#TIFF16 Platform Selection

The directors-focused section is only in its second year, but has already lined up outstanding filmmakers with twelve (12) films from Canada, Australia, France, Bhutan, Belgium, USA, United Kingdom, and Netherlands.

“In its inaugural year in 2015, Platform successfully established itself as fundamental to the Festival, and we’re proud to present a dramatically thrilling and daring program for its second year,” said TIFF Artistic Director Cameron Bailey. This year, Platform takes on complex and bold narratives that range from a dark, twisted fantasy, a dramatic crime thriller, an existential illusion to the reinterpretation of a satirical tragedy, a raw coming-of-age story, and tales of revolutions, radicals, and revenge. The program will open with the international premiere of the powerful and topical drama Nocturama from critically acclaimed director-writer Bertrand Bonello.

Platform films will screen from Thursday, September 8 to Thursday, September 15. Each film will have its first screening for public, press and industry at the Winter Garden Theatre. Platform titles are eligible for the Toronto Platform Prize ($25,000 CAD), which goes to the best film in the program as selected by a three-person international jury, and will be announced at the Awards Ceremony on September 18, 2016.

Yes it is an interesting selection with some films that haven't been in the festival circuit, well at least among the top festivals; believe that will pay more attention to this section from now on.  Most intrigued by the two French films with Tahar Rahim, know will watch them both.

Opening Film: Nocturama, Bertrand Bonello, France
ダゲレオタイプの女 Le Secret de la Chambre Noire (Daguerrotype), Kiyoshi Kurosawa, France, Belgium and Japan
Goldstone, Ivan Sen, Australia
Réparer les vivants (Heal the Living), Katell Quillévéré, France and Belgium
he-mà he-mà (Hema Hema: Sing Me a Song While I Wait), Khyentse Norbu, Buthan and Hong Kong
Home, Fien Troch, Belgium
Jackie, Pablo Larraín, USA and Chile
Lady Macbeth, William Oldroyd, UK
Layla M., Mijke de Jong, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Jordan
Maliglutit (Searcheres), Zacharias Kunuk, Canada
Moonlight, Barry Jenkins, USA
Ceux qui font les révolutions à moitié n'ont fait que se creuser un tombeau (Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Graves), Mathieu Denis and Simon Lavoie, Canada

For the program’s second year, its three-person international jury will be composed of legendary directors Brian De Palma and Mahamat-Saleh Haroun and acclaimed actor Zhang Ziyi. Together, they will award a prize of $25,000 to the best Platform selection, to be announced at the Festival Awards Ceremony on September 18.

Jury
Brian De Palma, director USA
Mahamet-Saleh Haroun, director, Chad
Zhang Ziyi, actress, China



Let me share some reasons why behind this Competitive section in the NON-Competitive festival. Platform name comes from, yes!, Jia Zhang-ke outstanding movie. Section has 12 films from filmmakers with strong voices and distinct styles and is the festival giving people a chance to focus on international cinema as an evolving, daring art form (sic).

1st Gala du Cinéma Québécois Awards Winners

Not long ago was announced that there will be no more Jutra Awards due to the scandal surrounding famous Québécois filmmaker Claude Jutra; so this year Québec Cinéma, the group that organizes this award, gave the French-language films Canadian awards an interim name that most likely, according to press reports, will be the only year the ceremony will go with that name.

Award winners received a new wooden statue that will replace the previous statue created by Charles Daudelin. In three weeks Madly Fuss and Simon Marcotte from Nouveau Studio created and made the new trophy that is made of solid maple, painted white, with gold and acrylic leaves; with the time constrain there was no possibility to make trophies out of bronze.

The big winner of the night is La Passion d' Augustine by Léa Pool as collected six awards, from the 10 nominations it got, including Best Film. To refresh your memories here are so of her films: 2001 Lost and Delirious, 1986 Anne Trister, 2008 Maman est chez le coiffeur (Mommy is at the Hairdresser's). Yes, her latest film is most be seen for me.

Below are the winners for the main categories, to read winners in all categories go official site here, available only in French.

Best Film: La Passion d'Augustine, Léa Pool
Best Director: Léa Pool for La Passion d'Augustine

Best Actress: Céline Bonnier in La Passion d'Augustine
Best Supporting Actress: Diane Lavallée in La Passion d'Augustine
Best Actor: Gilbert Sicotte in Paul à Québec
Best Supporting Actor: Irdens Exantus in Guibord s'en va-t-en guerre (My Internship in Canada)

Best Cinematography: Yves Bélanger for Brooklyn
Best Production Design: François Séguin for Brooklyn
Best Editing: Richard Comeau for Guibord s'en va-t-en guerre (My Internship in Canada)
Best Sound: Raymond Vermette, Christian Rivest, Stéphane Bergeron, Guy Pelletier and Julie Dufour for La Guerre des Tuques 3D (Snowtime!)
Best Costumes: Michèle Hamel for La Passion d'Augustine
Best Makeup: Olivier Xavier for Turbo Kid
Best Hairstyle: Martin Lapointe for La Passion d'Augustine

Best Documentary: Ouïghours, prisonniers de l'absurde (Uyghurs: Prisoners of the Absurd), Patricio Henriquez
Best Short Film Fiction: Maurice, François Jaros
Best Short Film Animation: Autos Portraits, Claude Cloutier

Film with more success outside Quebec: Félix et Meira, Maxime Giroux
Billet d'Or: La Guerre des Tuques 3D (Snowtime!)

It's not only the name change due to terrible scandal, also these awards are marred by lots of articles talking about group giving awards to "arty" films and not recognizing films that had big Quebec box office (!!!). (lol) Hope that by next year all the turbulence around this award will settle down and Canadian French-language cinema can have again their trophys and prizes that acknowledge great Quebecois Cinema.

2016 Canadian Screen Awards Winners

Yesterday the Canadian Academy had their award ceremony and I wished I had watched the live stream as press claims Jacob Tremblay stole the show -again- and yes, I believe he deserved an Oscar nomination and even the Oscar for Best Actor! Unfortunately Hollywood decided different but then we have the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television fixing Hollywood's omission and (HUGE) mistake, and the cherry on top is that Tremblay won the Best Actor award!

Believe nobody was surprised when Irish and Canadian co production swept the film awards by winning nine (9) prizes, including Best Motion Picture, Best Lead Actress and Actor, Adapted Screenplay and Best Director. The other great film with two honors is none other than Brooklyn. Worth mentioning that both films will face each other again at the Irish Academy annual awards as both are Irish co productions, very curious to see which one will prevail in Ireland.

These are the winners.

Best Motion Picture: Room

Achievement in Direction: Lenny Abrahamson for Room

Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role: Brie Larson in Room
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role: Joan Allen in Room
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role: Jacob Tremblay in Room
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role: Nick Serino in Sleeping Giant

Best Adapted Screenplay: Emma Donoghue for Room
Best Original Screenplay: Benjamin August for Remember

Achievement in Cinematography: Yves Bélanger for Brooklyn
Achievement in Art Direction: Ethan Tobman and Mary Kirkland for Room
Achievement in Costume Design: Joanne Hansen for Beeba Boys
Achievement in Editing: Nathan Nugent for Room
Achievement in Make-Up: Sid Armour and Jennifer Gould for Room
Achievement in Music-Original Score: Michael Brook for Brooklyn
Achievement in Music-Origianl Song: Jenny Salgado and André Courcy for C'est aujourd'hui que je sors from Scratch - A Hip-Opera
Achievement in Visual Effects: Phil Jones, Sarah Wormsbecher, Eric Dorion, Anthony DeChellis, Lon Molnar, Geoff D.E. Scott, Natham Larouche and Mark Fordham for Hyena Road
Achievement in Overall Sound: Lou Solakofski, Ian Rankin, Joe Morrow, Russ Dyck, Graham Rogers, James Bastable, André Azoubel, Don White and Jack Hereen for Hyena Road
Achievement in Sound Editing: Jane Tattersall, David McCallum, Martin Gwynn Jones, David Evans, Dave Rose, Brennan Mercer, Ed Douglas, Kevin Banks, Goro Koyama and Andy Malcom for Hyena Road

Best Animated Short Film: The Ballad of Immortal Joe, Pazit Chalon
Best Live Action Short Film Drama: She Stoops To Conquer, Zachary Russell
Best Short Film Documentary: Bacon & God's Wrath, Sol Friedman

Best Feature Length Documentary: Hurt, Alan Zweig
Best Cinematography in a Feature Length Documentary: Armand Bouquet for Last of the Elephant Men
Best Editing in a Feature Length Documentary: James Scott for How to Change the World

To check winners in Television categories go here, is a pdf file.

40th Toronto International Film Festival Award Winners

Awards ceremony was quite informal, light and somehow fun-to-watch especially when the Platform jury took the stage and made us laugh (hard). Yes it was very unexpected to see Jia Zhang-ke, Claire Denis and Agnieszka Hollad doing light comedy but gee, it worked!!! Funny and fun-to-watch.

So, actually, there are several awards in Toronto fest, but will start with the Platform winners and then the others.

Platform Prize: Hurt, Alan Zweig, Canada (documentary)
Three Honorable Mentions:
Boi Neon (Neon Bull), Gabril Mascaro, Brazil, Uruguay and Netherlands
El Clan (The Clan), Pablo Trapero, Argentina and Spain
Hui dao bei ai de mei yi tian (The Promised Land), He Ping, China

People Choice Awards
Feature Film: Room, Lenny Abrahamson, Ireland and Canda
Documentary: Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom, Evgeny Afineevsky, Ukraine, USA and UK
Midnight Madness Award: Hardcore, Ilya Naishuller, Russia and USA

Canadian Films
Best Feature Film: Closet Monster, Stephen Dunn
Special Mention: Guibord s'en va-t-en guerre (My Internship in Canada), Philippe Falardeau, Canada
Best First Feature Film: Sleeping Giant, Andre Cividino

Discovery Program Filmmakers Award: Black, Adil el Arbi and Bilall Fallah, Belgium

Short Cuts
Best Short Film: Maman (S), Maïmouna Doucouré, France
Best Canadian Short Film: Viaduc (Overpass), Patrice Laliberté

FIPRESCI Awards
Special Presentations: Desierto, Jonás Cuarón, Mexico and France
Discovery: Eva Nová, Marko Skop, Slovakia

NETPAC Award: Hiso Hiso Boshi (The Whispering Star), Sion Sono, Japan

To check awards at official site go here.  

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8/19/15
We all know that Toronto fest has been a non-competitive festival but in their 40th edition there will be a competition, which -if continues to happen in the future- takes fest into the road of becoming THE most important festival in the Americas.

There are hundreds of films in the festival, but most are films that come from European festivals which will have their North American premiere. Can't deny that the main function of this festival has been -until now- the showcase of films that most likely will be honored with an Academy Award nomination.

“We created this new program as a way to sharpen our focus on artistically ambitious cinema in our 40th year and we are thrilled to be able to put the spotlight on these 12 brilliant filmmakers this September,” said Piers Handling, Director and CEO of TIFF. “They are major creative forces: the next generation of masters whose personal vision will captivate audiences, industry members and media from around the world.”

“Each of the filmmakers in the program fearlessly transforms a wide range of compelling realities through their unique visual and narrative styles, and they do so with incredible command and precision,” said Cameron Bailey, Artistic Director of the Toronto International Film Festival. “From a stark coming-of-age story, a retro-futuristic science-fiction and a lyrical post-western to an abduction thriller, a raw documentary and hard-hitting and topical dramas, this lineup reflects the diversity of international directors’ cinema today.”

There are twelve films in competition, my spontaneous reaction is that there are quite a lot French productions or co productions (which has happened in all festival all year long) but when I count the realize there are only 4; still is the country with the most films in the competition.

Plataform Lineup

Bang Gang (une historie d'amour moderne) {Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story)}, Eva Husson, France
Boi Neon (Neon Bull), Gabril Mascaro, Brazil, Uruguay and Netherlands
El Clan (The Clan), Pablo Trapero, Argentina and Spain
Full Contact, David Verbeek, Netherlands and Croatia
High-Rise, Ben Wheatley, UK
Hui dao bei ai de mei yi tian (The Promised Land), He Ping, China
Hurt, Alan Zweig, Canada (documentary)
Les Chevaliers Blancs (The White Knights), Joachim Lafosse, France and Belgium
Looking for Grace, Sue Brooks, Australia
Sky, Fabienne Berthaud, France and Germany
Un Français (French Blood), Diastème, France
Under Sandet (Land of Mine), Martin Zandvliet, Denmark and Germany

Platform films will screen from Thursday, September 10 to Thursday, September 17. Each film will have its first screening for public, press and industry at the Visa Screening Room at the Elgin Theatre. An international jury composed of acclaimed filmmakers Jia Zhang-ke, Claire Denis and Agnieszka Holland will award the Toronto Platform Prize ($25,000 CAD) to the best film in the program, which will be announced at the Awards Ceremony on September 20, 2015.

If you wish to check info for each film go fest official site here.  After checking those films I'm not familiar with my conclusion is that these competition is eclectic, diverse and a bit too-strange for my taste. Of course there are exceptions, none most notorious than must-be-seen for me, Pablo Trapero's The Clan.