Why should audiences see Midnight Madness and Vanguard films?
Because I programme the coolest, edgiest, sexiest and most badass films of the entire Festival. These are the films people will be talking about in the future.
What past Festival discovery is still close to your heart?
Takashi Miike's Fudoh: The New Generation. It's a wild and bloody romp through the Japanese underworld filled with images of ludicrous excess that ignited the audience. Miike was there and was totally overwhelmed by the audience's enthusiastic reaction. He's been back with many films since, including 13 Assassins, which was shown in the Masters programme in 2010, a great evolution for a true cinematic artist.
If you were to remake a film, what would it be and why?
I'd remake Last Year at Marienbad so that it makes less sense, but is in colour, and 3D.
Let's make a movie! What's the pitch?
It's a heartwarming tale about a boy chasing his red balloon through the streets of Paris. Until the tables turn and the balloon becomes a pulsating, snaggle-toothed monster that chases the boy and eventually rips him to shreds. I expect slamming doors and the sounds of little children crying at the film's premiere.
Your not-so-villainous villain?
Frankenstein and King Kong. They're so misunderstood!
If you could, you would live in the world created in what film?
Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits.
Colin Geddes selects cutting-edge films for the Toronto International Film Festival's Real to Reel, Vanguard, Visions and Midnight Madness programmes. Since joining TIFF in 1998, he has introduced new talent and programmed many notable world premieres including Miike Takashi's Ichi The Killer; Johnnie To's Full Time Killer; Eli Roth's Cabin Fever and Hostel; Alex Aja's Haute Tension; and Pratchya Pinkaew's Ong Bak: Muay Thai Warrior.
A specialist in Asian cinema, Geddes' additional programming efforts include the Asian rep theatre Golden Classics Cinema, TIFF Cinematheque, FantAsia Toronto and in May 2010 he was appointed as Festival Director for ActionFest in Asheville, North Carolina. He is on the advisory committee of the Reel Asian Film Festival, The Austin Fantastic Film Fest, and has served on juries for several international film festivals. For more than a decade, Geddes curated the Kung Fu Fridays screening series, which showcased martial arts and cult cinema from Asia.
Geddes holds one of North America's largest collections of Hong Kong cinema promotional materials, posters and lobby cards. In July 2008, La Cinémathèque Québécoise presented an exhibit of fifty posters from the collection. Over the past fifteen years, Geddes has rescued abandoned 35mm prints from Toronto's closed Chinatown cinemas and garbage heaps and in March 2010, he donated 200 feature films originating from Hong Kong and Taiwan to the University of Toronto.
In 2004 he founded Ultra 8 Pictures, an independent theatrical distribution and booking company dedicated to bringing offbeat international films to Canadian cinemas. Releases have included Bubba Ho-Tep, A Tale of Two Sisters, Ju-On, and David Lynch's Inland Empire.