply can't keep up. Director Rodrigo García capably guides a mannered screenplay with extreme restraint, sometimes to the detriment of the immensely sad plot at its center. As with his previous film, "Mother and Child," García holds fast to the story's tragic, morose aspect from start to finish; it simply explores the main scenario without following through on it.

As the movie begins, Nobbs has spent some 30 years working as a butler for Irish aristocracy, dutifully keeping her employers' happy during the day and counting pennies after dark. She shows no outward dissatisfaction with her state, instead displaying a cold matter-of-factness that makes Close's performance off-putting from the outset. Into her world arrives a traveling painter named Hubert Page (Janet McTeer), a gruff, manly caller at the house where Nobbs works, and whose actual identity as a woman might only seem obvious to contemporary eyes. (We'll allow it.)

Forced to share a bed with the stranger, Nobbs struggles to hide her secret and fails, causing her to freak out until Page shares her own hidden gender. Their ensuing friendship forms the backbone of the narrative, with the confident, settled Page helping Nobbs construct a strategy for improving her ruse. She takes a series of cues from Page, who manages to maintain the appearance of a happily married man without living in servitude. By comparison, Nobbs' world has her petrified at every waking moment. Her dreams of asserting authority over her situation provide "Albert Nobbs" with intrigue, but it's short-lived.

Needless to say, her attempts at wooing a fellow houseworker (Mia Wasikowska) trapped in a relationship with a disgruntled young man (Aaron Johnson) prove more difficult than Nobbs' fantasies led her to believe. With these flawed shots at seduction, "Albert Nobbs" opens up to explore other problematic temperaments of the era, particularly the way ageism and disdain for the working class stymied attempts to rise up the ranks. However, no matter how fascinating these issues get, Close's screenplay (co-written by John Banville) provides little in the way of backstory for its troubled protagonist, causing the symbolic nature of the performance to overwhelm the prospects of investing too heavily in her predicament.

Still, it's a radical enough maneuver for a long-established actress like Close to take on this role that it generally dominates the experience. In another movie, McTeer would steal the show with her proto-feminist exuberance, but Close exists in a class of her own. It's no less of an accomplished performance than Hilary Swank's similar turn in "Boys Don't Cry" or newcomer Zoé Herán's delicate achievement as the lead in "Tomboy." Unfortunately, "Albert Nobbs" traps Close's sizable talent in a simplistic drama--not unlike Nobbs herself who winds up trapped in a restrictive period. While the storytelling lags, "Albert Nobbs" nevertheless succeeds as a profound chronicle of hardship. At least Close gets that much right.

Criticwire grade: B

HOW WILL IT PLAY? Since it first screened at Telluride and Toronto earlier this year, "Albert Nobbs" has received mixed reactions due to its combination of an underwhelming plot and top-notch performance. As a result, the film seems unlikely to perform especially strong when Roadside Attractions opens it in limited release this Friday, but it may gain some awards season traction for Close herself.

Image Entertainment Acquires Latest From “Blair Witch” Director

Nigel M Smith — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 19:59:22 GMT

Image Entertainment has acquired U.S. rights to Eduardo Sanchez’s (“The Blair With Project”) “Lovely Molly.” The film made its debut in the Midnight Madness section of the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival.

Go here to watch the teaser for the horror-thriller.

Sanchez caught up with Indiewire in Toronto. Go here to read what he had to say about his new work.

Guy Maddin’s “Keyhole” Lands a U.S. Home

Nigel M Smith — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 19:10:49 GMT

monterey media has acquired U.S. rights to Guy Maddin’s latest “Keyhole,” starring Jason Patric, Isabella Rossellini and Udo Kier. The black and white thriller, based on Homer’s “The Odyssey,” premiered at the recent Toronto International Film Festival. The company plans to open it theatrically in the Spring.

Here’s the plot per monterey:

A gangster and deadbeat father, Ulysses Pick (Patric), returns home after a long absence. He is toting two teenagers: a drowned girl, Denny, who has mysteriously returned to life; and a bound-and-gagged hostage, who is actually his own teenage son, Manners. Confused, Ulysses doesn’t recognize his own son, but he feels with increasing conviction he must make an indoor odyssey from the back door of his home all the way up, one room at a time, to the marriage bedroom where his wife Hyacinth (Rossellini) awaits.

FiGa Films New Acquisitions for AFM

SydneyLevine — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 14:00:08 GMT

North American sales agency and distributor FiGa Films has recently acquired several new Ibero American titles just in time for the American Film Market.

From Mexico, The Last Christeros (Los ultimos cristeros) by Matias Meyer, photo below, which had its world premiere in Toronto Film Festival, and Machete Language, directed by Kyzza Terrazas, which had its world premiere in Venice.

Further south of the equator, Zoo (Zoológico), directed by Rodrigo Marin, and Thursday Till Sunday (De jueves a domingo), directed by Dominga Sotomayor, both from Chile.

From Argentina, winner of the Teddy Award at the 2011 Berlinale, Absent (Ausente) by Marco Berger. The Parents (Los viejos) by Bolivian Martin Boulocq, which had its world premiere at the 2011 Busan International Film Festival.

Europe is also represented in FiGa’s catalogue with Joao Canijo’s Blood of My Blood (Sangue do Meu Sangue), from Portugal, the FIPRESCI Award winner at the 2011 San Sebastian International Film Festival.

Two documentaries from Brazil, Look At Me Again (Olhe Pra Mim de Novo), directed Claudia Priscilla & Kiko Goifman, winner of the Audience Award at the Rio International Film Festival; and The Sky Above (O Céu Sobre os Ombros), directed by Sergio Borges, winner of Best Documentary at the Uruguay International Film Festival. Also from Brazil is the short GISELA, by Felipe Sholl (Cinefondation Cannes’ Residence).

For further details, please contact: alex (at) figafilms.com

Academy Award Submissions for Best Foreign Language Oscar With Sales Agents

Sydney Levine — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 05:00:20 GMT

The complete list of submissions for the nomination for Best Foreign Language Academy Award, has been announced. 63 countries' selections have been accepted. Last year there were 65 selections. I have added the international sales agents and when there is one, the U.S. distributor. The Female Factor: 8 of 63 films or 13%. Last year, of the 65 films submitted, 9 were directed by women — that’s 14%. The films by women are Leticia Tonos' Love Child ♀ (the Dominican Republic), Valerie Donzelli's Declaration of War ♀ (France), Ann Hui's A Simple Life ♀ (Hong Kong), Juanita Wilson's As If I Am Not There ♀ (Ireland), Nadine Labaki's Where Do We Go Now? ♀ (Lebanon), Maria Peters' Sonny Boy ♀ (the Netherlands), Anne Sewitzky's Happy, Happy (Norway) ♀ and Pernilla August's Beyond ♀ (Sweden).

The 83rd Academy Awards nominations will be announced on Tuesday, January 25, 2012.

Thank you to The Wrap for its commentary on the titles, quoted here and the trailers as posted here.

Pina will be screened for voters in 3D, the first such screening in the category's history; it is also the first time a documentary has been submitted as a country's Best Foreign Language film. It is also competing in the Best Documentary Feature category, but in that category, first-round voters will view it on 2D screener DVDs.

As usual, the U.S. company with the strongest presence in the field is Sony Pictures Classics, which currently has the rights to four of the strongest contenders and likeliest nominees: Poland's In Darkness, Israel's Footnote, Iran's A Separation and Lebanon's Where Do We Go Now?

Volunteer members of the Academy, divided into four color-coded groups, will begin screening the submissions on Friday at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater. After each screening, voters will score each film on a scale of six-to-10. They'll have access to their scoresheets if they later reconsider and want to change their scores.Once the screenings end in mid January and the six highest-scoring films are determined, an executive committee will meet and add three more films to the list to create a shortlist of nine semi-finalists. Two select second-round committees will then view the nine films over a three-day period; their votes will determine the five nominees.

Albania - Albania immediately submitted a substitute: Amnesty (French subtitled Trailer) when the original entry The Forgiveness of Blood, directed by Joshua Marston. U.S.-Albania-Denmark-Italy. ISA Fandango Portobello. U.S. Sundance Selects was disqualified by the Academy because too much of its creative team, including American director Joshua Marston, came from outside the country. The same happened some years ago with Colombia's Maria Full of Grace, also directed by Joshua Marston. ISA: Arizona Films

Argentina - Aballay, directed by Fernando Spiner.
Agentina, which won the Oscar two years ago for The Secret in Their Eyes, has opted for a violent Western about a young boy who grows up to seek revenge on the gauchos who murdered his family. The film is reportedly both brutal and elliptical, focused on a stark landscape and a grim and amoral society ruled by force. It is based on a short story written by Antonio di Benedetto while in prison.
Trailer (no subtitles), ISA: KWA

Austria - Breathing, directed by Karl Markovics. The debut feature from Markovics was named the best European film in the Directors' Fortnight competition at this year's Cannes Film Festival, where the jury called it "a dark but positive story that is full of life, sparked by excellent performances." The film deals with a young man, newly released from prison, who works in the morgue in Vienna and is searching for his mother. Trailer (no subtitles). ISA: Films Distribution.

Belgium - Bullhead, directed by Michaël R. Roskam. A 2011 selection of the Berlin International Film Festival, this crime drama starring Matthias Schoenaerts follows a cattle farmer who becomes involved with an underworld trafficker in growth hormone. Assassination, intrigue and revenge ensue. Trailer (no English subtitles) . ISA: Celluloid Dreams.

Bosnia and Herzegovina - Belvedere, directed by Ahmed Imamović The action takes place in a refugee camp 15 years after the Srebrenica massacre of thousands of Muslim men and boys. The main character, played by Sadzida Setic, is a woman who hasn't stopped searching for the remains of her husband and son, even as she continues to care for other family members who are more obsessed with getting on reality television shows.
Trailer (no subtitles) ISA & U.S. Global Film Initiative

Brazil - Tropa de Elite 2 (Elite Squad: The Enemy Within), directed by José Padilha Set in a world of corrupt police, crooked politicians, paramilitary groups and slums rife with drug-dealing, the film has set box-office records in its homeland, and for the most part drawn positive reviews. But as an action movie and a sequel to a film not likely to have been seen by many voters, it may have a tough go of it with the Academy. Trailer. ISA: IM Global. U.S. New Video

Bulgaria - Tilt, directed by Viktor Chouchkov. A commercial success in Bulgaria, Chouchkov's drama centers on a group of friends who dream of opening their own bar; the film turns into a risky romance, set against the backdrop of political and social changes sweeping Eastern Europe in the late 1980s. Trailer (no subtitles)

Canada - Monsieur Lazhar, directed by Philippe Falardeau. Named Best Canadian Feature in the audience awards at the Toronto Film Festival, the film deals with an Algerian refugee who becomes an elementary school teacher to a class whose previous teacher had committed suicide. Trailer (no subtitles). ISA: Films Distribution U.S: Music Box Films

Monsieur Lazhar by Philippe Flardeau

Chile - Violeta Went to Heaven, directed by Andres Wood. Wood has created a personal, biographical look at Violeta Parra, a Chilean folksinger, artist and activist who the director has compared to the country's Edith Piaf or Bob Dylan. Francisca Gavilan plays the iconic Chilean performer, who wrote the oft-recorded song "Gracias a la Vida" before committing suicide at the age of 49. Trailer (no subtitles)

China - Flowers of War, directed by Zhang Yimou. China has chosen an entry that's guaranteed to be high-profile both because of the man behind the camera, "Raise the Red Lantern" and "Hero" director Zhang Yimou, and because of its star, recent Oscar winner Christian Bale. The film deals with the 1937 occupation of Nanking by the Japanese army, with Bale as an American who takes refuge in a cathedral with a group of schoolgirls and courtesans. ISA: FilmNation

Colombia - The Colors of the Mountain, directed by Carlos César Arbeláez. Previously a documentary filmmaker, Arbelaez makes his narrative feature debut with a drama set in the highlands of Colombia, where indigenous locals live in a picturesque setting but are constantly asked to choose sides between the paramilitary troops and guerilla rebels who are fighting in their vicinity. Trailer (subtitled)

Croatia - 72 Days, directed by Danilo Serbedzija. The director's father, noted Croatian actor Rade Serbedzija, stars in this black comedy about a rural family who lives off a deceased grandfather's U.S. military pension, and spends much of the time feuding with their neighbors and with each other. The film won two acting awards, as well as the audience award, at last year's Pula Film Festival in Croatia.
Trailer (no subtitles). ISA: Croatian Audiovisual Center

Cuba - Habanastation, directed by Ian Padron. The first feature from 35-year-old director Padron, Habanastation uses the story of a couple of kids in Havana – one of them rich, the other poor – to showcase the glaring inequalities that were supposed to have been eradicated 50 years ago. Nick Miroff in the GlobalPost explains the film's box-office success in its home country: "It wins over audiences and pushes boundaries by mocking the shortcomings and empty sloganeering of the state, while ultimately affirming the socialist values of Castro's revolution." Trailer (no subtitles). ISA: ICAIC

Czech Republic - Alois Nebel, directed by Tomás Lunák. A black-and-white film that combines live action with animation through the use of rotoscoping, "Alois Nebel" is based on a cult comic-book trilogy about a railway dispatcher in a small mountain town who suffers from hallucinations in which the present mixes with the dark history of post-World War II Czechoslovakia. Director Lunak is making his feature film debut after a career in advertisements, shorts and music videos. Trailer (subtitled). ISA: The Match Factory

Denmark - SuperClásico, directed by Ole Christian Madsen. Romantic comedies aren't the usual fare in this category, and they're not the usual fare for veteran Danish director Madsen ("Kira's Reason -- A Love Story," "Flame & Citron"). Anders Berthelsen plays a Copenhagen wine merchant who travels to Argentina in an attempt to win back his ex-wife (Paprika Steen), who has left him for a famous soccer player. Trailer (subtitled), ISA: The Match Factory

Dominican Republic - Love Child, directed by Leticia Tonos. Tonos is one of an unusually large number of female directors with films in contention this year. Her drama follows a teenage girl who tracks down the father she's never known after her single mother is killed in an accident. Trailer (with subtitles). ISA: Kevin Williams Associates

Egypt: "Lust", Director: Khaled El Hagar
Director Khaled El Hagar stirred up controversy in Egypt with his previous film, "Stolen Kisses," which came under fire for what some saw as "gratuitous kisses." His follow-up may not escape the moral police either, dealing as it does with a woman and her daughters living in an alley in Alexandria – and examining, the filmmaker says, the sexual repression in that environment. The drama won the Golden Pyramid award for the best film in the international competition at last December's Cairo International Film Festival.

Estonia: "Letters to Angel", Director: Sulev Keedus
A veteran of the war in Afghanistan, and a convert to Islam, finds himself caught between cultures when he returns to his home town and searches for his long-lost daughter. Keedus, a screenwriter making his feature directing debut, has said that he first thought of making a film on the subject 30 years ago, when he was drafted into the army after college.
Trailer (subtitled) ISA: Estonian Film Fund

Finland - Le Havre, directed by Aki Kaurismaki. The new film from acclaimed international auteur Kaurismaki, which has been playing to raves on the festival circuit, deals with an elderly shoe shiner who becomes friends with a teenage illegal immigrant. The film blends drama with deadpan comedy and melodrama reminiscent of French films from the '60s and '70s.
Trailer (subtitled). ISA: The Match Factory. U.S.: Janus Films

France - Declaration of War, directed by Valérie Donzelli ♀. Valerie Donzelli both directed Declaration of War and starred in it as half of a young couple who are fighting to save their young son, who's been diagnosed with a brain tumor. What gives the film extra resonance is that Donzelli and her leading man Jeremie Elkaim are essentially telling their own story: partners off the screen, they are parents of a boy whose battle against a tumor inspired the film. Trailer (no subtitles). ISA: Wild Bunch

Georgia: "Chantrapas", Director: Otar Iosseliani
The story of a filmmaker torn between state censorship (in his homeland of Georgia) and box-office pressures (in France, where he goes expecting freedom), Iosseliani's partly autobiographical satire has drawn mixed reviews in its limited showings. It did, however, win a Special Jury Award at the Mar del Plata Film Festival in Argentina.
Trailer (subtitled).

Germany - Pina, directed by Wim Wenders. Documentaries are usually a tough sell to the Oscar foreign-language committee, but Wenders has become one of Germany's best-known filmmakers over a 40-plus-year career that includes Wings of Desire, Paris, Texas and the Oscar doc nominee Buena Vista Social Club. His documentary about the late dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch, a longtime friend, mixes 3D footage of Bausch's dancers with talking-head testimonials to the dance icon. English trailer ISA: Hanway Films, U.S: Sundance Selects

Greece - Attenberg, directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari ♀. Last year Greece got the Oscar race's strangest and most controversial nomination with Dogtooth, and the country appears to have gone back to the same well with a film produced by Dogtooth director Yorgos Lanthimos and directed by Dogtooth producer Tsangari. Guy Lodge calls it Dogtooth-lite: in addition to common themes of sexual discover and youth alienation, the films share a similar brooding, deadpan humor." Trailer (subtitled), ISA: The Match Factory

Hong Kong - A Simple Life, directed by Ann Hui ♀. It's no doubt unfair to call A Simple Life the Hong Kong version of The Help – but like that hit film, Ann Hui's drama focuses on the bond between a family and a lifelong domestic employee who has essentially raised her employers' child. Lead actress Deanie Ip won the Best-Actress award at the recent Venice Film Festival, while Hong Kong star Andy Lau plays the grown man who must come to the aid of the woman who raised him. Trailer (subtitled), ISA: Distribution Workshop

Hungary - The Turin Horse, directed by Bela Tarr. Inspired by an incident from the life of Nietzsche (who does not appear in the film), "The Turin Horse" is a slow, measured examination of the daily life of the driver of a horse-drawn transom cab. Shot in long, uninterrupted takes, the two-and-a-half-hour film might be one of the most critically-admired of the foreign-language submissions, but its bleakness and spare, measured pace make it the kind of austere acquired taste not often appreciated by Academy voters. Trailer (no dialogue). ISA: Films Boutique, U.S: Cinema Guild

Iceland - Volcano, directed by Rúnar Rúnarsson. Set in Reykjavik, the film follows a longtime school superintendent who retires to a life in which he has seemingly uneasy relationships with his wife and his two grown children. When calamity strikes, though, the man gradually finds a new purpose in life. Runarsson was nominated for The Last Farm, a live-action short from 2005. Trailer (subtitled) ISA: trust Nordisk

India - Adaminte Makan Abu, directed by Salim Ahamed. First-time director Ahamed's family drama focuses on an aging, struggling Muslim perfume salesman whose goal is to make the Hajj pilgrimage. At India's National Film Awards in 2010, the Malayalam-language drama won four awards, including Best Film and Best Actor for Salim Kumar. Trailer (no subtitles)

Indonesia: "Under the Protection of Ka'Bah", Director: Hanny Saputra
Billed as the biggest film ever made in Indonesia, this love story is set in the 1920s and deals with the romance between a rich girl and a poor boy whose mother works for her family. Judging by the trailer, it's big and grand and sweeping.
Trailer (no subtitles)

Iran - A Separation, directed by Asghar Farhadi. A middle-class man is forced to find help in caring for his Alzheimer's-afflicted father after his wife leaves him. The film won the top award, the Golden Bear, at February's Berlin International Film Festival, as well as separate honors for its male and female ensemble casts. Trailer (subtitled)
. ISA: Memento U.S. Sony Pictures Classics

A Separation

Ireland - As If I Am Not There, directed by Juanita Wilson ♀. Though made by Irish filmmakers, the film is set in Bosnia and is primarily in the Serbo-Croatian language. Based on a book by Croatian journalist Slavenka Drakulic, it deals with a Sarajevo woman who is imprisoned during the war and repeated raped by soldiers.
Trailer (no dialogue). ISA: Albany Sales International

Israel - Footnote, directed by Joseph Cedar. The film played extremely well both in Cannes and in Toronto, deals with the rivalry between a father and son, both of whom are Talmud professors in Jerusalem. The film won the Ophir, Israel's version of the Oscar, as well as the Palme d'Or for screenwriting at Cannes; director Cedar's "Beaufort" won an Oscar nomination in this category in 2007.
Trailer (subtitled). ISA: Westend. U.S. Sony Pictures Classics

Italy: Terraferma, Director: Emanuele Crialese
Italy may have won more Foreign-Language Oscars than any other country, but the country has been on a cold streak lately -- and its recent failure to be nominated for the critical favorite "Gommorah" and the crowd-pleasing "The First Beautiful Thing" were no doubt perplexing. This year's entry deals with a common theme in the category, immigratioin, as an Italian fishing family rescues a group of shipwrecked illegal immigrants from North Africa.
Trailer (no subtitles). ISA: Elle Driver

Japan - Postcard, directed by Kaneto Shindō. The film deals with World War II from the Japanese point of view, through the eyes of a young wife whose husband is killed in the fighting, and the comrade who was one of only six survivors in a unit of 100 men. It is a personal story for Kaneto Shindo, who will turn 100 less than two months after next year's Oscar ceremony, and who has said this film is his last. News feature (includes clips, no subtitles)

Kazakhstan: Returning to the 'A', directed by Egor Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky

Lebanon - Where Do We Go Now?, directed by Nadine Labaki ♀. Set in a remote Lebanese village, the film centers on a group of women who use a variety of ruses schemes (including hiring Ukranian strippers) to distract their men from the religious tensions that threaten to disrupt the village's cordial relationships between its Christians and Muslims. In a category where the vast majority of nominees are serious dramas, submitting a comedy-and-music-spiked look at Middle East tension might be a dangerous strategy – but the film beat far higher-profile entries to win the People's Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival. Trailer (subtitled) ISA: Pathe. U.S.: Sony Pictures Classics

Lithuania - Back to Your Arms, directed by Kristijonas Vildžiūnas. Lithuania's is yet another entry with its roots in World War II – in this case, it deals with a father and daughter who are separated in that war and who try to reunite in Berlin 17 years later, just as the wall is going up. The drama was named best film and Vildziunas won the best director award at the Lithuanian film and TV industry's Silver Crane Awards, where "Back to Your Arms" took home eight awards overall. Trailer (no English subtitles)

Macedonia: "Punk Is Not Dead", Director: Vladimir Blazevski
This black comedy about a punk band reuniting after nearly two decades apart was filmed in a deliberately rough, verite style. The film is described on its official website as existing "somewhere in the limbo space between road movie and drama," and also as an attempt to examine the increasingly strong nationalistic elements in Macedonia. Trailer (no subtitles)

Mexico - Miss Bala, directed by Gerardo Naranjo. One of the most critically-acclaimed films in competition is this tense action drama about an aspiring beauty queen caught in a war between Mexican drug cartels. Violent and uninterested in Hollywood-style happy endings, the film consistently won raves at Cannes, in Toronto and at the Tokyo International Film Festival, where it won awards for Naranjo and actress Stephanie Sigman. Trailer (subtitled).

Morocco - Omar Killed Me, directed by Roschdy Zem. The true story of Moroccan immigrant imprisoned for murder near Cannes, Omar Killed Me examines a penal system in which French police and prosecutors were eager to pin the crime on a convenient target. Director Zem is currently receiving raves for the limited stateside release of Point Blank.
Trailer (no subtitles). ISA: Elle Driver

Netherlands - Sonny Boy, directed by Maria Peters ♀. The film was written and directed by Peters, and adapted from a bestselling book by Annejet van der Zijl, which was based on a true story. Set in the 1920s, it deals with a mother of four who falls in love with a much younger man from Surinam.
Trailer (no subtitles). ISA: DC Medias

New Zealand: "The Orator", Director: Tsui Tamasese
New Zealand may have been well-represented at the Oscars in the past ("Lord of the Rings," anyone?), but the country never competed in this category before submitting this drama, which deals with a small man fighting for respect in a traditional Samoan community. Tamasese's debut film, said judges who awarded the film a special prize at the Venice Film Festival, “expands the border of cinema with this mystical tale of brave individuals negotiating the politics of community in the Samoan countryside."
English trailer (subtitled). ISA: NZ Film

Norway - Happy, Happy, directed by Anne Sewitsky ♀. The story of a young married schoolteacher whose relentless optimism is challenged when a seemingly perfect family moves in next door, Sewitsky's gentle comedy won the World Cinema Jury Prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Trailer (subtitled)

Peru - October, directed by Daniel Vega Vidal. An entry in the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes in 2010, "October" centers on a tough moneylender who's unexpectedly forced to care for a baby that most likely resulted from his liason with a prostitute. "The film is precision deadpan in the vein of Bresson, Kaurismaki and Jarmusch," said the Filmfest DC catalog.
Trailer (subtitled). ISA: Urban Distribution. US: New Yorker Films

Philippines - The Woman in the Septic Tank, directed by Marlon Rivera. Like last year's Icelandic submission "Mamma Gogo," the central character is a filmmaker (or in this case, three filmmakers) desperate to make an Oscar-winning movie. Full of wicked caricatures and fantasy sequences, the film satirizes and showcases, in the words of Oggs Cruz, "what's depressingly wrong in the current state of Philippine filmmaking in the most hilarious of ways." Trailer (largely in English)

Poland - In Darkness, directed by Agnieszka Holland ♀. Director Holland has been Oscar-nominated for "Olivier, Olivier," and her film has already been picked up by Sony Classics, the company with an impressive record of picking winners and nominees in this category. Based on the true story of a Polish criminal who helped hide Jewish refugees in the sewers during World War II, the film is strong and powerful, and has to be considered a frontrunner. ISA: Beta. U.S. Sony Pictures Classics

Portugal - Jose and Pilar, directed by Miguel Gonçalves Mendes. Portugal is the second recent country to submit a documentary: in this case, a film about novelist Jose Saramago and his wife, and the pressures and demands that come with his success. One of Saramago's best-known works is Blindness, which was made into a movie by director Fernando Meirelles and actor Gael Garcia Bernal, both of whom also appear in this film. Trailer (subtitled). ISA: 6 Sales

Romania - Morgen, directed by Marian Crisan ♀. Reportedly less grim than the Romanian fare that has been controversially overlooked by the Academy in recent years, Morgen looks at the friendship between a Romanian-Hungarian security guard and an illegal immigrant. Trailer ISA: Les Films Du Losagne

Russia - Burnt By The Sun 2: Citadel, directed by Nikita Mikhalkov. The expensive action film about the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union was a commercial and critical flop when it opened in Russia in May, but it's the second part of a sequel to the 1994 film Burnt by the Sun, which actually won the Oscar in this category. The head of Russia's Oscar selection committee, filmmaker Vladimir Menshov, didn't agree with the selection and is calling for Mikalhov to take his film out of the race.

Serbia - Montevideo, God Bless You!, directed by Dragan Bjelogrlić. A box-office hit in its homeland, Montevideo, Taste of a Dream deals with the Yugoslavian soccer team's participation in the 1930 World Cup tournament in Montevideo, Uruguay. It is loosely based on a novel, "Montevideo, Bog te video," by sports journalist Vladimir Stankovic. English trailer. ISA: Soul Food Distribution

Singapore: "Tatsumi", Director: Eric Khoo
A rare animated entry in this category, "Tatsumi" is based on an 800-page graphic memoir by the pioneering Japanese manga artist Yoshihiro Tatsumi. It intersperses scenes from Tatsumi's career with dramatizations of several of his short stories, which director Khoo has said he found "dark and beautiful."
Trailer (subtitled). ISA: The Match Factory

Slovakia - Gypsy, directed by Martin Sulik. Martin Sulik's "Gypsy" centers on a gypsy boy who tries to change his life after the death of his father, and finds himself struggling against his community's traditions and prejudices. The film was shot in real gypsy communities in Slovakia with a cast of non-actors.
Trailer (no subtitles)

South Africa - Beauty, directed by Oliver Hermanus. A high-profile entry in the category, "Beauty" was the first Afrikaans film to be shown at Cannes, where it won the Queer Palm award as the fest's best gay-themed film. Hermanus's drama deals with a middle-aged family man who develops an unexpected attraction to an old friend's 23-year-old son; its reportedly explicit scenes of sexuality may test the foreign-language committee's open-mindedness. Trailer (subtitled). ISA: MK2 U.S. Strand Releasing

South Korea - The Front Line, directed by Jang Hun. Korean director Jang Hun's third film is set during a ceasefire in the Korean War in 1951, and deals with a South Korean lieutenant whose investigation into the killing of a commander uncovers odd circumstances along the war's eastern front. Trailer (no subtitles). ISA: Showbox/Mediaplex

Spain: Black Bread
Director: Agusti Villaronga
Pedro Almodovar's "The Skin I Live In" has a higher profile and a U.S. distribution deal via Sony Classics, but Villaronga's tale set in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War is the year's most critically-lauded film in Spain. A ghost story of sorts that has been compared to a more mainstream Pan's Labyrinth, it was nominated for 14 awards at the Goyas, Spain's version of the Oscars, and won nine, including Best Film and Best Director. Trailer (subtitled), ISA: Beta Cinema

Sweden - Beyond, directed by Pernilla August ♀. Noomi Rapace, the star of the original "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" films, plays a young woman growing up in a household of abuse and alcoholism in the 1970s. The film relies heavily on flashbacks to those ugly times – and though August reportedly uses restraint in what she shows and what she only implies, early reviews suggest that this is a very difficult film to sit through. English trailer

Switzerland - Summer Games, directed by Rolando Colla. Some of the summer games played by the kids who serve as central characters in this story are reportedly sadistic and unpleasant – but the film has also won praise for refusing to romanticize childhood. Using a languid, relaxed pace, Colla follows a group of youngsters on a summer holiday in Tuscany, grappling with first love, parent-child relationships and abuse, among other issues. Trailer (subtitled). ISA: Rezo

Taiwan - Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale, directed by Wei Te-Sheng. The lavish and action-packed historical drama was a big hit in its home country. It deals with the aboriginal Taiwanese Seediq people, who were subject to cultural restrictions and forced labor during the Japanese rule in Taiwan in the early 1900s; the film focuses on their attempts to fight back in the 1930 Wushe Incident. Trailer (subtitled). ISA: Fortissimo Films

Thailand: "Kon Khon", Director: Sarunyu Wongkrachang
Thailand's 2010 submission, "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives," was a hit with critics but a dud with the Academy's foreign-language committees. "Kon Khon" appears far less experimental – coming from a veteran actor-turned-director, it deals with the Thai masked dance drama called khon, and with a group of orphans being brought up in a classical dance school devoted to the traditional art.
Trailer (no subtitles)

Turkey: "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia", Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
This film has already made the festival rounds to some acclaim, screening at Toronto, the New York Film Festival and Cannes, where it shared the Grand Prize with "The Kid With a Bike." Based on a true story, the film follows a day-long investigation into a murder on the Anatolian steppes. Time Out London called it "a mysterious and demanding work," with a two-and-a-half-hour running time and an unhurried pace in which the murder investigation frequently stops for long conversations about the minutae of daily life.
Trailer (no dialogue). ISA: ZeynoFilm, U.S: Cinema Guild

United Kingdom: "Patagonia", Director: Marc Evans
The UK doesn't always have a foreign-language film to submit, but this drama divides its time between Wales and Argentina, with dialogue in Welsh and Spanish. The film deals with a Welsh couple who travel to the Patagonia region in southern Argentina, long a favored destination for Welsh emigrants. Stars include Matthew Rhys (Brothers and Sisters) and the singer Duffy.
Trailer (subtitled). ISA: The Little Film Company

Uruguay: The Silent House, Director: Gustavo Hernandez
A horror film might seem like a longshot to attract the attention of the foreign-language committee, but The Silent House is striking enough to have already served as the basis for an American remake, Silent House, starring Elizabeth Olsen. The film, which takes place as a woman tries to escape from a house in which she's hearing unexplained noises, was shot in a single, uninterrupted 78-minute take, for a budget of $6,000.
Trailer (subtitled) . ISA: Elle Driver

Venezuela - The Rumble of the Stones, directed by Alejandro Bellame Palacios. Palacios' film deals with a woman in Caracas trying to rebuild a life for herself, her mother and her two sons in the wake of floods that destroyed their home.
Trailer (no subtitles)

Vietnam - Thang Long Aspiration, directed by Lưu Trọng Ninh. Vietnam's entry goes back more than 1,000 years to depict the life of King Ly Thai To, the ruler who moved the capital to what is now Hanoi (and was then called Thang Long, or Rising Dragon). The lavish film was reportedly shot in only two-and-a-half months and edited in one month, in order to be ready for Hanoi's 1,000th anniversary.
Trailer (no subtitles)

TIFF 2011 and into AFM

Sydney Levine — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 07:33:17 GMT

Another overdue blog, this time on the Toronto Film Festival: TIFF 2011 was also an indication of the upcoming AFM, now contemplating changes of its own - moving its venue from Santa Monica to downtown L.A. for example. As AFM seems to be defining itself more and more as an event to take care of the core business of film buying and selling rather than of discovery and new film adventures, although panel discussions continue as a sidebar, Toronto continues to roll out new features along with showcasing so many films it is impossible to take it all in. As for AFM this year, based on Toronto's activities, I predict fewer Europeans will come, more Asians will attend, continuing their own itinerary from Busan and TIFFCON, and Latin America will remain hovering in the background. For a growing territory, Latin America's profile remains nebulous. It will be interesting to see whether sales in that territory increase.

What struck me most was how crowded TIFF was. The TIFF Lightbox was one crowded area, the Hyatt Lobby was another, and the street outside connecting the two was a third. The street traffic was jammed, with smokers, people meeting up and people rushing to the theater. TheScotia Theater was also jammed and often lines to one film tempted me away from the plan I had to see other films.

Officially industry attendance was up 10% by official registration count, but unofficially it was up 17%. It felt like the latter. For rights bought and sold, visit my blogs, U.S. Distributors A-Z and Rights Round Up TIFF 2011 through AFM.

As usual I missed more films than I wanted, but I did get the pleasure of watching some I really enjoyed. (Trishna, Lasse Hollstrom's Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Julia Murat's Historias que so existem quando lembradas, Susan Youseff's Habibi, Tanya Wexler's Hysteria, Juan of the Dead, Eye of the Storm, Agnieszka Holland's In Darkness, Machine Gun Preacher, Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best and Mark Ordesky-produced Lovely Molly. But how many I missed!! All those missed masterpieces! Will I ever get a chance to catch up even with Cinando and Festival Scope offering me the chance to see many of them?

The TIFF Lightbox has two elevators which were jammed during press conferences on the 6th floor. That left the trade going upstairs to P&I screenings with no elevator to use and so the single escalator was also jammed. When people left the screening rooms, so many others were waiting to get in that there was very little space to exit. The lobby itself and the lines outside also added to the feeling that I was in New York. I’ve never seen such crowds in Toronto.

The lobby of the Hyatt looked like the lobby of the Loews in Santa Monica in the days before the crash of 2008 when the AFM was having a good market. What was most interesting about the crowds – filmmakers, buyers and sellers meeting up – was that many were international sales agents who were not Toronto habitues and who were just catching up after a long quiet summer. Richard Guardian was there as much on his own as with Lightning, Larry Meyers will be announcing something soon, George Shameih, Leilani Forby and her team W2, a new sales and distribution company of people we all know from our own history. Formed December 2010 by entertainment industry veterans John Flock, most recently CEO of Peace Arch, and Named for the two Warrens,Warren Nimchuk and Warren Fergus and operating out of Los Angeles, Toronto and Vancouver, W2 acquires completed films for domestic, international and/or worldwide distribution. It also pre-buys rights to well-packaged projects that have or are likely to have meaningful theatrical distribution in the United States. Through its affiliate, W2 Entertainment Finance, W2 can finance tax credits and other production incentives, fund cash flow against domestic and international pre-sales, provide print and advertising financing, and arrange gap financing on quality projects, typically in the $2 million to $8 million budget range. Its first release, Essential Killing, launched on March 31, 2011 at Toronto's Bell Lightbox theater. Paul Gardner, who has held senior positions at Cineplex Odeon, Artisan and Lionsgate, runs W2's North American distribution operations, and shares acquisitions oversight with Julie Sultan. Leilani Forby is VP of Acquisitions and No. American distribution, Terese Linden Kohn is Senior Vice President of Intl. Sales & Distribution. Daniel Diamond of Morgan Creek, Kirk D’Amico of Myriad, Penny Wolfe and John Quested of Goldcrest,Marc Damon of Foresight, Morris Ruskin of Shoreline and of course Edward Noeltner of CMG were just among the registered industry there. Ungregistered sales agents took up the bulk of the uncounted increase of industry attendees.

Jeff Lipsky and the backers of his new company Adopt Films, Efuru Flowers and Lamese Williams with their fledgling distribution and sales company Vintage Bloom, Paul Cohen, Neil Freidman of Menemsha and his newest film The Island President and Sundance’s Restoration were there among the rest of the usual suspects. Old friends from Australia, Ashley Luke spoke of returning home to London; Michael Wrenn spoke of staying in Australia. Those stalwart women responsible for New York’s IFP return to strength back in the day -- Catherine Tait was there introducing her new company Hollywood Suite at the Windsor Arms Hotel and Jane Wright who has yet to announce what she’ll be doing since leaving BBC Films which she also brought back into the light of the world several years ago during a grim U.K. film slump.

Stephanie Denton co-hosted a trade party at her Canadian based animation company Arc Productions where she is Sr VP Sales and Business Development. Arc Productions, formerly known as Starz Animation Toronto, is a Canadian animation and visual effects studio based in Toronto and now majority owned by a Canadian investor group, with former owner Starz Media as a minority stakeholder. The studio is best known for its work on animated feature films Dolphins and Gnomeo and Juliet, and it is currently working on an upcoming animated feature OZ3D (working title), an adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. There were even more old friends in the business, working the room, looking at new developments and discussing the traditional buying, selling, producing, etc.

After the market party, we had a wonderful informal dinner with Robbie Little and Clay Epstein of The Little Film Company and the filmmakers of Lipstikka, Guy Allon and Jonathan Sagall at the restaurant of Jonathan's uncle, Yossi’s Famous Hummus Restaurant. Talk ranged from making a 30 year reunion film with the 3 stars and director of the popular Lemon Popsicle which had 8 sequels made (director Jonathan Sagall was one of 3 actors who were made famous by the film and would want to direct this one though with director Boaz Davidson (The Expendables) was its original director until his final nemesis, the legendary production team Golan Globus, took over. Speaking of Lipstikka – during its filming the Israeli Parliament called Israeli Film Fund Katriel Schory to task for it, asking where he draws the line, to which he responded “I don’t draw the line”. Art is art. Doha also asked to see the film, telling the filmmakers ahead of time that they could not program it as it was made with Israeli money (unclean!) but the subject of a brief moment between two Palestinian young women many years before made for worthy content. Did they want to see it just so they could say no? Someone at the table asked. I think that the wished-for censorship of the film on both sides offers yet another lesson in freedom of expression.

I had a great lunch with Susan Margolin of New Video which continues to thrive and expand from the small video company it was when she and Steve Savage started it, after she left the illustrious Fox-Lorber (home of training for David Linde, Rena Ronson, and many other major machers today). Even their DVD businesss holds steady and they are one of four "aggregators" for iTunes Worldwide, Amazon, Xbox, Samsung's Play Station and Netflix. They also distribute to Hulu and Snagfilm. Their expansion into theatrical begins with Hell and Back Again, and Elite Squad November 11, and Fly Away by Janet Grillo. I also had a late lunch with Hilary Davis of Bankside who was in the midst of making the Sundance Selects deal for Michael Winterbottom’s tragic and beautiful Trishna.

Buenos Aires, the star of Toronto’s City to City Program offered a great panoply of the newest and the established Argentinian filmmakers, some of whom can be seen on the video here. With so much to do at TIFF, this important aspect of Latino programming was too far away from the mainstream. Diana Sanchez also hosted Latino filmmakers discussing what they see as new trends in film in her Meet With program. Among so many interesting panels, including one with Fortissimo’s Michael Werner, was one hosted by fellow blogger on SydneysBuzz, Peter Belsito, called How to Festival and my own on costume design called From Stitch to Screen: Contemporary Canadian Costume Design. You can see these all here.

Meeting new filmmakers, a Canadian producer rep, consultant and publicist Kirk Cooper of Market Access, and transmedia folk like Adipat Virdi of Transmediology, watching filmmaker clients work the offices of the sellers, pitching, analyzing results, learning, moderating the panel on costume design, made this a Toronto to remember on so many accounts.

Knowing that the players remain the same and that even as the business shifts under our feet, we remain standing is reassuring. However, what TIFF predicts for the upcoming AFM in my eyes is that AFM will be slow. The big pictures have sold and the wheels of business never stop turning and will continue throughout AFM, but new business and surprise buys will not be bountiful this AFM. Toronto was just too frantic and showed the sellers’ impatience for business to begin again. But the big money was not there and I predict it won’t be around AFM. When US$30 million films start to make money, the money will flow again. For now we only have the $4 million to $5 million buy of CBS, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen to watch in release this March to see if it will recoup and break out.

INTERVIEW | Chris Cornell on Making Music and Movies

Dana Harris — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 16:37:31 GMT

Between Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog, Audioslave and his solo career, Chris Cornell has made a lot of music, but he isn't a movie-music veteran. He contributed unreleased solo tracks to films like "Mission Impossible II," "Great Expectations" and "Bug," with his first major original contribution being "You Know My Name," the theme to the 2006 Bond movie "Casino Royale."

So it's odd that he'd see his work featured in two projects that are both in release, both with slots at the recent Toronto International Film Festival: Marc Forster's "Machine Gun Preacher," for which Cornell wrote "The Keeper," and Cameron Crowe's "Pearl Jam Twenty," in which he serves as something of a village elder who can still remember everything about the Seattle scene.

indieWIRE spoke with Cornell in Toronto about both films, including why the story of "Machine Gun Preacher" continues to resonate for him, his favorite film soundtracks and why he wishes he didn't give up on piano lessons.

This isn’t the first time you’ve done a soundtrack song. You did "Casino Royale" --

I’ve done a few films over the years where I wrote specifically for the film, based on the story and the script. I don’t know how many songs I’ve had in movies where it was just the song that already existed. This was the one that was the most engrossing for me. After I read the script, I don’t think a day has gone by where I don’t think about it. The script and the story, as well as when I was writing the song, Marc had mentioned the website, Angels of East Africa. There’s YouTube links of footage and sometimes it's Sam Childress narrating, sometimes he’s in it. It’s a very matter-of-fact way of presenting the plight of the kids in the area that is different than I’ve ever seen. It’s very direct and it’s moving, but not in a divisive way. It’s -- a mirror comes out of the screen almost and you’re looking at yourself thinking, Wow, the directness and the simplicity of a guy making these sacrifices so that they can have shelter and food. We all feel a responsibility to take care of our own children; why is that exclusive to the biological children? And then the photo gallery of the children that are there in his orphanage... I don’t think that I’ve really felt the same since.

The "Casino Royale" song -- I don’t think that was even on the official soundtrack.

Yeah, I didn’t let it be on the official soundtrack because to me, it was sort of a separate thing. This Bond theme song. I also felt like as a songwriter… I didn’t want to be sort of isolated in this world. But it’s not the same thing in terms of an emotional connection. I was really lucky with "Casino Royale" in that it was based on the first book in Fleming world that has the character in it and it’s the character when he’s still a human being and he hasn’t developed this kind of this platinum exterior that’s impenetrable, he’s a person that’s in love and has doubts and existential crisis. So I actually got to write a song with aspects about the story that were interesting and more than just a super spy who’s going to kick everybody’s ass. (laughs)

With "The Keeper" and "Machine Gun Preacher," it was much more challenging and also much more precious to me to write something that’s gonna be open to sort of include the story and not be too editorial and also not be so personal that I’m crowding the space of the story and the real person. I worked on several different ideas. I think that why "The Keeper" worked for me, for Marc and for the film in general was I went on the website and just sort of studied the face of the kids and waited to be struck by a feeling. The feeling was that if Sam Childress… if he were Woody Guthrie and he were writing a song, what would that song be? Because Woody Guthrie's songs were very simple and very direct like Sam is, and very matter-of-fact. I thought he would be writing a song that’s sort of a dedication to the children that he’s risked his life many times over to try to protect. So in a sense my perspective, when singing it or listening to it, is that it’s his song.

That definitely comes across in the music.

It is just one song and the scope of Sam’s story is enormous. It’s impossible to put in a three-and-a-half minutes. It’s not just his story, it’s also a story of the children he’s working to protect. And their experiences and their families and the history of what’s happened to them. I felt like I naturally came up with something that coexisted -- that’s the other thing about any writing music for a film is that you’re collaborating, but not with another person. You’re certainly collaborating with the director but in a sense, the creation sort of exists on its own (and) the song exists as its own after someone composes it. I can decide how I want it to affect you, but that doesn’t mean it will.

You’ve done a number of solo albums in recent years, but does working for film music fulfill a different kind of collaborative need?

Well, it’s certainly different. I don’t know if it’s a need so much as it is something that I’m enthusiastic about. What I do is complement what they do and our strengths and weaknesses have to coexist in a way that becomes somehow harmonious and poetic and interesting. I’m a huge fan of film and always have been. And in spite of the fact that there’s so much crap out there -- I mean, that’s also true of music and really any artform, you have to wade through all the garbage. But I also think that wading through the garbage is in a sense a good thing. There’s something about that finding the gem that inspires you or changes you a little bit, and you’re not necessarily the same coming out of it. It’s definitely a privilege and a huge benefit that has come from having a successful music career.

Do you think that you’d ever want to be responsible for like a whole soundtrack or score?

I think that it’d be something exciting to do. I started out as a pianist, but not now. I learned to read music when I was 10 and did piano and took lessons. Unfortunately, I didn’t really have any direction. No one was encouraging me to do it, but no one was discouraging me and it just felt like school. It was another subject, another course. I had kind of a mean piano teacher. I went to Catholic school so it was like, the typical thing you would imagine -- a little kid with a white-haired teacher frowning at the fact that I didn’t practice. And I picked it up very fast and I learned to read music very fast, but I don’t now at all. I regretted it within three years of stopping because I remember walking past this schoolroom and there was a girl that started the same week I did and she was playing something from Queen -- something that was very elaborate. I thought, Damn! I think in my early 30s, I attempted to take lessons to read music again. I thought well, it’s in there so it should be easy to pick back up again. But it was so not.

Really?

Like it was harder than I ever remembered. Not that I can’t understand it conceptually, it’s just that I’ve learned now to create music without a language and I work well that way and I work quickly that way. And I make decisions in that world in sort of a language-illiterate world. I can hear all the music so unless I’m trying to communicate it to someone else, I can just record or show them, you know? But that could be, I suppose, an obstacle if someone’s scoring the film, but it’s not a dealbreaker. The thing that’s kept me from really wanting to do that is it’s such a huge undertaking and, um, I’m not sure what that means to me at the end of it. I’m used to coming out of that type of process with a body of work and an album that I understand. Which way should I spend that much effort? But if it were the right movie and something I was passionate about, I would love to do it.

Are there any music soundtracks that you really admired in recent years?

My favorite one -- I’ve only seen this movie once and [the music] disturbed me -- was a French film called "Betty Blue" and the music was really haunting, and a very simple piano score. That stuck out in my mind. And then Jim Jarmusch did a movie with Johnny Depp called "Dead Man," and Neil Young did the score. And that was hugely impactful, almost in the same way that it set the tone and coexisted perfectly with the performances and visuals, and I loved the film. And it was breathing, it was really expressive, and it did something that I’ve never heard since. I hear a lot of scores in films that reminds me of seven other films and I’ll sit while I’m watching the movie and start to remember what they are. Music can’t really draw you in too much because then you’re just following it -- and my ear will follow the music over anything else for sure -- and so if I get drawn in, I’ll imagine this is going to go somewhere fantastic. And then it doesn’t, because really it’s not supposed to and I’ll get frustrated with that sometimes. I think it's very delicate and it’s really an admirable thing, the composers who do movie scores and how they put so much effort into coexisting with the film and supporting it with the music without doing what I do, which in contrast seems to be very whimsical and egocentric and vain. This is my music and my thing and it’s about me! And here I go and now listen to it, you know? (laughs)

Your sort-of other movie that’s here (at TIFF), the Pearl Jam documentary. Have you seen it yet?

Yeah, I saw it yesterday. My wife and I went to the premiere and it was great. I know Cameron and what I guess I didn’t put together in my head before seeing it was that his personality as a filmmaker came through so strong in the movie that it was really entertaining. Because a lot of the story I really knew anyway, but I felt like it was perfect and it did exactly what that type of a film I think should do. It was informative to the fans and it sort of opened to the door further into their story and into their personal relationships with each other and with the music, and the ups and downs of what it’s like. It has its own uniqueness and he’s captured it all in there. I thought everyone in the band were themselves, which was great for the fans as well.

Did you expect to be such a prominent voice?

No, it’s weird. I don’t know how far along the documentary was before I was interviewed, but I got a call from Cameron saying, "You keep coming up in all of these stories, particularly about the beginning of the band and everybody keeps talking about you." And then it was just an on-camera interview, nothing dissimilar to this except I’ve known Cameron for a long time, and that was it. I remember saying to my wife when I got home, "God I feel sorry for whoever was going to have to go through this 2 ½ hours of interview and take up the two little soundbites that they decide on." By the time I saw the movie, I knew that I had somewhat prominent part of it.

I knew there was a crossroads there, but I didn’t realize you’re at an odd nexus for a lot of it.

There was something about the scene that I think was even smaller and more grassroots than it was able to convey. Seattle is a real city, but in terms of the artistic community at the time, though it was very vibrant, it was very small. I think I talk about it in the film a little bit, but when a band would play a show at a small club, there wasn’t a huge club scene. There was like two or three bars that were opening and with Washington state liquor laws, that meant that the audience had to be 21 and over. So that meant that more than half of any band's audience couldn’t even be there. And your audience was comprised of everybody else in the other bands and that scene. It wasn’t someone from the suburbs coming in. There was just this little family. And because of that, we all knew each other and all be in the audience for everyone else’s band. And if the Melvins played, then Soundgarden was there, and when Green River was there, and sometimes nobody else. And sometimes when Soundgarden would play -- before Matt Cameron was in Soundgarden, we were playing shows with his band Skin Yard and we were in the audience for them and they were in the audience for us. I saw Pearl Jam’s first show, Mother Love Bone’s first show, Green River’s first show, Skin Yard’s first show and they were all there for us. So it was tiny and by the time there was a worldwide focus on what was considered to be the Seattle scene, that scene was gone because we were all on the road, touring.

Was there anything in the film that surprised you?

I’m not sure if there was anything represented that I hadn’t heard about or thought about. I guess the one thing that struck me was the moment on film when the fans are booing Pearl Jam for doing something that was adventurous and creative and outside of what they would normally do. I’ve seen a lot of Pearl Jam shows and the only reaction I’ve ever seen is the audience being completely supportive and loving every moment. I never saw that. I’ve never seen it and never had a conversation with anyone that they’d been through that, or even a song that was like that. But that was a great thing to take away from it -- that it’s not just a constant love affair. They stood up and held their ground and took chances. But to see it for real was pretty interesting.

Chris Cornell, "The Keeper":

International Sales Agent of the Day: Latinofusion

Sydney Levine — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:26:33 GMT

Alfredo Calvino founded Latinofusion, a Guadalajara-based international film sales and distribution company, based upon a business model committed to give Latin films the time, dedication and risk-taking approach they need in order to successfully find their niche in the highly competitive independent/speciality market. Clients can count on a full access to all marketing, business, financial and legal aspects of the company’s operations regarding their films. They not only help design the adequate festival strategy that maximizes opportunities for each individual title, but also make sure that the strategy makes sense in terms of visibility, recognition and also revenues.

His previous experience includes marketing and sales at ICAIC (Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos); advising on the establishment of Brazil’s Escola Brasileira de Cinema e Televisão, created upon the model of the International Cuban Film School; and founding and co-directing Projeto Pro@rte Brasil, an international coalition of media artists. He has helped design and implement the international promotion and sales campaigns of some of the most successful Latin films, among them: Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s Fresa y chocolate (Strawberry and chocolate), Humberto Solas’ Cecilia, Juan Carlos Tabío’s Plaff, Jose Padilla’s Onibus 174 (Bus 174), Luiz Fernando Carvalho’s Lavoura Arcaica (To the left of the father), Vicente Ferraz’s Soy Cuba - o mamut siberiano. Pablo Fendrik´s movies El Asaltante and La Sangre Brota, Camila Guzman’s internationally acclaimed documentary The Sugar Curtain, and more recently the commercially successful Mexican movie Cinco Dias sin Nora by Mariana Chenillo. He also plays a major role in the indie co-production market by supporting new projects and works-in-progress through his company's associate financing and production company, Cinefusion and he acquires Mexican rights to international productions as well.

Now he is riding high on the success of Juan of the Dead whose world premiere at TIFF was just overshadowed by the huge success of its U.S. premiere at Fantastic Fest Austin.

Here is Alfredo's account of the premiere: ¡UNFORGETTABLE!

Dear all,

For those who believed in Juan of the Dead since the beginning - wise decision, for those that got it all from our Toronto World Premiere screenings - also pretty wise of you, for those that were and are still undecided and thinking about it - make your move quickly,for those that didn't understand properly - humm, time to reconsider and even for those who didnt get it at all - that´s fine no hard feelings ¡ I would love to share with you all our Austin experience last night ¡

Juan of the Dead team ran some audience tests back in Spain and Cuba, some people watched a version of the film privately back in Cannes, the Toronto public screenings were amazing and people of all ages loved the film. However what we had last night at Juan of the Dead's U.S. Premiere in Austin´s Fantastic Fest was just UNFORGETTABLE ¡ Audience got just CRAZY ¡ They were laughing,clapping,shouting all the time, they simply enjoyed every piece, every detail, every moment of the film since the start and were still laughing at the end animated credits.....

I´ve been around cinema business for quite sometime now,always looking for....the ¨chance¨...opportunity,ocassion in Juan´s own words for making latin movies happen in a highly competitive market, had some very sucessful experiences like Nora´s Will two years ago or Strawberry and Chocolate many years back,others not so sucessful - wont mention....... however what I really have learned is that AUDIENCE IS ALWAYS RIGHT ¡.....JUAN OF THE DEAD is a CROWD PLEASER ¡

Read the below review written right after the screening that reflects how well JUAN OF THE DEAD was received and more important how properly understood ¡

All the best,

Alfredo Calvino

Cool News
Harry goes all light headed in love with JUAN OF THE DEAD - my fave indie horror comedy in ages!
Published at: Sep 24, 2011 2:36:49 AM CDT

“I will fuck your mother’s heart!”

JUAN DE LOS MUERTOS aka JUAN OF THE DEAD is a complete genre wetdream for me. It’s the sort of film that the second I left the theater I knew… this is a film I’ll probably see 100 times more before I die. At least it’s a goal. Not an idle one, but a hopeful one. I just love everything about it. From the opening scene on a triangular raft as Juan is relaxing before his best friend… …to the animated end credits – I was just hugging the screen with my eyes.

There’s just something about seeing JUAN OF THE DEAD and realizing that you’ve never in your life seen a ZOMBIE movie on the scale of this film… or that the film is consistently the funniest ZOMBIE movie I’ve seen… That everything is absolutely wonderful, from the dialogue, to the many classic scenes. There’s a “Waiting for Sunrise” sequence that may be amongst my very favorite best friends scenes in film history.

The politics of the film are just. Well, I’m not sure what CUBA is going to make of the film… personally I find it makes Cuba lovable, laughable & hard to leave. Something that I wouldn’t immediately think. The Cuban news’ take on the Zombie Apocalypse could very well be one of the funniest political satires I’ve seen in quite some time… I love how the Cubans have no knowledge of Zombies… instead they’re mainly referred to as being dissidents. I love that it is all… very suspicious… and sharp eyes will notice that Zombie #1 is in fact wearing remnants of a Guantanamo Bay Military uniform… so I’m pretty sure it is all our fault, but then proper Zombie Apocalypses have usually been the fault of the United States. And as a geek, I’m pretty proud of that fact. The zombie is of a floateresque look, a makeup job I later learned took 6 hours to apply, rendered the person blind, and was to originally be played by Alejandro. Until he realized it’d take 6 hours to apply and render him blind for his first day of shooting.

Juan is kinda like… THE MAN in Havana. He looks a bit as if Adrien Brody and Jeff Goldblum combined to have a Cuban kid. A kid that has fought in multiple wars and always survived. He’s a bit of a Don Juan it seems, using his rooftop telescope to find out if the ladies he woos are home alone or not. He drops in upon them from above. He’s a tall dark Bogart type of lovable scoundrel. He moves like a god and sometimes kills with the very deliberate emotion of Bruce Lee. The elevator in his building stops only half way upon a floor. He’s the kinda guy that would help the old lady up, while deliberately squeezing her keister – just so she’d take delight in chastising him. You just kinda of love this guy. His longtime best friend is a chronic peeper masturbator. Juan has a lovely daughter, whose mother fled to the U.S. His best friend, a handsome thieving Lothario. Juan wishes to be in his daughter’s life, she wants to follow her mother to Florida. Juan loves to complain about his homeland, but dearly loves it. At one point his friend proposes that he should go to America, but Juan simply answers, “But there, I’d have to get a job.” And everything about his life tells me… Juan has it right. He hangs with his friends, fucks beautiful women often and… He will fucking thrive in a Zombie Apocalypse. Like all great Zombie battlers – he has a signature weapon, one he wields so brilliantly that it does leave one with the impression that it could be a great one. AN OAR.

The film is so smart. So funny. So just effortlessly charming and wonderful to watch. I mean, the Zombie makeup and the kills are frankly amongst the best I’ve ever seen. There’s one Mass Zombie decapitation that clearly needs to be included in every driving Zombie video game from here on. Pure fucking EMPIRE STRIKES BACK! Wondrous.

Dialogue was applauded, actions were applauded. Zombie reveals applauded. There was one 7 minute continuous Zombie apocalypse steadicam in the street shot that was applauded. The hundreds in the water. The tens of thousands in the city streets shots… the casual mass destruction background scenes sometimes were beautiful in a Tatooine sunset level of audacity.

Around the time that Juan decides he’s going to wildly profit by becoming… literally JUAN OF THE DEAD, We will dispose of your beloved ones for you… He builds a Apocalypse survival rooftop training school – that he charges for. He has the most insanely fun Zombie street kill squads of all time. Just wondrous. There are literally 100s of perfectly subtle and fun film references, but not VERBATIM. Just in a way that smart movie fans will enjoy revisiting the film to try and document them all – and lovingly doing so.

Lines about Capitalism and The Empire are thrown about in a wonderfully hilarious love-hate manner. The character of Juan is not aggressively angry about Cuba’s government or the United States. Instead, there is a bemused acceptance of the way of things. This attitude carries over to the Apocalypse, which they fight through from a cheerful, let’s make the best of this kind of attitude, which was just so delightfully handled that some in the audience… like NORDLING… gave the film a spontaneous standing ovation when the end credits began… and then, realizing that the badass animated post film credits needed to be observed from a silent seated smiling, whispering “badass” under your breath and just shaking your head at the fucking marvelously entertaining and culturally revealing genre effort from a small country that has a very interesting presence in the world.

There is no news of the outside world during the apocalypse… and I love it that way. I want a Blu Ray of this movie IMMEDIATELY! As in. I can’t imagine not having it tomorrow. I just want to veg to this thing. It’s GREAT.

Distributors… Market this to the Spanish speaking Audience and the Indie Film audience as the 1st Independent film in the past 52 years of Cuban film history – and you’ll have a classic on your hands. Just a home run. LOVE THE FILM!

Alfredo's skype is alfrec56. Call now!

Toronto by Numbers Films with U.S. Distributors A-Z

Sydney Levine — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 06:30:56 GMT

This U.S. distributor list is a work in progress which invites comments, latest news, etc. Please help us with your comments! After Toronto all U.S. acquisitions will be included in the Rights Roundup for Toronto, San Sebastian and AFM and any and all stops between stopping at Berlin

Going into Toronto out of 337 films showing, 56 had U.S. distributors attached. More U.S. distributors will be added as they acquire titles throughtout the Fall Festival and Market Season, so stay tuned. For a comprehensive report on current U.S. Distributors A - Z, use the link provided. (International Sales Agents are listed in parentheses.)
Predictably, SPC and IFC had the most films going into the festival, each with 7 films. There is also the competition of the Producer Reps with CAA leading the pack with 12 films, only one of which already has U.S. distribution.

Go below the jump for details on Toronto by numbers.

Toronto By Numbers:

40+ U.S. SALES MADE AT TIFF 2011:
5 acquired by IFC: 4:44, The Incident, Your Sister's Sister, Loosies, Sleeping Beauty

4 acquired by Sundance Selects for No. America: Trishna, Beloved, Into the Abyss, The Forgiveness of Blood

3 acquired by Kino Lorber: Elles, Headshot, The Giants
3 acquired by Magnolia/ Magnet: Goon, God Bless America, The Hunter
3 acquired by Sony Pictures Classics: Where Do We Go Now, Hysteria,Take Shelter

2 acquired by Film Movement for No. America: Free Men, Historias
2 acquired by Well Go for No. America from CJ: My Way, Tarbosaurus

1 acquired by others:
13 Tzameti - Anchor Bay
The Oranges-ATO (No. America)
The Lady-Cohen Media Group
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen-CBS Films
Shame-Fox Searchlight
Sarah Palin: You Betcha!-Freestyle
All Things Fall Apart-Image
Life Without Principle-Indomina (No. America)
Killer Joe-Liddell
Friends With Kids-Lionsgate/ Roadside Attractions
Rampart-Millennium
The Deep Blue Sea-Music Box
Wuthering Heights-Oscilloscope U.S., Jaguar - Airlines
This is Not a Film-Palisades Tartar
Splinters-Snag Films
Beauty-TLA
Detachment-Tribeca Film
Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel - Samuel Goldwyn (No. America)
Q-Strand
Lovestorming-Venevision
The Day-WWE
Elena-Zeitgeist

U.S. DISTRIBUTORS GOING INTO TORONTO:
7: Sony Pictures Classics: In Darkness (Beta), The Skin I Live In (FilmNation), Take Shelter (FilmNation), Damsels in Distress (Sony Pictures Int’l Releasing), Restless (Sony Pictures Int’l Releasing), Footnote (WestEnd), A Separation (Memento)
7: IFC: Kill List (Protagonist), Snowtown (Protagonist), Beloved (Celluloid Dreams), Sleeping Beauty (Entertainment One), Habemus Papam (Fandango Portobello), Goodbye First Love (Films Distribution), Into the Abyss (ZDF)

5: The Weinstein Co.: Undefeated (Exclusive), Coriolanus (Icon), W.E. (IM Global), The Artist (Wild Bunch), Butter (De Luca Prods., No ISA)
4: Sony Pictures Releasing/ Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions: The Raid (Celluloid Nightmares), Anonymous (Sony), Moneyball (Sony), Ides of March (Sony)
3: Sundance Selects/ IFC Films: The Forgiveness of Blood (Fandango Portobello), Pina (HanWay), Kid with a Bike (Wild Bunch)

2: Fox Seachlight: Descendants (20th Century Fox), Martha Marcy May Marlene (UTA reps worldwide)
2: Magnolia: Headhunters (Trust/ Nordisk), Melancholia (Trust/ Nordisk)
2: Paramount: Jeff, Who Lives at Home, Like Crazy (No ISA, UTA reps worldwide rights)
2: The Cinema Guild: The Turin Horse (Films Boutique), Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (No ISA)

1: Abramorama: Pearl Jam Twenty (Echo Bridge)
1: ATO: Woman in the Fifty (Memento)
1: Dimension: Livid (SND)
1: Eros: Mausam (Eros)
1: FilmDistrict: Drive (Sierra/ Affinity)
1: Focus: Pariah (Focus)
1: Indomina: Life Without Principle (Media Asia)
1: Janus: Le Havre (The Match Factory)
1: Menemsha: Restoration (Israeli Films)
1: Millenium: Trespass (Nu Image)
1: NBC Universal: Page Eight (UI)
1: Open Road: Killer Elite (Inferno)
1: Oscilloscope: We Need to Talk About Kevin (Independent)
1: Relativity: Machine Gun Preacher (LionsGate)
1: Roadside Attractions: Albert Nobbs (WestEnd)
1: Summit: 50/50 (Mandate/ LionsGate)
1: Strand: Tyrannosaur (Protagonist)
1: Zipporah has its own Frederick Wiseman’s Crazy Horse (Celluloid Dreams)
1: Disney: Up from Poppy Hill (Wild Bunch)
1: 20th Century Fox: Miss Bala (20th Century Fox, Mexico)

Producer Reps by the Number

12 CAA
• ALBERT NOBBS – U.S.: Roadside Attractions (ISA: WestEnd Films) - Ireland-Gala-Rodrigo Garcia-World Premiere
• PEACE, LOVE, & MISUNDERSTANDING (Voltage Pictures) – U.S.-Gala-Bruce Beresford-World Premiere
• KILLER JOE (Voltage Pictures) – U.S.-Special Presentations-William Friedkin-North American Premiere
• GOON (Myriad Pictures)-Canada-Special Presentations-Mike Dowse-World Premiere
• FROM THE SKY DOWN (Mercury Records/Universal Music Group)-U.S.-Gala Presentations-Davis Guggenheim-World Premiere
• YOU'RE NEXT(HanWay)-U.S.-Midnight Madness-Adam Wingard-World Premiere
• THE ORANGES (FilmNation)-U.S.-Special Presentations-Julian Farino-World Premiere
• BURNING MAN (Filmbox)-Australia-Special Presentations-Jonathan Teplitzky-World Premiere
• WINNIE (Film Bridge)-So. Africa/Canada-Gala Presentations-Darrell J. Roodt-World Premiere
• VIOLET & DAISY-U.S.-Special Presentations-Geoffrey Fletcher-World Premiere
• COMIC-CON EPISODE IV: A FAN'S HOPE-U.S.-Real to Reel-Morgan Spurlock-World Premiere

CAA /
6 WME
• HICK (Content Media)-U.S.-Special Presentations- Derick Martini- World Premiere

WME
• PEARL JAM TWENTY – U.S.: Abramorama (Echo Bridge for int’l TV)-U.S.-Special Presentations-Cameron Crowe-World Premiere
• PAUL WILLIAMS STILL ALIVE-U.S.-Real to Reel-Stephen Kessler-World Premiere
• RAMPART (Sierra/ Affinity)-U.S.-Special Presentations-Oren Moverman-World Premiere sold to Millennium for U.S. in the weeks after TIFF. Alexis Garcia negotiated for WME.
• NEIL YOUNG LIFE-U.S.-Mavericks-Jonathan Demme-World Premiere

WME and
5 UTA
• 360 (Wild Bunch)-U.K./Austria/France/Brazil-Special Presentations-Fernando Mereilles-World Premiere

UTA
• INTRUDERS (Universal Pictures International)-Spain-Special Presentations-Juan Carlos Fresnadillo-World Premiere
• SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN (Lionsgate)-U.K.-Special Presentations-Lasse Hallstrom-World Premiere
• SLEEPING BEAUTY- U.S.: IFC (Entertainment One)-Australia-Special Presentations-Julia Leigh-North American Premiere

UTA and
3 Submarine
• YOUR SISTER'S SISTER-U.S.-Contemporary World Cinema-Lynn Shelton-World Premiere sold to IFC during TIFF.

Submarine
• THINK OF ME – U.S.-Contemporary World Cinema-Bryan Wiemann-World Premiere
• LAST CALL AT THE OASIS – U.S.-Real to Reel-Jessica Yu-World Premiere

2 ICM
• THE BROOKLYN BROTHERS BEAT THE BEST-( Hollywood Studios International)-U.S.-Discovery-Ryan O'Nan-World Premiere
• SAMSARA-U.S.-Real to Reel-Ron Fricke-World Premiere

2 Cinetic Media
• THE MOTH DIARIES (Wild Bunch)-Canada/Ireland-Special Presentations-Mary Harron-North American Premiere
• FRIENDS WITH KIDS (Red Granite Int’l)-U.S.-Special Presentations-Jennifer Westfeldt-World Premiere

2 Paradigm
• TEN YEAR (Voltage)-U.S.-Special Presentations-Jamie Linden-World Premiere
• THE INCIDENT

1 Each
• Cassian Elwes: HYSTERIA (Elle Driver)-U.K.,U.S. -Gala Presentations-Tanya Wexler-World Premiere (I think he's repping more than one!) was licensed to SPC.
• Traction Media: ROMEO ELEVEN-Canada-Canada First!-Ivan Grbovic-North American Premiere
• The Pitt Group: BARRYMORE-Canada/U.S.-Mavericks-Erik Canuel-World Premiere
• Primer Plano: POMPEYA-Argentina-City to City-Tamae Garateguy-North American Premiere
• Preferred Content: THE DAY (Content Media)-U.S.-Midnight Madness-Doug Aarniokoski-World Premiere

Rights Round Up Toronto 2011, Venice, Telluride through AFM 2011

Sydney Levine — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 06:30:25 GMT

This reports on sales made during this fall season. It includes rights acquired in Venice, Telluride, Toronto, San Sebastian and will continue through AFM 2011. It is organized by international sales agent. Additions are made daily.

TIFF 2011 has 337 films screening.
The Match Factory has 12 films in the festival, the most of any other international sales agent.
Films Distribution has 11 films in the festival, second most of any of the other international sales agents.

For a quick view of AFM films A-Z go to The Film Catalog.

For the complete Rights Round Up Report, go to this link:RIGHTS ROUND UP FALL 2011 Toronto, Venice, Telluride, AFM.
This Report changes on a daily basis.

Lionsgate Takes Toronto Titles "Friends" & "You're Next"

Brian Brooks — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 08:32:40 GMT

In a pair of acquisition announcements, Lionsgate said it picked up Toronto '11 titles "You're Next," in addition to "Friends With Kids," which the company announced previously.

Directed by Adam Wingard, "You're Next" is a horror film, which Lionsgate will handle U.S. and Canadian distribtuion rights. Jennifer Westfeldt's "Friends" will be released jointly with partner company Roadside Attractions, with Roadside spearheading domestic theatrical distribution and Lionsgate handling all other U.S. rights including home entertainment and television. "Friends" was picked up from Red Granite, which is also handling international sales.

Full acquisition releases follow:

"You're Next" Release:

LIONSGATE (NYSE: LGF), a leading global entertainment company, today announced that it has acquired U.S. and Canadian distribution rights to YOU'RE NEXT, following its screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival. The announcement was made jointly by Joe Drake, Lionsgate's co-COO and Motion Picture Group President, and Jason Constantine, President of Acquisitions and Co-Productions.
Directed by Adam Wingard from a script penned by Simon Barrett, YOU'RE NEXT is a petrifying horror story starring Sharni Vinson, Joe Swanberg, A.J. Bowen, Nicholas Tucci and Barbara Crampton. Snoot Entertainment's Keith Calder and Jessica Wu produced the project with Simon Barrett and Kim Sherman. The film reunites the principal cast from Wingard and Barrett's shocking serial-killer thriller A HORRIBLE WAY TO DIE, which screened at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival.

In YOU'RE NEXT, during a family reunion getaway, the Davison family comes under a sadistic attack. When Crispian Davison (Bowen) brings his new girlfriend (Vinson) along to celebrate the wedding anniversary of his parents (Moran and Crampton), the family's evening together is shattered when a gang of mysterious killers begin to hunt the family down with brutal precision. Unfortunately for the killers however, one of the victims harbors a secret talent for fighting back.
Jason Constantine negotiated the deal on behalf of Lionsgate with Eda Kowan, SVP of Acquisitions and Co-Productions, and Wendy Jaffe, the Acquisitions and Co-Production team's EVP of Business & Legal Affairs. Snoot Entertainment is represented by CAA, who negotiated the sale on their behalf with Erik Hyman of Loeb & Loeb.
"This project represents everything that we look for in a horror film," explains Constantine of the company's decision to acquire the film. "It is a celebration of its genre, featuring top notch performances from a sophisticated script, brilliantly directed, that will leave audiences on the edge of their seats - when they're not jumping out of them." Added Drake, "Lionsgate has had much success in the horror space, particularly with truly creative, daring genre films such as this one that we are uniquely suited to market equally boldly. This film is a perfect example of Lionsgate sticking to our roots and continuing to speak to an audience of horror fans that we know and love."
"We are blown away by the passion the Lionsgate team has for our film, and are honored to be working with the finest horror franchise marketers and distributors in the world," added producer Keith Calder.

"Friends with Kids":

LIONSGATE (NYSE: LGF), a leading global entertainment company today announced the acquisition of Red Granite Pictures’ FRIENDS WITH KIDS, directed by Jennifer Westfeldt, following its debut screenings at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. The announcement was made jointly by Steve Beeks, Lionsgate’s President and co-COO, Joe Drake, co-COO and Motion Picture Group President, and Jason Constantine, President of Acquisitions and Co-Productions.
The release will be handled jointly by Lionsgate and partner company Roadside Attractions, similarly to past collaborations such as EVERYTHING MUST GO, and the upcoming MARGIN CALL, with Roadside Attractions spearheading domestic theatrical distribution and Lionsgate handling all other U.S. rights including home entertainment and television.
Riza Aziz and Joey McFarland’s Red Granite Pictures produced the film with Jennifer Westfeldt and Jon Hamm’s Points West Pictures, producer Jake Kasdan, and Locomotive, led by Joshua Astrachan and Lucy Barzun Donnelly. Red Granite is also handling international sales.
The film is Westfeldt’s directorial debut, following the two critically acclaimed independent films that she previously wrote and starred in, KISSING JESSICA STEIN and IRA & ABBY. FRIENDS WITH KIDS boasts an ensemble cast of beloved actors with palpable chemistry, many of whom have appeared onscreen together in previous collaborations: Adam Scott, Jennifer Westfeldt, Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Chris O’Dowd, Megan Fox and Edward Burns. The film was widely considered one to watch heading into the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival, and was warmly received by critics and audiences alike upon screening there.
"I feel incredibly fortunate to be working with the great teams at Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions on the release of FRIENDS WITH KIDS,” said Westfeldt. “Their passion for the project and the subject matter, along with their commitment to finding a broad audience for our film, make them the dream partners for us."
Jason Constantine, Lionsgate’s President of Acquisitions and Co-Productions, mirrored Westfeldt’s sentiments: “We are long time admirers of Jennifer, and this is an excellent directorial debut. She’s made a high concept comedy that thoroughly entertains as it explores one of this generation’s central quandaries, and everyone on the Lionsgate and Roadside teams who saw the film related to it not just as executives, but as parents or partners. This movie has comedy, heart and truth in equal measures, and it will be a delight to bring to audiences.”
Red Granite’s Riza Aziz and Joey McFarland stated, "The teams at Lionsgate and Roadside really understand this film and we couldn't be more excited to be in business with them. They are completely committed to the unique vision Jennifer Westfeldt has for FRIENDS WITH KIDS. We believed in Jennifer and this vision from the inception, and are very proud of the end product and happy to have worked alongside such a great team on our debut film.”
Constantine negotiated the deal on behalf of Lionsgate with Eda Kowan, SVP of Acquisitions and Co-Productions, and Wendy Jaffe, the Acquisitions and Co-Production team’s EVP of Business & Legal Affairs. Cinetic’s John Sloss and Jackie Eckhouse of Sloss Eckhouse LawCo negotiated the sale on behalf of the filmmakers. Jennifer Westfeldt is represented by Christian Donatelli and Courtney Kivowitz at The Schiff Company, Innovative and Lawrence Rose at Gang, Tyre, Ramer & Brown.
About The Film
FRIENDS WITH KIDS, written and directed by Jennifer Westfeldt (KISSING JESSICA STEIN, IRA & ABBY), is a daring and poignant ensemble comedy about a close-knit circle of friends at that moment in life when children arrive and everything changes. The last two singles in the group - Westfeldt and Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation, STEPBROTHERS), observe the effect that kids have had on their friends' relationships and wonder if there’s a better way. They decide to have a kid together - and date other people.
There are big laughs and unexpected emotional truths as this unconventional 'experiment' leads everyone in the group to question the nature of friendship, family and, finally, true love. The film stars Adam Scott, Jennifer Westfeldt, Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Chris O’Dowd, Megan Fox, and Edward Burns.
FRIENDS WITH KIDS is a Red Granite Pictures presentation of a Points West Pictures and Locomotive production. It was produced by Westfeldt with Jon Hamm, Joshua Astrachan, Jake Kasdan, Riza Aziz and Joey McFarland. Executive Producers are Mike Nichols, John Sloss, Lucy Barzun Donnelly and Joe Gatta.
About Lionsgate
Lionsgate is a leading global entertainment company with a strong and diversified presence in motion picture production and distribution, television programming and syndication, home entertainment, family entertainment, digital distribution and new channel platforms. The Company has built a strong television presence in production of prime time cable and broadcast network series, distribution and syndication of programming through Debmar-Mercury and an array of channel assets. Lionsgate currently has 15 shows on more than 10 networks spanning its prime time production, distribution and syndication businesses, including such critically-acclaimed hits as "Mad Men", "Weeds" and "Nurse Jackie" along with the comedy "Blue Mountain State, " the upcoming drama "Boss" and the syndication successes "Tyler Perry's House Of Payne", its spinoff "Meet The Browns", the upcoming "For Better or Worse," "The Wendy Williams Show" and "Are We There Yet?"

ATO Pictures Nabs Environmental Doc "Last Call at the Oasis"

Nigel M Smith — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 07:23:51 GMT

ATO Pictures has acquired U.S. rights to "Last Call at the Oasis," an environmental documentary from Academy Award winner Jessica Yu. The film recently premiered in Toronto.

Yu's film provides an investigation into the world's water crisis. Among the activists featured: Erin Brockovich, Peter Gleick, Alex Prud'homme, Jay Famiglietti and Robert Glennon.

Here's the trailer:

Full release below:

ATO PICTURES ANNOUNCES PARTICIPANT MEDIA’S ‘LAST CALL AT THE OASIS’ AS THEIR SECOND TIFF PICK UP
ACADEMY AWARD WINNER JESSICA YU DIRECTS ACCLAIMED NEW DOC
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New York, NY (September 21, 2011) ATO Pictures announced today that it has acquired U.S. rights to Participant Media’s acclaimed new film, LAST CALL AT THE OASIS directed by Academy Award winner Jessica Yu. The film recently premiered at TIFF to tremendous fanfare.
Developed, financed and executive produced by Participant Media, the company responsible for such groundbreaking documentaries as AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, FOOD, INC. AND WAITING FOR “SUPERMAN”, LAST CALL AT THE OASIS, presents a powerful argument for why the global water crisis will be the central issue facing our world this century. Illuminating the vital role water plays in our lives, exposing the defects in the current system and depicting communities already struggling with its ill-effects, the film was produced by Elise Pearlstein (FOOD, INC.) and features activist Erin Brockovich and such distinguished experts as Peter Gleick, Alex Prud’homme, Jay Famiglietti and Robert Glennon.
According to ATO co-founders Johnathan Dorfman and Temple Fennell: “We could not be more proud to be working with Participant on this riveting, enthralling doc which we know will open people’s eyes to the severe calamity at hand. Audiences are in for an eye opening experience and Jessica has done a brilliant job illuminating this vital issue.”
Ricky Strauss, President of Participant Media said, “We’re very excited to be teaming up with ATO Pictures to bring Jessica’s bracing and beautifully-made wake-up call about the urgency of the water crisis to U.S. movie audiences along with the kind of robust social action and advocacy campaign for which Participant is known.”
The deal was negotiated by ATO’s Head of Acquisitions Sarah Lash with Josh Braun of Submarine and Jeff Ivers, COO of Participant Media.

Steve McQueen's "Shame" Tops indieWIRE's Poll of Toronto Critics

Indiewire — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 16:52:25 GMT

The Toronto International Film Festival has wrapped up its 2011 edition, and indieWIRE has entered hundreds of critics grades from 25 folks on the scene in Toronto to our criticWIRE section. Of the 300+ films screening at the festival, Steve McQueen's "Shame" had the highest average. It joined three others - Gerardo Naranjo's "Miss Bala," Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmas's "This is Not a Film," and Asghar Farhadi's "A Separation" - as the only films with an A- level average (among those with 4 or more grades, which are the only ones included in this article).

Notably, none of those four films actually premiered in Toronto. "Shame" made its debut in Venice a week earlier, while the others are all alums of Berlin or Cannes. Of the films that premiered in Toronto (at least officially), ones to received quite high scores from critics include Alexander Payne's "The Descendants," Sarah Polley's "Take This Waltz," Adam Wingard's "You're Next," Terence Davies' "The Deep Blue Sea," Jonathan Levine's "50/50," Lynn Shelton's "Your Sister's Sister," Ashley Sabin and David Redmon's "Girl Model" and Luc Besson's "The Lady," and Bennett Miller's "Moneyball," all of which placed in the top 25 with B+ averages

Listed below, in order, are the 44 films screening in Toronto to score averages of a B or higher. Click on the film's title for a full list of critic scores.

criticWIRE's Top Scoring Films From The 2011 Toronto International Film Festival*
1. Shame, directed by Steve McQueen A-
2. This is Not a Film, directed by Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmas A-
3. A Separation, directed by Asghar Farhadi A-
4. Miss Bala, directed by Gerardo Naranjo A-
5. Martha Marcy May Marlene, directed by Sean Durkin B+
6. You're Next, directed by Adam Wingard B+
7. Like Crazy, directed by Drake Doremus B+
8. Pariah, directed by Dee Rees B+
9. Take This Waltz, directed by Sarah Polley B+
10. The Kid With a Bike, directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne B+
11. The Descendants, directed by Alexander Payne B+
12. Le Havre, directed by Aki Kaurismaki B+
13. Your Sister's Sister, directed by Lynn Shelton B+
14. Drive, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn B+
15. The Artist, directed by Michel Hazanavicius B+
16. The Deep Blue Sea, directed by Terence Davies B+
17. PINA, directed by Wim Wenders B+
18. Moneyball, directed by Bennett Miller B+
19. 50/50, directed by Jonathan Levine B+
20. Take Shelter, directed by Jeff Nichols B+
21. Girl Model, directed by Ashley Sabin, David Redmon B+
22. The Lady, directed by Luc Besson B+
23. The Turin Horse, directed by Bela Tarr B
24. We Need To Talk About Kevin, directed by Lynne Ramsay B
25. Rampart, directed by Oren Moverman B
26. The Ides of March, directed by George Clooney B
27. Melancholia, directed by Lars von Trier B
28. Into The Abyss, directed by Werner Herzog B
29. Kill List, directed by Ben Wheatley B
30. A Dangerous Method, directed by David Cronenberg B
31. Friends With Kids, directed by Jennifer Westfeldt B
32. Damsels in Distress, directed by Whit Stillman B
33. Oslo August 31st, directed by Joachim Trier B
34. Tyrannosaur, directed by Paddy Considine B
35. The Skin I Live In, directed by Pedro Almodovar B
36. Wuthering Heights, directed by Andrea Arnold B
37. Coriolanus, directed by Ralph Fiennes B
38. Play, directed by Ruben Östlund B
39. Jeff, Who Lives at Home, directed by Jay & Mark Duplass B
40. Dark Horse, directed by Todd Solondz B
41. Chicken With Plums, directed by Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud B
42. God Bless America, directed by Bobcat Goldthwait B
43. Comic-Con: Episode IV - A Fan’s Hope, directed by Morgan Spurlock B
44. From The Sky Down, directed by Davis Guggenheim B

*Only films with four or more grades have been included, and ranking may change as new grades come in. Scores are tabulated on a film's total out of a possible 13 based on the letter grades submitted by the critics. What is listed here is current with the time of this story's publishing.

REVIEW | "Moneyball" Leaves the Math On the Bench and Hits a Triple

Eric Kohn — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 16:31:14 GMT

"Moneyball," the long-gestating adaptation of Michael Lewis' non-fiction tome about Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane's attempt to construct a winning team with mathematical trickery, demonstrates an awareness of the challenging material from the outset. How do you make equations into compelling drama? Answer: You ignore them and go on with the show. The movie begins with a quote from Mickey Mantle about the impossibility of fully understanding baseball from the inside out. "Moneyball" never attempts to explain it, swiftly navigating around the details of Beane's scheme. Instead, director Bennett Miller has produced a warm and generally agreeable character study about the pratfalls of athletic institutions and the willingness to think outside the box.

Played by Brad Pitt (also a producer of the project), Beane comes across as a sad-eyed dreamer facing impossible odds. In 2002, having lost star player Johnny Damon and countless others to richer teams, he struggles to come up with a plan that avoids compromise and certain failure. His team's paltry $38 million budget trembles in the Yankees' $120 million shadow. Eager to get his old time peers to help him find a breakthrough, he borders on utter despair when he finds upstart Yale economics grad Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), whose ability to study players' numerical data instead of superficial details opens the door for assembling a better team. "Baseball thinking is medieval," Brand tells Beane, which makes the veteran certain he has found his answer.

Scenes of actual gameplay are sparse, because "Moneyball" is primarily about the obsessive nature of baseball's inner circle of power players. It follows a fairly obvious arc based around Beane's obsession with competition. Miller (utilizing a screenplay that has passed through a few hands, most recently Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin) routinely flashes back to Beane's squashed potential as a major league player. It's a tried-and-true device for drawing obvious parallels with his contemporary need to find a winning solution, but sufficiently keeps the drama in flux.

Shocking his peers with decisions that threaten to doom an already-suffering team, Beane faces opposition from field manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who refuses to use the team in the unorthodox configuration Beane envisions for it. Howe is the closest thing that "Moneyball" has to a bad guy, and provides enough of an opposition to push Beane over the edge and see his gamble through to the bitter end.

The most remarkable thing about "Moneyball" is just how swiftly it moves along. Initially set to be directed by Steven Soderbergh, who envisioned the adaptation as a hybrid of fictional scenes and documentary interviews, it has since been boiled down to a fairly conventional affair. But Miller maintains a fluid pace and highlights extraordinary naturalistic moments (many of which involve backroom strategy sessions). He creates a fully believable universe not only dominated by baseball but defined by it. The script's only major flaw involves the exploration of Beane's troubled family life; occasional moments with his supportive 12-year-old daughter belong in a different, lesser movie.

Pitt, however, looks right at home as a nearly over-the-hill dreamer scavenging for the best success route. Hill, whose role might seem like a dubious casting decision based on his existing goofball image, actually works quite well in a noticeably muted (but still comically inspired) role. His deadpan expression is the ideal counterpoint to Pitt's bubbling enthusiasm for the moneyball game.

He's also a believable mathematical prodigy, which allows the movie to avoid cumbersome explanations. Taking a page from "A Beautiful Mind," the screenplay sidesteps extensively outlining the process in favor of an enthusiastic montage of equations and algorithms mostly left up to the viewer's imagination (unlike the book, which apparently delves into the process at great length). In short, "Moneyball" translates statistics into the formula for a crowdpleaser by simply glossing over them. Although focused on a reinvention of major league rules, as commercial entertainment, it's still the old ballgame.

criticWIRE grade: B+

HOW WILL IT PLAY? Brad Pitt and baseball are two major ingredients that should result in a winning formula for "Moneyball" at the box office, although its awards season potential is still unclear.

For Your Consideration: 10 Things The Fall Fests Did Tell Us About Award Season

Peter Knegt — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 10:36:28 GMT

Three weeks ago, indieWIRE suggested 10 things the power trio of the fall festival circuit - Venice, Telluride and Toronto - might reveal about awards season. From new work by David Cronenberg, Roman Polanski, Steven Soderbergh, Sarah Polley and George Clooney, to films that could rocket out of nowhere, these festivals were the first opportunity for awards prognostication to move beyond intelligent (or not) guessing. So what exactly went down?

At first, quite a bit. In the midst of the chaos, iW published this update, which suggested the likes of Alexander Payne's "The Descendants" and Tomas Alfredson’s "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" had established themselves as films to watch for, while Steve McQueen's "Shame" had emerged as an unlikely dark horse for a major nod or two. But since then, however, there's not too much to report. Or perhaps what there is to report is that the second half of this three week blitz of festivals didn't offer too many new contenders.

Oddly enough, it was Toronto - often singularly regarded as the unofficial "kick-off of awards season" - that had the least to contribute to awards season. The only film to debut in Toronto that looks like it could be a major Oscar player was Bennett Miller's "Moneyball," with a few others - "50/50," "Rampart," "The Lady," "Take This Waltz" - emerging as very dark horses in a race or two (though two of those four don't even have distribution yet). In general, it was a pretty mild slate.

Such is reflected below in the 10 answers to the 10 questions indieWIRE posed three weeks back (as well as in these updated Oscar predictions). Of course, there's still much to come. Among those that weren't on the circuit included Clint Eastwood's "J.Edgar," Stephen Daldry's "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," Steven Spielberg's "War Horse" and "The Iron Lady," which surely will provide another powerhouse Meryl Streep performance. But for now, there's definitely a considerable amount for Oscar prognosticators to work with. Just perhaps not as much as perhaps thought going into Toronto.

Question: How many nominations could George Clooney receive?

Answer: Well, most definitely one. Nominated five times previously (for acting in "Syriana," "Michael Clayton" and "Up In The Air" and for both writing and directing "Good Night, and Good Luck.") and winning once ("Syriana"), Clooney could double that impressive record with two films that debuted on the fall festival circuit: Alexander Payne's "Sideways" followup, "The Descendants" and Clooney's own "The Ides of March," which he wrote, directed, produced and stars in.

"The Descendants" was the better received of the two, and seems all-but-destined for nominations in many major Oscar categories, including an acting nomination for Clooney. While "The Ides of March" was by no means poorly received, it did not receive the enthusiastic reviews that would have propelled it to "sure bet" status. Its best bet is probably a screenplay nomination for Clooney and co-writer Grant Heslov, though best picture is definitely not out of the question. Though for now Clooney is only locked in for one nomination, with one or two more quite possible.

Question: Is "The Artist" as likely a contender as some out of Cannes led us to believe?

Answer: Seems like it. A black-and-white film with no stars and no dialogue, Michel Hazanavicius' "The Artist" emerged out of Cannes as the most unlikely of Oscar contenders. But Harvey Weinstein saw the film's golden potential. France-produced but Hollywood-set, the film takes place between 1927 and 1931 and focuses on a declining male film star and a rising actress as silent cinema grows out of fashion. It could appeal very much to industry folks as it pays homage to an era in Hollywood history. The film got its largest audience yet in Toronto (and also screened in Telluride) and reaction seemed to confirm that "The Artist" is a serious contender. If things go well, it could be come the first black-and-white best-picture nominee since... George Clooney's "Good Night, and Good Luck."

Question: Are Roland Emmerich and/or Madonna really capable of directing Oscar-worthy films?

Answer: Not so much. While Emmerich's Shakespeare-themed "Anonymous" was quite well liked in some circles, it's definitely a dark horse for Oscar (though it could nab a nod or two in the artistic categories). Madonna, meanwhile, can probably look forward to a costume design nomination for her "W.E.," but that's about it.

Question: What's up with "50/50"?

Answer: Though very well received in Toronto, Jonathan Levine's cancer dramedy is probably not going to be a big factor in the Oscar race. Summit Entertainment had been screening the film all summer in hopes of gaining awards traction leading into its Toronto debut. And that was a quite reasonable thing to do: It's a very good movie with a sharp screenplay and a handful of excellent performances (most notably by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anna Kendrick). Loosely based on screenwriter Will Reiser's real-life battle with cancer in his 20s, the film has outside potential for an acting and/or screenplay nod, but that will largely depend on how its theatrical release goes over later this month.

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Question David Cronenberg, Steven Soderbergh and Roman Polanski: On which side of Oscar-friendly do their latest films lie?

Answer: Somewhere in the middle. All three often-controversial directors have made Oscar-friendly fare and Soderbergh and Polanski have even won a golden guy, but for every "A History of Violence," "Traffic" and "The Pianist" there's a "Crash," "The Girlfriend Experience" and "The Ninth Gate." Cronenberg's Carl Jung-Sigmund Freud drama "A Dangerous Method," Soderbergh's apocalyptic thriller "Contagion" and Polanski's parental blowout "Carnage" all premiered in Venice. They were all generally well-recieved (though each had its detractors), and the films have reasonable shots at a nod here and there (perhaps especially "A Dangerous Method," which has very strong performances from Viggo Mortensen, Keira Knightley and Michael Fassbender). But none are sure bets at this point, and it's highly unlikely any of them will receive best picture nominations.

Question: Which Shakespeare-related film is Vanessa Redgrave most likely to be nominated for?

Answer: Definitely "Coriolanus." One of the earliest performances to earn Oscar buzz this year was Redgrave's work in Ralph Fiennes' adaptation of Shakespeare's play. The film premiered in Berlin back in February, and Redgrave earned raves for her work as Volumnia, Coriolanus's mother. While that film (picked up by The Weinstein Company) made its North American debut in Toronto, it was joined by the world premiere of the aforementioned "Anonymous," which Redgrave was also getting buzz for. The buzz was not unwarranted, but in the end it might simply aid Redgrave in a nod for her other film.

Question: Can Gary Oldman finally get that Oscar nomination?

Answer: Seems likely. It's shocking, but Gary Oldman has never been nominated for an Oscar. Not for "Sid and Nancy," not for "Prick Up Your Ears," not for "Dracula," not even for "The Contender." This year, that definitely looks like it could change. Venice premiere "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" has Oldman taking on the juicy role of George Smiley, a man who comes out of semi-retirement to uncover a Russian agent. His performance - and the film - were very well received. With sentimentality on his side, Oldman could very well lose his arguable title as the greatest actor never nominated for an Oscar.

Question: Can Glenn Close finally get that Oscar win?

Answer: Seems unlikely. From 1982 to 1988, Glenn Close received a stunning five Academy Award nominations over seven years. But she's never won. She probably came closest in 1987 and 1988, but her work in "Fatal Attraction" and "Dangerous Liaisons" lost to Cher ("Moonstruck") and Jodie Foster ("The Accused"). Some 25 years after her last nomination, Close is back in the mix with "Albert Nobbs," a passion project if there ever was one. Close first played the titular character (a woman who disguises herself as a man in order to survive in male-dominated 19th century Ireland) in a 1982 stage production and has been trying to turn it into a film ever since. It finally happened via director Rodrigo Garcia, with Close co-writing the script and producing. It's an admirable feat that could go over very well with the Academy, but the film didn't exactly win over critics. Close was often singled out as the best thing about the film, and a nomination is very possible. But a win? Not so much.

Question: Steve McQueen, Oren Moverman and Sarah Polley: One-trick ponies or sophomore sensations?

Answer: It varies from director to director, but all three generally won over critics with their second feature films. "Hunger" director Steve McQueen will brought audiences "Shame," the story of two very troubled siblings (Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan); "The Messenger" director Oren Moverman brought us "Rampart," a police drama starring Woody Harrelson and Ice Cube; and "Away From Her" director Sarah Polley debuted "Take This Waltz," an adultery dramedy with Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen. All three projects had their share of fans, though "Shame" was by far the MVP of the three. It was also the only one to pick up U.S. distribution, as both "Rampart" and "Waltz" are awaiting their theatrical release fates. If they end up getting release by the end of 2011, they both have outside shots at a nod ("Rampart" for Harrelson's performance; "Waltz" for Polley's screenplay), but "Shame" is definitely the one to look out for of the three.

Question: Is any other film without distribution about to enter the Oscar race?

Answer: Shockingly, not really. Beyond "Shame," "Rampart" and "Take This Waltz," there were loads of films up for grabs at these fests. But most of them disappointed (from Fernando Meirelles' "360" to David Hare's "Page Eight" to Bruce Beresford's "Peace, Love & Misunderstanding"), and many of them have yet to find a distributor. The only film that really stands something of a shot is Luc Besson's well received epic "The Lady," which Cohen Media Group picked up and is likely aiming for a best actress nomination for Michelle Yeoh. It's unlikely, but it's pretty much all there is to note.

Check out indieWIRE's latest chart of Oscar predictions here.

Peter Knegt is indieWIRE's Associate Editor. Follow him on Twitter and on his blog.