What makes the short films programme so great?
Because in ninety minutes you'll discover several filmmakers instead of just one. I personally guarantee your satisfaction.
Is there one film discovery that still leaves you dumbfounded?
ORA (Festival 2011), by Philippe Baylaucq, is the best 3D piece I've ever seen. It left everyone, including myself, breathless. It was the pitch-perfect integration of technology and art.
You secretly sympathize with what movie villain?
Both Joan Crawford and Betty Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?.
Magali Simard is the Senior Coordinator of Film Programmes working on New Releases, TIFF Cinematheque, Canada's Top Ten, and ongoing series at TIFF Bell Lightbox. She also sits on the programming teams for the Toronto International Film Festival's Short Cuts Canada programme and TIFF's Student Film Showcase.
Simard contributed film notes for the TIFF publication Toronto on Film, and has written for local online publications. She has been a jury member for the Alberta Film and Television Awards since 2009, was on the short film jury for the 2010 Outfest in Los Angeles, acted as a guest programmer for the 2011 Perceides Festival, and served on the jury for the 2012 Berlinale Teddy Awards. Simard is a regular guest on Radio-Canada's French radio and has hosted screenings for the National Film Board, the National Screen Institute and Ryerson University.
Simard has a Cinema Studies degree from the University of Toronto. She also studied film in Quebec while managing youth in a documentary film committee in Ottawa.