As the 2007 festival draws to a close and I sit at my desk, exhausted but happy to have seen so many fantastic films, I?m reflecting on the past ten days. Every day, I saw incredible movies and discovered something new about TIFF audiences. Midnight Madness crowds are the rowdiest (and love to make pirate noises), Cumberland audiences cheer most for the volunteers, and Scotiabank Theatre audiences are snappy dressers. I even got to watch one of my favourite Canadian classics on a big screen, Michel Brault's Les Bons Débarras (pictured above). Here are some of my favourite memories & moments from the Canadian programmes.

Best moment: It's impossible to pick just one, but a major personal highlight for me was running into an old university classmate on College Street only to find out that he's not only a filmmaker now, but that his first film is screening at TIFF. The friend: the promising Mr. Dev Khanna. The film: Terry Southern's Plums and Prunes, which was part of Short Cuts Canada Programme 3.

Worst moment with a happy ending: getting to the Varsity to watch a film I?d been looking forward to for days, only to realise I?d left my ticket at home. Then taking a $20 taxi ride home and back and having to plead with the volunteers to let me in. Thankfully, they did. The film in question was Richie Mehta?s Amal, the touching tale of a good hearted auto-rickshaw driver. It was one of the most memorable films I saw!

Most pleasant surprise: The Short Cuts Canada programmes! I?ve always been a fan of short films, but holy cow, the Short Cuts programmers really outdid themselves this year. I went in expecting to enjoy the films, and came out feeling impressed, moved, intimidated and overwhelmed by the talent I saw.

Best Q&A: Listening to Danny Glover give a stirring speech after the premiere of Poor Boy?s Game about the responsibility cultural workers have to tell the kinds of stories they think are important and valuable. The film got a standing ovation, and Glover?s speech was inspiring and right on.

Sexiest Q&A: I think the stoic cowboys in their 10 gallon hats and tight jeans that came up on stage after the screening of John Zaritsky's Wild Horse Redemption might beat out all the celebrities I saw. Although, the radiant and elegant Ellen Burstyn at the premiere of The Stone Angel gave them a run for their money.

Best celebrity run-in: Truth be told, I?m not much of a celeb-hound, but after the screening of Carl Bessai?s Normal I did walk up and down Richmond Street three times, shyly debating approaching Callum Keith Rennie, who I think is getting better looking and more talented with age. I chickened out of saying hello, but he did look up at me and smile on my third pass.

For me, it?s not over just yet. I?m seeing one more Canadian film at 8:00pm (Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg) and closing out my festival with the final Midnight Madness film, À l'intérieur (I couldn?t miss a film that programmer Colin Geddes promises will not disappoint even the most hardcore horror fans).

I hope you all had as great a festival experience as I did. See you next year!

Short Cuts Canada Programme 2 had a more sombre tone than the other shorts programmes I?d seen, but each of the films was incredible, affecting, and fit perfectly with the rest. Truly, this year?s shorts programmers deserve kudos for their work. When TIFF comes to an end for another year (later tonight), and we all go back to our regular movie watching habits, I urge you all to take any opportunity you can to see more shorts. They may not come to the theatres as often as features, but if this festival has taught me anything it?s that they are absolutely worth seeking out. Here are a few highlights from the Q&A at Programme 2?s premiere on Thursday.

Dust Bowl Ha Ha! is a beautiful portrait of small town sorrow and self-preservation, focusing on a man who struggles to keep hope alive after the factory in his small Quebec town closes. Director Sébastien Pilote was asked whether he had a personal connection to the tale, and answered ?No, but my father played in the film, but a small role, because he brought the snowmobile, so he was the only one who could jump the snowmobile onto the pickup.?

Boar Attack is a charming and funny animated film that uses hand-drawn sketches and translucent watercolours to tell the tale of a cautious man?s worry that his father (a ballerina) has been attacked by a boar in the woods. Director Jay White was asked ?the boar in the woods, where did that come from?? and responded ?I was living in Berlin for a year working on an animated series and I liked to go to the bush a lot, so I asked some people at the studio what if I go there are there snakes, or bears. And they said well, there are wild pigs. And I asked what they could do and they said well, they run really fast they can run into you or break your legs. And I thought in Canada a grizzly can take your head off, I think I can handle a pig.?

Dada Dum director Britt Randle was asked about the sets in his expressionistic and surreal black & white short. He said ?It?s all sets I made from insulation and foam core from Home Depot. It was all in sections so that we could kind of change things around to make different rooms and hallways, so it was in six foot sections. So it was a lot of glue and foam core.?

For Alanis Obomsawin, director of the touching documentary Gene Boy Came Home, about a native Canadian Vietnam vet, the question was about her subject Gene, who died shortly after filming concluded. She replied ?When we did the last shoot, I called him for about a week beforehand, and he wasn?t answering. So I wondered if perhaps he went away somewhere. Then I went to his house and asked what?s happening, and he said oh, I?ve been sick and just staying in bed ? a then week later he went to the hospital. I know he had liver problems, and colon problems, I don?t know what else. It was quite a shock. He?d been having lots of problems obviously, but we just didn?t expect it.?

Four Walls is a tough and honest look at how female prisoners from different walks of life are treated in Iran. Director Raha Shirazi talked about the incredible performances her actors gave, saying ?well I guess the biggest challenge was trying to shoot the film in Toronto and trying to play it for Iran, so we built the set and I was lucky enough to have amazing, amazing actors. It took three, four months to find them. But once we did, it was just all about them, trying to put them in a confined space and allow them to play off each other. And for all of us there is some kind of relation, in one way or another we all know what that feels like, so yeah. They were amazing.?

Can You Wave Bye Bye?, a difficult film about a woman?s struggle with post-partum depression, gave director Sarah Galea-Davis the opportunity to adapt a short story she read some years ago. She said of the tale ?I really loved the story. I?d never encountered a character like that before in fiction, and I thought it was a really brave story. I knew I wanted to somehow translate that character to film. I also got really lucky because I found a really good actress who?d given birth about six months before the shoot. So, she has a baby and y?know, the baby in the film was only about two and a half months old, but she knew what it was to be a mother.?

For the makers of the astonishing stop-motion animated film Madame Tutli Putli, the questions were largely technical ? about how long the film took to make, how the models were made and how their movements could be so realistic. The filmmakers replied that it took four years to make, and that the puppets themselves were quite traditional. As for the realism, they said ?The answer is here in the audience. We worked with a great actress, Laurie Marr, to improvise a lot of the scenes and then translate them to puppet language. But there?s no shortcuts, it?s still frame by frame.?

Programmer Alex Rogalski jumped in to say ?24 frames per second, and the film is 17 minutes long. So, 24 frames per second, 60 frames per minute for 17 minutes. Four years doesn?t seem that long.?

However, what the animators didn?t mention when talking about their remarkable puppets is that an entirely new process was created for this film which unnervingly integrated real human eyes into individual puppets? faces, giving them an ability to express emotion that goes beyond anything one could expect from a puppet.

 

Last night, programmer Steve Gravestock introduced Bruce McDonald to a full theatre by saying "He is one of my favourite filmmakers, one of the Festival Group's favourite filmmakers. Every new film he makes surprises us, and this is probably his most audacious film." Indeed, The Tracey Fragments is a bold film, but its audacity is matched only by the stunning beauty of McDonald's visual and the fantastic performance by Ellen Page (also in The Stone Angel, at TIFF this year).

McDonald's film is presented almost entirely in split-screen frames, but that description hardly does the film justice. Multiple images are constantly fading in and out of view, encircling Tracey in versions of herself, mirroring her, presenting a constant stream of 'alternate views'. This visual approach adds to the story in many ways, but most of all makes the film an absolute feast for the eyes.

I asked a few audience members what they thought of the film's style. One woman said to me "Well, I was a fan of Highway 61 back in the day. I expect him [Bruce McDonald] do do something crazy and out there and shocking. When that film came out I was totally blown away by it. I'm blown away now". Her friend chimed in "I saw Don McKellar in the audience, he looks just like he did then".

Another woman nearby said "That Ellen Page is a real talent. Doesn't she look like a young version of the Dale sisters"? Page's performance is indeed the most impressive thing about the film. Her ability to portray a fractured consciousness which is then visualized by the film's fractured images is truly arresting.

The Tracey Fragments screens again on Friday Sept. 14 at 12:45pm at the Cumberland.

It?s a daunting task to do cinematic justice to a great piece of literature, so premiering a film based on a Canadian classic as well known and loved as Margaret Laurence?s Stone Angel (and to a Canadian audience, to boot) must have been a bit nerve-wracking for director Kari Skogland. Fortunately, her film seemed to charm and move everyone in the sold-out theatre.

Unsurprisingly, the first question from the audience was about the book ? what their experiences with it had been before they shot the film, and now.

Ellen Burstyn, whose incredible performance as Hagar got a standing ovation from the crowd, was the first to answer, saying ?Well, I?m sure that all the Canadian actors knew it, but being an American I was not familiar with Margaret Laurence?s work until I read the script, and then I read the book and fell in love with it and regretted not having read it earlier in my life. I think she?s an amazing writer and I know how much you all love her?.

Christine Horne, who plays the young Hagar (her first starring role in a feature film) said ?I hadn?t read the book before, and I feel like a bad Canadian for not having read The Stone Angel. I read Margaret Atwood in school.?

Kevin Zegers, who shines as Hagar?s wayward son John (who also stars in Normal, at TIFF this year) said ?I was forced to read it in school, in grade 10? but quickly added ?but then I read it again and appreciated it obviously a little bit more before I started the film, because obviously you don?t pay attention to anything in high school. I was shocked that I hadn?t noticed how great her writing was?.

Luke Kirby (also in All Hat at TIFF) joked ?I read it in six hours before a test, and I got a C?.

I myself read (and loved) The Diviners in school, alongside Alice Munro?s Lives of Girls and Women, so I went in without expectations about how the adaptation should look. I?m not sure if a fan of the book would critique the film differently, but I thought it was a powerful and visually stunning film. The actors did an incredible job of imbuing their characters with a lifetime?s worth of love, regret, hope and heartache. If the rest of the audience?s reaction is any indication, then it was a faithful retelling of the novel, as well.

Skogland got up during the Q&A to answer a question about how she approached the enormous responsibility of adapting the book to film. ?Well it was daunting, no question I was terrified? she began ?but I think after kind of getting over the anxiety, the truth is I looked at the title sitting on the shelf that I hadn?t read in a number of years, and it had stayed with me because it was an epiphany at the time when I read it in my teens.

?I reread it and it was like reading a different book because I think the life experience that one has and brings to the experience of reading the work I suddenly realised how much more depth there was in it and how much the story that I wanted to tell just emerged. And I just knew that I had to tell it. So that helped me get over the fear of approaching it.

?I know others had tried and had not been able to make it work. So I just thought what I?d do is just strip away and go after the really good story and not be too frightened, not make it too precious. If I do that, if I ever say to myself oh my god this is Margaret Laurence?s Stone Angel, I?d just fold up. So it was much better to just embrace it and not think about that.

?It wasn?t until we were almost shooting and my girlfriend came to me and she had done her Masters degree on it, on that particular book. She said Kari, do you know what you?re doing, it?s The Stone Angel. And that?s when it occurred to me, and I kind of woke up and got scared all over again?.

Luckily, she didn?t let that fear get to her, and the result is a truly a brave and loving homage to one of our literary giants.

The Stone Angel screens again on Friday Sept. 14, 4:45pm at the Isabel Bader Theatre.

Director Ed Gass-Donnelly?s first feature, This Beautiful City, teeters on the edge between hope and hopelessness, in the blurred lines between crack-houses and condos in Toronto?s Parkdale neighbourhood. The gritty realism Gass-Donnelly?s shooting style and the raw, honest performances give the film a documentary feel.

Gass-Donnelly answered the audience?s questions after the film, talking about the gentrification he experiences in his own Toronto neighbourhood (very close to the film?s location) and when asked about whether there is a silver lining to the tale, replied ?for me there was a bittersweet fate for the characters. One of the ideas is that you have to hit rock bottom in order to re-emerge. There was a certain phoenix rising from the ashes aspect to the characters... it's a cautionary tale.?

Another audience member commented that the actors seemed to all like the characters they were playing, in spite of their dark edge. 

Noam Jenkings, who plays Harry, said "For me it was really identifying with my character's ability for compartmentalization and avoiding certain truths about yourself."

Kristin Booth, who plays Pretty, answered "I found it interesting to play, as a performer whose job it is to express oneself, someone who is completely impotent when it comes to expression. But she does seem to find a voice, she does seem to find an ability to act that moves her inexorably forward to another direction, an out."

Aaron Poole, who plays Johnny, joked "I liked what a hard worker Johnny was".

This Beautiful City screens again on Thursday Sept. 13, 11:30am at the Cumberland.

All Hat is charming, playful, and Western-esque. The story weaves a web between an ensemble of sexy jockeys, ex-cons, scheming gamblers and straight-shooting ranchers, telling a story about a wealthy man?s attempt to build a golf resort on some honest, hard working people?s land.

The story itself is full of complex twists and layered characters which add a great deal of depth to the deceptively simple premise.

Director Leonard Farlinger was on hand to answer questions along with his producer and writer, and several cast members ? Rachael Leigh Cook, Luke Kirby, Noam Jenkins, Lisa Ray and others.

Brad Smith, who wrote the novel the film is based on as well as the screenplay, said of the experience of adapting his book for the screen that there was ?some pleasure, but also some pain? in the process of cutting a 300 page book down to a 100 page script.

TIFF Programmer Steve Gravestock, a native Hamiltonian, asked the cast how it was filming in his home town, and director ?Great weather! One day of shooting the racing sequences, we got one race in the can, it was eleven o?clock, I remember it was November 1st, the day I became a man. The snow fell everywhere. You couldn?t see ten feet in front of you. We had 30 thoroughbred horses, countless wranglers, I was just walking around thinking ?it sucks to be a leader?. But we got it done, we melted the snow, shot into a paddock, and you?d never know!?

When asked about his former horse experience, Luke Kirby joked ?I ? didn?t know how to ride a horse. Then I took horse lessons. Then I became a horse. Then I got on myself and rode.?

 

As the audience laughed, Kirby continued ?I was riding a horse for the first time with Rachael and I had been on for about five minutes when the instructor said ?oh, why don?t we go to the canyon where we?ll have more space? and we got to the gate which is in kind of a suburban area, and I pulled on the reigns and the horse went right and the horse started jumping and the horse started trotting down the street. There was a big tree with a branch and I didn?t know what to do so I crouched down, and when you crouch down on a horse, the horse wants to go fast. Then I thought to hold onto the horse I would squeeze my legs into it. If you hold onto a horse with your legs it wants to go even faster. We were on sidewalks and I thought it might be a bit slippery. I was worried about my own safety, mostly. So I took my boots out of the stirrups and used the momentum of the horse to lift myself onto the saddle, and I looked down and ... jumped off the horse?.

 

The cast was clearly in a jovial mood, and the jokes continued as Rachael Leigh Cook admitted to also falling off her horse, and Lisa Ray said she prepared for the role of a hardy country girl by ?shovelling a lot of shit?.

 

All Hat screens again on Thursday Sept. 13, 12:45pm at the Varsity.

 

"Boxing isn't a game. You play basketball, you play football, you don't 'play' boxing" says Ossie Paris, one of the characters in Clément Virgo?s incredible sixth feature. Indeed, nothing in this tough portrait of racial tensions and private battles in working class Halifax is particularly playful. The film revolves around a boxing match between two men on opposite sides of a dark and long standing conflict that threatens to tear communities and lives apart. Violent and emotional, Poor Boy?s Game tells a deeply moving story about the transformative power of forgiveness and the corrosive power of vengeance.

Last night, at the Toronto premiere of the film, Wayne Clarkson (Executive Director of Telefilm Canada) proudly introduced the film by saying ?I?m not here merely to enjoy with you Poor Boy?s Game with all of you, but for a personal reason. I used to run the Canadian film Centre and many years ago, around the early 90s, I had the pleasure of meeting Damon and Clement Virgo and have had the pleasure of watching this film grow.?

 

The audience was absolutely captivated by the film, and gave a modestly beaming Virgo a standing ovation during the credits. Danny Glover, who delivers perhaps the film?s most powerful performance, summed up everyone?s sentiments about the project when he gave the following short speech:

 

?I was attracted to the relationship between these two working class communities, and I thought that was very courageous of Clement and Chaz to kind of touch that and to put that on paper. Often we don?t talk about those things. The question about what we?re going to do as cultural workers and what kind of culture we want to do has to do with what stories we?re going to tell. What stories in some sense transform us or are vehicles for our own re-envisioning of ourselves and re-imagining ourselves as human beings. That?s the kind of work I want to be involved in, and Clement gave me an opportunity to get involved in this.

 

"And another thing, I?m glad this is a Canadian film (applause). These issues affect Halifax, or affect Toronto, or plague communities in the United States as well. Everywhere you go you see this deindustrialization of communities. People without opportunities and no recourse. Their jobs are outsourced and shipped out, and they?re marginalized and they lack the opportunity to enhance their communities and really embrace their families.

 

"You can effectively tell these stories and move people by the emotional journey that these characters go through. You can do that in art. Whatever we do as artists, whatever we do as human beings, all of that is a way of transformation, and it gives us the opportunity to think, to grow, and to challenge ourselves to make a better future."

 

A round of applause followed Glover?s inspired speech, and director Virgo chimed in ?what he said?.

 

Co-writer Chaz Thorne (who wrote the wickedly funny Just Buried, also playing at TIFF) said, of Glover?s character, ?In terms of characters that really took us on a journey, personally for me it was George. I know I as an individual really struggle with forgiveness. To me, that character, we?re in an age where we see movies with super-heroes, and they fly and shoot fucking beams out of their eyes, and to me George is a superhero in terms of his capacity for forgiveness. It was a character that was very inspiring to me and that I aspire towards.?

 

Poor Boy?s Game screens again screens again on Thursday Sept. 13, 5:00pm at Isabel Bader.

Carl Bessai?s Normal had its world premiere in front of a packed house at the Scotiabank Theatre ? the third such crowd I?ve seen for Canadian premieres this week. Normal is a brave and unflinching look at the way a single event (in this case, the tragic death of a teen in a drunk driving accident) can affect many lives in many different ways. The film turns slowly around the stories of the teen?s mother (Carrie-Anne Moss), the failed author who was driving the car that killed him (Callum Keith Rennie) and his best friend (Kevin Zegers). All three gave masterful performances, and were on hand to answer questions with their director, along with two other actors - Tygh Runyan (Rennie?s autistic brother Dennis), Camille Sullivan (Zegers unhappy stepmother), and Britt Irvin (his would-be girlfriend).

 

Bessai kicked off the Q&A by thanking TIFF audiences for being nice, interested, and making the festival such a great place to screen a movie.

 

An audience member kicked things off by complimenting him on his Director of Photography ? a compliment to the director, who shot the film himself. Bessai commented on the naturalistic tone of the film, and the influence of directors like John Cassavetes on his own work, before modestly encouraging the audience to ask more questions of the actors, who are ?only here for one night?.

 

The next question, directed at the entire panel, was about the extent to which the highly emotional, silent scenes in the film were scripted or improvised by the audience.

Bessai: There was a lot of improvising in this movie, I mean there was a script but there was a lot of silence as well, perhaps you (Moss) can talk about some of the silent films, like in the room of the dead son.

 

Moss: I think Carl in the script was pretty clear, I think he had a lot of that in the script if I remember correctly. I mean, you have to improve to find it to yourself, but you were quite clear on what you wanted from it.

 

Bessai: I think that scenes like when you?re in the space alone, we don?t have a definite idea. The script might say she?s in the room alone, here?s what she?s thinking, but it?s up to the actor ?

 

Zegers: Carl?s so self deprecating. The thing we all learned about working with him is that we all show up with the script, and he kind of says ?crew it, and what do you feel like doing? ? I felt like he was able to adjust to whatever we felt was pertinent to making the film. It?s really nice for an actor to be able to move wherever you want to move and it?s just the ability to go where you want to go and not have to stay in your light which in most movies if you move three inches they cut because your light?s cut off. Because Carl?s lighting it he lights the whole room and because he?s shooting himself he allows you to feel free to do whatever you want. And a lot of the time it sucks but you get those moments which end up in the film, which are these captured, really quiet moments that aren?t necessarily scripted.

 

Bessai: When Kevin and I met we had a bunch of conversations and he said ?I really think I should tear apart my room, I have to come back to my house and be in this room and it?s a teenager?s room, it?s not my room anymore? and I thought yeah, let?s do that ? it?s a bunch of junk cuts but it?s this kind of moment where he?s not the same person anymore. I thought it was a really great addition and a great idea.

 

When asked about the upscale setting of in the film, Bessai said ?Y?know, Dennis doesn?t live in an upscale home, Walt doesn?t really. I mean, it?s a nice house but it?s sort of a middle class place. What I didn?t want to do was make a kind of critique of Suburbia. I know it?s an upscale sort of environment, but it would lean toward being a cliché to make this a rip on Suburbia. I?m not crazy about Suburbia but I don?t think it needs to be constantly, for me this is the setting, it?s a kind of beautiful North American coastal, it?s heaven in a way. It?s a great area to be. Beautiful people live there, and these beautiful people who seem to have everything have these really isolated lives.

 

Catch the second screening of Normal on Wednesday Sept 12 at 1:00pm at the Scotiabank Theatre.

Last night?s Short Cuts Canada Programme 4 blew me away, perhaps more than anything I?ve seen yet at TIFF. My expectations were pretty high to begin with, but I couldn?t anticipate how masterful and accomplished every single film would be. Of course, as shorts programmer Agata Smoluch Del Sorbo said during the Q&A, there were over 500 entries this year, and 44 films programmed. They truly represent some of the best short filmmaking I?ve seen from this or any other country. Here, broken down by film, are a few highlights from the Q&A session, which all eight beaming filmmakers attended:

Bumblebee, a dark tale of children?s play and bullying between two young boys started off the programme, and immediately stunned the audience with its beautiful Ontarian landscapes and powerful performances from the two boys. Director Jonathan van Tulleken was asked about working with a young actor with Down Syndrome, and responded by saying ?He?s a really lovely child and he got very into it and really enjoyed it. He knew he was acting and he knew the script and had read the whole thing. He gave a really lovely performance because so much of the time he got totally into it and was genuinely within the moviewhich was a lot of fun. You don?t get that from a lot of actors.?

Three Beans for George is a surprising and hilarious tale about the true nature of friendship. Director Sean Anicic said, of the story ?It was a last minute deadline for something I wanted to do but we didn?t have a story so someone just said ?why don?t you just give birth to a man?. That?s really cool but it?s not really a story, so we kind of built a story around that.?

Les  Grands / The Schoolyard is an incredibly compelling drama about three boys? battle with the school bully was filled with such amazing performances by all the actors, that director Chloé Leriche was immediately asked how she elicited such powerful acting. ?It was very very difficult?, she answered ?To make it happen with the kids my main task was to show them how to play ? before and after every written sequence they had to play, we would do some improvisation. We worked a lot so that. It doesn?t look like it in the English version because you can?t see the hesitation in the language and how they took the text and lived it, but that was the main idea, to make them improvise a lot before and after. And to shoot a lot, a lot, a lot.?

I Have Seen the Future is, as Director Cam Christiansen put it, a non-collaborative collaboration. Calgary-based singer-songwriter Kris Demeanor?s fantastic song about a father-son game of tennis is brought to life with Christiansen?s animation. An audience member asked him about his animating techniques. He replied, ?Actually I did the animation myself but in this case it?s kind of interesting - it?s all computer models and compositing in After Effects. We used motion capture data which is more familiar with the gaming industry.? As for the song, Cam said ?Kris Demeanor wrote the song. It?s all Kris? song. I just took his song and worked with it. It was a completely non-collaborative process. He wrote the song and I made the video and that was it.?

Cursing Hanley is a quirky story of a man whose life takes a sudden turn for the worse when his ex fiancée places a curse on him. Short Cuts programmer Agata  Smoluch Del Sorbo joked with director Kelly Harms ?So, autobiographical?? Harms joked back ?Well, I thought someone in my life cursed me, and about four months later I attributed everything that was going bad in my life to that person. But recently she said ?I didn?t curse you?, so now I?m doubting all that. Plus, I?m Irish, so this is common for us. This is actually a story my writing partner and I sat in a bar for about eight hours and came up with, so I think it shows.?

Smile - getting a family portrait taken always seems like a harangue, when you?re a young girl. This tale of a Chinese immigrant family?s picture day is charmingly told through the eyes of the youngest daughter. Director Julie Kwan said of the story ?It wasn?t autobiographical. This was actually supposed to be a calling card film for my feature, which I made two years ago. I put this film aside in order to work on that because the feature took off. But this was a story that didn?t fit into the feature and which I still wanted to tell.?

ReOrder is visually stunning and emotionally affecting, the tale of a man?s creative way to deal with his fiancée?s adultery. The audience was curious about where the film?s brilliant art came from. Director Sean Garrity said ?I thought of it the night before an Arts Council deadline. I pitched this idea of installation art made for a movie. I thought I?d make up some stuff for the application, and my art director would make up real stuff on the day. Then my art director read the script and said ?ok, we?ll make these?. It?s weird, when you just think of it and then someone makes it. They had a lot more trouble making them than I had thinking of them.?

Code 13 rounded out the powerful program. The film is an incredibly gripping, nourish tale of the secret codes of self protection and brotherhood kept by taxi drivers. Director Mathieu L. Denis was immediately asked whether there actually is a ?code 13? in the cab industry. ?There is in Montreal, so be careful? he chuckled wryly, ?This story is a composite of many stories that I heard from cab drivers that I met when I heard that the code 13 existed. It?s a bit of a secret, but yes, it does.?

Catch the repeat screening of Short Cuts Canada Programme 4 on Tuesday September 11 at 4:00pm at the Cumberland, and check out the other Shorts Cuts Programmes while you're at it!

Just Buried, an off-beat black comedy about the murderous hi-jinx happening in an out-of-the-way Nova Scotian funeral home features, as programmer Jesse Wente said in his introduction, perhaps the most comic movie impaling in recent history.

The director, Chaz Thorne, was on hand along with several cast and crew members to answer questions after the screening. The first question, one which was probably on many people?s minds, was how he came up with the idea for this film.

Thorne responded: This was actually thought up one night drinking. I have my best buddy Chris, his wife to thank for it. Jessica said to me one night ?I always thought a really good idea for a movie would be about a guy who inherits a funeral home and he has no customers so he has to start killing people?. And y?know, like six years later I made a movie about it.

One audience member commented during the Q&A that he loves a smart, dark comedy, and that Just Buried was the best example he?d seen in a long time. ?Thanks,? Thorne replied, adding ?do you happen to represent a major American distributor??

One of the funniest moments in the Q&A was when an audience member asked Rose Byrne, who plays sexy coroner/mortician Roberta, to say her signature line ?who?s your dirty girl?, in her native Australian accent. Byrne was the only non-Canadian on cast, but you?d never guess it from her absolutely convincing Canadian drawl.

The film screened with a fantastic short called Paradise, by Jesse Rosensweet (whose previous animated short, The Stone of Folly, won the Jury Prize for best short film at Cannes in 2002). Paradise is a tale of a ?50s era couple of tin toys who move through their lives on rails, repeating the same routines day in and day out. Slowly, the veneer of their idyllic lives begins to fall away, with hilarious and touching results. The amount of emotion Rosensweet manages to imbue the motionless tin faces with is a real testament to his mastery of the craft. An absolutely beautiful film!

Catch both films again on Tuesday Sept. 11 at 9:15am at the Cumberland. Director Chaz Thorne has also co-written another film screening at TIFF this year, Poor Boy?s Game  ? a stirring drama about racial tensions, forgiveness and loss. It?s premiering on Tuesday Sept. 11 at 8:15pm at the Varsity.

Intelligent comedies that blend sports jokes, gay jokes and a touching story about a really cute kid are hard to find. In fact, nearly impossible. Breakfast with Scot accomplishes all three without ever relying on cheap gags, stereotypes or clichés. Plus, the acting is great.

Tom Cavanaugh is pitch-perfect as the closeted ex-Maple Leaf, who along with his partner Sam (Ben Shenkman) finds himself the reluctant temporary dad of fey 11 year old Scot (played by talented newcomer Noah Bernett). Of course, the boy's presence in their lives forces them to examine their own identities, as they struggle to help him find his.

Outside the theatre before the film began, a woman approached me to ask ?is this the one that everyone is begging for a ticket to downstairs?? When I said it was Breakfast With Scot, she replied with ?Yep, that?s the one. I love it when people get so excited they?re begging for tickets! I?ve done that!? Indeed, so have most avid TIFF attendees. Breakfast With Scot is one of those movies that?s worth lining up for.

On hand to answer audience questions and comments at last night?s absolutely packed house at the Scotiabank Theatre were director Laurie Lynd, along with Cavanaugh and Bernett.

When an audience member asked Bernett what it felt like seeing himself on screen, he joked ?It feels just like watching a movie, kind of. It doesn?t really feel weird, and I know what?s coming next, always?.

Cavanaugh got on stage a few moments after the other two, just in time to answer what the most fun part of making the movie was for him. He pondered for a second then said ?hmm, kissing Ben Shenkman or playing hockey. One of the two!?

Responding to questions about what drew them to the project, Lynd cited ?the great story, based on the novel by Michael Downing, adapted into a wonderful screenplay by Sean Raycraft?, also adding that he really identified with Scot ? ?I wasn?t that flamboyant but there was some of me in there?. Cavanaugh mentioned getting to play hockey on screen (apparently, Lynd was relieved that the actor is not only a fan of the sport, but also a pretty good skater), while Bernett quipped ?It was a job?.

The film screened with an absolutely charming short called No Bikini (pictured, right) about a girl who, at the age of seven, pretends to be a boy for six glorious weeks of swimming classes, simply by not wearing the top of her two-piece bathing suit. the film is visually delightful and the story is heartwarming. It reminded me of being a little girl myself, and once seriously asking whether I could be a boy when I grew up, because they seemed to have all the fun.

Check out the second screening of Breakfast With Scot and No Bikini on Tuesday Sept 11, 9:00am at the Scotiabank Theatre.

It may be a cliché, but it?s true: few things are sexier than an honest, hard working cowboy. If that cowboy happens to also run a program that rehabilitates prison inmates by teaching them to train wild mustangs, well, it?s pretty much love at first sight. The Wild Horse Redemption is a film that?s hard not to fall in love with.   

The program is designed to save at least some of the tens of thousands of wild horses in the American southwest ? a rapidly growing population that simply can?t be housed on range lands. Of course, the program doesn?t just save horses. It also saves the men who participate.

?There are similarities between the wild horses and the inmates,? says Brian Hardin, the capable cowboy who runs the program. Director John Zaritsky spent six months shooting at the Canon City prison facility, and the result is a stunning and deeply touching documentary that asks a very tough question ? can two wild creatures ? a prison inmate and a wild mustang ? help each other find peace, tranquility, and perhaps a better life?  

Zaritsky came to Toronto for the premiere of the film with four of the men who work in the program ? when the four took the stage after the screening, in their matching cowboy hats, shiny belt buckles, tight jeans and boots, the audience?s applause was long and heartfelt. These men are the genuine article, and they do their work with passion and heart that can be felt throughout the film.   

The program has been going on since 1986, and though there aren?t any statistics on how many of the inmates don?t re-offend after participating, estimates place it at 50% - compared to the 80% who return to prison without a program like this.  

Of course, the audience was curious to find out what happened to Jon Peterson, an inmate profiled in the film, and his horse Samson.  

Director Zaritsky answered: Jon is still in a halfway house ? working at his landscaping job. Samson is now in a long-term facility being looked after and I guess I should let everybody know I?ve decided to adopt him.

The Wild Horse Redemption screens again on Wednesday Sept. 12 at 9:30pm at  the ROM, and Friday Sept. 14 at 11:45am at the Varsity.

A packed house at the Scotiabank theatre watched the premiere of Bruce Sweeney's American Venus last night. The audience, peppered with slick media types and handsomely dressed Canadian actors, was clearly excited to see the tale of an unstable mother unable to let her ex-figure skater daughter grow up and leave the nest. The family drama is set against a backdrop of American/Canadian relations, when mom follows daughter from their home in the U.S. to her new home in Vancouver.

A woman next to me in the line before the film said "I'm so thrilled to be seeing it. My husband and I are here with 16 of our friends. I had to line up for two hours to get tickets ... twice!"

The film is full of funny moments, which elicited relieved laughter from a crowd that was otherwise almost as tense as Rebecca DeMornay's manic mom, Celia. One audience member asked how the actress (who shone in the role) prepared for it. Bruce Sweeney quipped "I think Rebecca's been preparing for this role her whole life".

When asked to explain the film's title, Sweeney joked that his producers wouldn't allow him to use his original title "A Histrionic American". He expanded on DeMornay's character, saying "I wrote her as a histrionic person. That is to say, her close relationships or her supposedly close relationships really aren't. She's a person who has a low tolerance for frustration and who sexualises relationships ... and has an exaggerated manner."

One of the funniest and most disturbing aspects of the film is DeMornay's unrelenting obsession with guns. At home in America, shooting at the range soothes her. In Vancouver, where her daughter has moved, she's confronted by Canada's considerably stricter gun laws. The results are humorous but also disturbing, as her character's frustration gets more and more out of control.

When asked about the gun obsession, Sweeney explained "In many ways, it's a metaphor for addiction. I've seen too many films that are just about drug addiction and I wanted another kind of addiciton and what I tried to convey in the film is that through the process of shooting the gun, through hearing that bang, bang, you can see her face ... she stays in control and it kind of soothes her. To have that feeling and then she's robbed of it."

American Venus screens again on Monday Sept. 10, at noon, at the Scotiabank Theatre.

Denis Côté's film, Nos Vies Privées, premiered last night to a room full of attentive fans at the Varsity. Côté appeared in front of a similar crowd the previous night to introduce and answer questions about his cinematographer's film (Raphaël Ouellet's Le Cèdre penché).

The similarity between the films in terms of tone and visual style is striking. The stories, however, are very different. Where Ouellet's film focuses on the reconciliation between two estranged sisters, Côté's focuses on the estrangement of two lovers. The film is about a curious internet romance (there's not a computer in sight) between two Bulgarians in rural Quebec. The peaceful, idyllic setting of their isolated cottage is juxtaposed with the pair's increasing restlessness as they wrestle with the fact that they are intimate strangers - lovers who are seeing each other for the first time.
 
The script was written in English, and translated into Bulgarian by the actors who ultimately performed it. Côté told the TIFF audience, "They came for the first time to North America, they translated the script into their language, everything in Bulgarian, into their own alphabet. So it was total trust." This connection to the text obviously got the story under their skin, because both actors had an uncanny ability to translate the increasingly uncomfortable atmosphere between them into a palpable sensation the audience could undoubtedly feel.
 
"The second time I saw them was when they came to Montreal to shoot the film, and I discovered that they were a real life couple. I didn't know that ... the whole relationship between the actors and me was an internet thing." said Côté of his experience working with two actors whose language he does not speak. "There was a Bulgarian clan and there was a Quebec clan", he clarified about the crew, but quickly added "I'm more into the experience of telling a story. The adventure of telling a thing in a language I don't understand is somehow more important than telling you a tight story, a tight narrative. It's more about atmosphere."
 
"This film is about your own interior beast and your own intimate struggle", Côté concludes about his story. The film's lyrical, impressionistic final sequence illuminates his point subtly and beautifully.  

Nos Vies Privées will be screening again on Sunday Sept. 9 at 4:30pm at the ROM.

This morning's brunch for the talented crop of Canadian short filmmakers featured at this year's festival allowed wide-eyed newcomers to mingle with established luminaries and everyone in between. The affable Bravo!FACT hosts were on hand to introduce filmmakers to each other, chat, answer questions and most importantly, to encourage everyone to have seconds of the seemingly bottomless supply of fresh juice, eggs, bacon and pastries.

Topics of conversation mostly centered around the films everyone wanted to see, and of course, their nervous excitement at attending their own screenings.

Animator extraordinaire Jesse Rosensweet debated the merits of screening shorts with features versus screening them on their own, with fellow filmmaker Cassandra Nicolaou (pictured above). Rosensweet's Paradise falls in the former category, premiering alongside Just Buried on Sunday Sept. 9, 9:15pm at the Scotiabank Theatre, while Nicolau's Congratulations Daisy Graham is screening as part of the Short Cuts Canada Programme 5 premiering on Tuesday September 11 at 9:45 at the Cumberland.

TIFF-veteran Peter Lynch (Project Grizzly, Cyberman), who went back to his short-filmmaking roots this year with A Short Film About Falling, chatted about future plans with Simon Ennis (pictured right), whose The Canadian Shield will precede the much-hyped Heavy Metal in Baghdad.

Lynch's film will be premiering as part of Short Cuts Canada Programme 1 on Saturday Sept. 8, 4:45pm at the ROM, and Ennis' later that same day at 9:45pm, also at the ROM.

When asked what he was most looking forward to seeing at the festival, Ennis cited fellow Canadian Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg, screening on Saturday Sept 9, 5:00pm at the Varsity.

Walking into the Varsity on the opening night of the festival was a hectic experience.

The Gala may have been at Roy Thomson Hall, but the substantial crowds in line to see the eight films kicking off the fest at the Varsity were abuzz with excitement and chatter. It was especially great to see so many people so excited about Canadian cinema. Even though it was competing with the Gala screening of Fugitive Pieces and the Canada First! opener Young People Fucking, Rafaël Ouellet's Le Cèdre penché garnered a large and enthusiastic audience, who were mesmerized by the film's subtle, lyrical approach to storytelling. The music-filled story of two estranged sisters brought together after their mother's death clearly moved the audience, who sighed and laughed in unison at the film's funny, quirky, charming and emotional moments.

Director Ouellet wasn't on hand to answer questions, but producer Denis Côté did his best to fill in, talking about the pair's DIY approach to filmmaking and unconventional narrative styles. Côté astounded the audience by telling us that the film was made for a mere $10,000. Let me be clear: the film is good regardless. The shoestring budget simply makes it a mind-bogglingly sophisticated accomplishment.

A woman behind me whispered to her seat mate "it's great to see a movie that doesn't have to rely on special effects to be compelling". I couldn't agree more! Check out the second screening of Le Cèdre penché on Saturday September 8 at 2:00pm at the Cumberland, and complement it by seeing Denis Côté's own directorial effort, Nos Vies Privées, premiering tonight, Friday September 8, at 8:45 at the Varsity.