media release
December 14, 2022
TIFF's free Cinematheque screenings for members & U-25 Free Pass Holders continues
January – February 2023 TIFF Bell Lightbox lineup announced:
Delphine Seyrig retrospective, 1990s Black film spotlight,
Steve Gravestock’s carte blanche series, and more!
New 4K restorations of Infernal Affairs trilogy and Millennium Mambo
TORONTO — TIFF is thrilled to announce that it will continue to offer its free TIFF Cinematheque benefit for both TIFF Members and Under-25 Free Pass Holders (U-25). After a successful launch in early 2022, TIFF saw a 60% growth in Memberships, an addition of 8,000 U-25 Free Pass Holder sign-ups, and more than 24,000 free tickets issued for Cinematheque films as part of the benefit. Introduced as a one-year pilot to help spur the return of audiences to TIFF Bell Lightbox, the Member benefit includes two free tickets to more than 300 Cinematheque films representing a wide range of curated series, classics, rarities, and new restorations.
“The TIFF membership has seriously levelled up, including exclusive premieres of the most talked about movies, in person conversations with industry vanguards and icons and an expanded Cinematheque pushing boundaries for the next generation of film lovers. And we are only just beginning,” offered Anita Lee, Chief Programming Officer, TIFF.
TIFF Cinematheque’s winter season launches January 6 with Delphine Seyrig: Defiant Muse, a 14-film retrospective celebrating French actor, director, and activist Delphine Seyrig (1932–1990), presented in partnership with the French Embassy in Canada. Highlights in the series include Seyrig’s rarely screened directorial work and her collaborations with women directors, including Chantal Akerman’s 1975 feminist masterpiece Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles — recently crowned the Greatest Film of All Time in Sight and Sound magazine’s poll. The film’s cinematographer, Babette Mangolte, will be in attendance to introduce the screening on January 14 alongside series curator Andréa Picard. Another can’t-miss film is Alain Resnais’ hotly-debated 1961 Venice Golden Lion winner Last Year at Marienbad (L’Année dernière à Marienbad), presented in a new 4K restoration on January 7. The film launched Seyrig’s career as an ethereal muse, an image she was to defy and deconstruct throughout her career.
TIFF’s departing Senior Programmer Steve Gravestock’s carte blanche series, Seen the North, opens January 7, showcasing the best of the best in northern cinema with films from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Canada. Filmmakers Hugh Gibson, Kazik Radwanski, Larry Kent, and Malcolm Ingram will be present for Q&As, with introductions by former TIFF programmers Agata Smoluch del Sorbo and Magali Simard.
Fans and those new to the epic trilogy alike will get to experience Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Infernal Affairs films, when new 4K restorations begin screening at TIFF Bell Lightbox on January 12. TIFF Cinematheque’s recurring New and Restored series continues with the Canadian premiere of the 4K restoration of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Millennium Mambo on February 26. Cinematheque's Love Will Tear Us Apart series features another Hou film, Flowers of Shanghai, just in time for Valentine’s Day on February 14.
In celebration of Black History Month in February, a retrospective of New Black Realism from the 1990s screens with a series of associated events (see listings below). Curated by the American Cinematheque, Perpetratin’ Realism: 1990s Black Film examines how films such as New Jack City, Love Jones, and Boyz n the Hood navigated complex and often contradictory representations of Black life, love, and friendship. On February 2, Boosie Fade Film Club celebrates the 25th anniversary of Hype Williams’ Belly with a 4K restoration of one of the most significant films in hip-hop’s cinematic canon, featuring notable performances and cameos from hip-hop and dancehall stars Method Man, AZ, Sean Paul, and Ghostface Killah.
Special events coming to TIFF Bell Lightbox this season include a screening of Bette Gordon’s Variety, followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker and Jason McBride, author of Eat Your Mind: The Radical Life and Work of Kathy Acker; a free Silver Screenings event featuring Eat Drink Man Woman in celebration of Lunar New Year, on January 20; TIFF’s Bell Let’s Talk Day free screening and talk on January 25; Canada’s Top Ten and industry panel and screenings January 26–29; and Family Day special screenings on February 20, featuring a 50th anniversary showing of Charlotte’s Web alongside favourites Kiki’s Delivery Service and The Sandlot.
Mark your calendars: The 2023 edition of the TIFF Next Wave Film Festival returns April 14–16, engaging the next generation of film lovers and creators with free movies for anyone under 25. This dynamic three-day film festival celebrates new voices in cinema with stories of self-discovery, community, and finding one’s place in the world. The programming lineup will be announced in March 2023. TIFF Cinematheque’s full programming listings for January and February can be accessed here.
Delphine Seyrig: Defiant Muse
January 6 to 25
Delphine Seryrig consistently used her fame to bolster the work of other women artists and to insist upon better conditions for women in general, sometimes doing so in surreptitious ways. Her enduring image is one of immense talent, beauty, and grace, but also persistence, curiosity, and courage. In the ’70s, Seyrig increasingly took up intersectional feminist causes, publicly supporting a woman’s right to an abortion and attending protests without worrying about tarnishing her “ideal woman” image. Films in this retrospective include: Be Pretty and Shut Up; India Song; Last Year at Marienbad; Aloïse; Daughters of Darkness; Calamity Jane & Delphine Seyrig, A Story; Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles; Maso and Miso Go Boating preceded by S.C.U.M. Manifesto; Muriel, or the Time of Return; The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie; Donkey Skin; and Freak Orlando. Guests include artist, cinematographer, and filmmaker Babette Mangolte; Nicole Fernández Ferrer, director of the Centre audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir; and filmmaker Callisto McNulty. In addition, Alliance Française Toronto will be presenting a free screening of Delphine and Carole, followed by a conversation with filmmaker Callisto McNulty, in partnership with TIFF Cinematheque.
Delphine Seyrig: Defiant Muse is presented in partnership with the French Embassy in Canada.
Seen the North
January 7 to 24
Steve Gravestock has curated the best of the best in northern cinema ― the countries he focused on during his tenure at TIFF. The films in the series reflect the screenings Steve programmed year-round and during the Festival, with some archival titles included. Films and special guests in Seen the North include: Phantom of Winnipeg with Malcolm Ingram; Phantom of the Paradise; Reprise preceded by clips of Allan King’s Orson Welles interview; The Green Butchers; Hi-Ho Mistahey! preceded by Seven Boats; Pontypool preceded by Hastings Street; Only with Ingrid Veninger preceded by Bunny Project; High Tide preceded by Princess Margaret Blvd with Kazik Radwanski; The Good Son preceded by Hogtown Blues with Hugh Gibson; and Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves.
MDFF Selects
January 26
MDFF Selects features a showcase of the world’s best, most challenging, and most provocative new international cinema. From artist and filmmaker Joële Walinga, Self-Portrait, a tapestry of footage collected from surveillance cameras around the world over the past four years, woven together as a poem. This is the Toronto premiere of the film following its world premiere at SXSW. MDFF co-founder Kazik Radwanski will host a Q&A with Walinga following the January 26 screening.
Perpetratin’ Realism: 1990s Black Film
February 2 to 24
Featuring pre-recorded and in-person introductions by Kardinal Offishall.
In the early 1990s, a new wave of Black filmmakers drew audiences from around the world with their bold exploration of Black rage and desire. These films — dubbed by scholar and critic Manthia Diawara as “New Black Realism” — featured dynamic portrayals of Black people grappling with the hierarchies of power and the living legacies of white racism, gun violence, and illicit economies. Films featured in the series include: Boyz n the Hood, Love Jones; New Jack City; Eve's Bayou: Director's Cut; Set It Off; One False Move, and I Like It Like That.
–Felice Blake, Keith Harris, and Roya Rastegar, curators of Perpetratin’ Realism, American Cinematheque.
Love Will Tear Us Apart
February 3 to 26
With a wink to Valentine’s Day, Love Will Tear Us Apart promises to tug at the heartstrings of diehard romantics and hardened cynics alike. Spanning eight decades of cinema and four continents, this nine-film series presents the Canadian premiere of the 2K restoration of Stanley Kwan’s Rouge and a 4K restoration and Ontario premiere of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s hypnotic period drama Flowers of Shanghai. The series also features David Lean’s Brief Encounter; the 55th anniversary screening of Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet; Manoel de Oliveira’s Francisca; Jerry Schatzberg‘s The Panic in Needle Park; Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas and Mati Diop’s award-winning Atlantics.
See the North – Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows
February 4
Screening followed by a Q&A with director Paul Jay who will be joining in-person and Bret Hart who will be joining virtually, led by TIFF Senior Manager of Programming Ravi Srinivasan.
The latest instalment in TIFF’s free series of Canadian cinematic treasures is presented in celebration of the film’s 25th anniversary. Winner of the Best Canadian Documentary award at the 1999 Hot Docs Canadian Documentary Film Festival, Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows is high drama on a Shakespearean level. Jay effectively captures the interplay of conflict, desire, betrayal, and a fallen hero’s pathos, while highlighting the spectacle and cutthroat nature of professional sports.
TIFF Wavelengths Presents
January 11 and February 8
Wavelengths is honoured to present a tribute screening to the late experimental filmmaker Amy Halpern (1953–2022) in Falling Lessons: A Tribute to Amy Halpern. Presented in 16mm, the programme opens with Invocation (1982), followed by Elixir (2012 ) and closes with Halpern’s only feature Falling Lessons (1992), a kinetic montage of almost 200 faces shot in vertical titles. Featuring filmmakers such as Alex Cox, Julie Dash, Shirley Clarke, Chick Strand, and Michael Snow.
Gulistan: An Evening of Iranian Short Films with Parastoo and Faraz Anoushahpour, borrows its title from the program’s closing film — Mehraneh Atashi’s Gulistan (The Flower Garden) — where, in an attempt to speak under censorship, flowers become the face of what cannot be shown. Films featured include: Mr. and Mrs. Farhid; Wherever the War, Whoever the Enemy; Three Minutes of Headless Life; Koocheh Zoghali; Men of My Dreams; In the House of Fire; Head Bug; Nazarbazi; and Gulistan. The February 8 screening will be introduced by guest Wavelength Presents curators Parastoo and Faraz Anoushahpour.
This programme is created in solidarity with the people of Iran and in support of Woman, Life, Freedom.
Midnight Madness Presents
February 25
Programmers Liane Cunje and Peter Kuplowsky will host a virtual Q&A with director Anthony Waller.
Since 1988, TIFF’s annual Midnight Madness programme has presented the wildest and strangest cinematic provocations from around the world while cultivating an infectiously raucous audience experience. Fans of this series can look forward to screening Mute Witness, Anthony Waller’s 1995 Midnight Madness barn burner pits an American make-up effects artist (Marina Zudina) against a criminal cabal of snuff filmmakers who give pursuit after she witnesses their latest grisly “production” in a deserted Moscow film studio.
TIFF Next Wave Presents: Gay Mean Girls – Season 2
January 18, 6:30pm
Join us for the launch of Season 2 of the hit web series, Gay Mean Girls. The series follows student journalist Savannah Lin who becomes embroiled in the complicated dynamics of a “safe space” for queer POC teens while pursuing a video essay about chosen family. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with creator Heyishi Zhang, creator and co-producer Hayley Wong, lead actor Jenna Phoa, and co-producer Maddy Falle.
Special Screening of Variety and Q&A with filmmaker Bette Gordon
January 19, 6:15pm
The screening will be followed by a Q&A led by Jason McBride, author of Eat Your Mind: The Radical Life and Work of Kathy Acker.
Variety represents a time capsule brought back by its recent rediscovery and rightly deserving of its cult status. Bette Gordon’s first feature is a pure product of its time. An early example of American underground filmmaking. Shot on the streets with a minimum budget and boasting a script by influential experimental novelist and punk poet Kathy Acker, the atmosphere of 1980s New York is ingrained in the film, where Gordon delves into social undercurrents to find transgression that fully deserves Nan Goldin and Cookie Mueller’s names in its credits.
Lunar New Year - Kung Fu Panda 2
January 22, 3pm
Following the screening of Kung Fu Panda 2, join the festivities in the TIFF Bell Lightbox atrium for a Lion Dance by Hong Luck Kung Fu Association to celebrate Lunar New Year and bring good luck and prosperity.
Bell Let’s Talk Day: Free Screening & Talk
January 25
TIFF's Bell Let's Talk Day programming returns January 25 with a special free screening and conversation about mental health, and a mindful art-making workshop in the atrium. Programming info will be available on tiff.net on January 11.
Black History Month – Love Jones Screening and Musical Performance
February 4, 3pm
Following the screening of Love Jones, audiences are invited to the TIFF Bell Lightbox atrium for a special musical performance inspired by the film and presented in partnership with Manifesto. Manifesto creates spaces that inspire, develop, and amplify diverse communities of young people through arts, culture and media.
Black History Month – Set It Off and ’90s Karaoke
February 11, 6pm
Audiences are encouraged to get dressed up for a special performance and ’90s Karaoke night in the TIFF Bell Lightbox atrium following the screening of Set It Off, presented with TIFF Next Wave.
TIFF Members and TIFF Under 25-Free Pass Holders receive access to year-round TIFF benefits including free access to more than 300 Cinematheque screenings. To learn more and join as a TIFF Member, visit tiff.net/membership.
“The TIFF membership has seriously levelled up, including exclusive premieres of the most talked about movies, in person conversations with industry vanguards and icons and an expanded Cinematheque pushing boundaries for the next generation of film lovers. And we are only just beginning,” offered Anita Lee, Chief Programming Officer, TIFF.
TIFF Cinematheque’s winter season launches January 6 with Delphine Seyrig: Defiant Muse, a 14-film retrospective celebrating French actor, director, and activist Delphine Seyrig (1932–1990), presented in partnership with the French Embassy in Canada. Highlights in the series include Seyrig’s rarely screened directorial work and her collaborations with women directors, including Chantal Akerman’s 1975 feminist masterpiece Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles — recently crowned the Greatest Film of All Time in Sight and Sound magazine’s poll. The film’s cinematographer, Babette Mangolte, will be in attendance to introduce the screening on January 14 alongside series curator Andréa Picard. Another can’t-miss film is Alain Resnais’ hotly-debated 1961 Venice Golden Lion winner Last Year at Marienbad (L’Année dernière à Marienbad), presented in a new 4K restoration on January 7. The film launched Seyrig’s career as an ethereal muse, an image she was to defy and deconstruct throughout her career.
TIFF’s departing Senior Programmer Steve Gravestock’s carte blanche series, Seen the North, opens January 7, showcasing the best of the best in northern cinema with films from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Canada. Filmmakers Hugh Gibson, Kazik Radwanski, Larry Kent, and Malcolm Ingram will be present for Q&As, with introductions by former TIFF programmers Agata Smoluch del Sorbo and Magali Simard.
Fans and those new to the epic trilogy alike will get to experience Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Infernal Affairs films, when new 4K restorations begin screening at TIFF Bell Lightbox on January 12. TIFF Cinematheque’s recurring New and Restored series continues with the Canadian premiere of the 4K restoration of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Millennium Mambo on February 26. Cinematheque's Love Will Tear Us Apart series features another Hou film, Flowers of Shanghai, just in time for Valentine’s Day on February 14.
In celebration of Black History Month in February, a retrospective of New Black Realism from the 1990s screens with a series of associated events (see listings below). Curated by the American Cinematheque, Perpetratin’ Realism: 1990s Black Film examines how films such as New Jack City, Love Jones, and Boyz n the Hood navigated complex and often contradictory representations of Black life, love, and friendship. On February 2, Boosie Fade Film Club celebrates the 25th anniversary of Hype Williams’ Belly with a 4K restoration of one of the most significant films in hip-hop’s cinematic canon, featuring notable performances and cameos from hip-hop and dancehall stars Method Man, AZ, Sean Paul, and Ghostface Killah.
Special events coming to TIFF Bell Lightbox this season include a screening of Bette Gordon’s Variety, followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker and Jason McBride, author of Eat Your Mind: The Radical Life and Work of Kathy Acker; a free Silver Screenings event featuring Eat Drink Man Woman in celebration of Lunar New Year, on January 20; TIFF’s Bell Let’s Talk Day free screening and talk on January 25; Canada’s Top Ten and industry panel and screenings January 26–29; and Family Day special screenings on February 20, featuring a 50th anniversary showing of Charlotte’s Web alongside favourites Kiki’s Delivery Service and The Sandlot.
Mark your calendars: The 2023 edition of the TIFF Next Wave Film Festival returns April 14–16, engaging the next generation of film lovers and creators with free movies for anyone under 25. This dynamic three-day film festival celebrates new voices in cinema with stories of self-discovery, community, and finding one’s place in the world. The programming lineup will be announced in March 2023. TIFF Cinematheque’s full programming listings for January and February can be accessed here.
TIFF CINEMATHEQUE SERIES HIGHLIGHTS
Delphine Seyrig: Defiant Muse
January 6 to 25
Delphine Seryrig consistently used her fame to bolster the work of other women artists and to insist upon better conditions for women in general, sometimes doing so in surreptitious ways. Her enduring image is one of immense talent, beauty, and grace, but also persistence, curiosity, and courage. In the ’70s, Seyrig increasingly took up intersectional feminist causes, publicly supporting a woman’s right to an abortion and attending protests without worrying about tarnishing her “ideal woman” image. Films in this retrospective include: Be Pretty and Shut Up; India Song; Last Year at Marienbad; Aloïse; Daughters of Darkness; Calamity Jane & Delphine Seyrig, A Story; Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles; Maso and Miso Go Boating preceded by S.C.U.M. Manifesto; Muriel, or the Time of Return; The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie; Donkey Skin; and Freak Orlando. Guests include artist, cinematographer, and filmmaker Babette Mangolte; Nicole Fernández Ferrer, director of the Centre audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir; and filmmaker Callisto McNulty. In addition, Alliance Française Toronto will be presenting a free screening of Delphine and Carole, followed by a conversation with filmmaker Callisto McNulty, in partnership with TIFF Cinematheque.
Delphine Seyrig: Defiant Muse is presented in partnership with the French Embassy in Canada.
Seen the North
January 7 to 24
Steve Gravestock has curated the best of the best in northern cinema ― the countries he focused on during his tenure at TIFF. The films in the series reflect the screenings Steve programmed year-round and during the Festival, with some archival titles included. Films and special guests in Seen the North include: Phantom of Winnipeg with Malcolm Ingram; Phantom of the Paradise; Reprise preceded by clips of Allan King’s Orson Welles interview; The Green Butchers; Hi-Ho Mistahey! preceded by Seven Boats; Pontypool preceded by Hastings Street; Only with Ingrid Veninger preceded by Bunny Project; High Tide preceded by Princess Margaret Blvd with Kazik Radwanski; The Good Son preceded by Hogtown Blues with Hugh Gibson; and Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves.
MDFF Selects
January 26
MDFF Selects features a showcase of the world’s best, most challenging, and most provocative new international cinema. From artist and filmmaker Joële Walinga, Self-Portrait, a tapestry of footage collected from surveillance cameras around the world over the past four years, woven together as a poem. This is the Toronto premiere of the film following its world premiere at SXSW. MDFF co-founder Kazik Radwanski will host a Q&A with Walinga following the January 26 screening.
Perpetratin’ Realism: 1990s Black Film
February 2 to 24
Featuring pre-recorded and in-person introductions by Kardinal Offishall.
In the early 1990s, a new wave of Black filmmakers drew audiences from around the world with their bold exploration of Black rage and desire. These films — dubbed by scholar and critic Manthia Diawara as “New Black Realism” — featured dynamic portrayals of Black people grappling with the hierarchies of power and the living legacies of white racism, gun violence, and illicit economies. Films featured in the series include: Boyz n the Hood, Love Jones; New Jack City; Eve's Bayou: Director's Cut; Set It Off; One False Move, and I Like It Like That.
–Felice Blake, Keith Harris, and Roya Rastegar, curators of Perpetratin’ Realism, American Cinematheque.
Love Will Tear Us Apart
February 3 to 26
With a wink to Valentine’s Day, Love Will Tear Us Apart promises to tug at the heartstrings of diehard romantics and hardened cynics alike. Spanning eight decades of cinema and four continents, this nine-film series presents the Canadian premiere of the 2K restoration of Stanley Kwan’s Rouge and a 4K restoration and Ontario premiere of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s hypnotic period drama Flowers of Shanghai. The series also features David Lean’s Brief Encounter; the 55th anniversary screening of Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet; Manoel de Oliveira’s Francisca; Jerry Schatzberg‘s The Panic in Needle Park; Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas and Mati Diop’s award-winning Atlantics.
See the North – Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows
February 4
Screening followed by a Q&A with director Paul Jay who will be joining in-person and Bret Hart who will be joining virtually, led by TIFF Senior Manager of Programming Ravi Srinivasan.
The latest instalment in TIFF’s free series of Canadian cinematic treasures is presented in celebration of the film’s 25th anniversary. Winner of the Best Canadian Documentary award at the 1999 Hot Docs Canadian Documentary Film Festival, Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows is high drama on a Shakespearean level. Jay effectively captures the interplay of conflict, desire, betrayal, and a fallen hero’s pathos, while highlighting the spectacle and cutthroat nature of professional sports.
TIFF Wavelengths Presents
January 11 and February 8
Wavelengths is honoured to present a tribute screening to the late experimental filmmaker Amy Halpern (1953–2022) in Falling Lessons: A Tribute to Amy Halpern. Presented in 16mm, the programme opens with Invocation (1982), followed by Elixir (2012 ) and closes with Halpern’s only feature Falling Lessons (1992), a kinetic montage of almost 200 faces shot in vertical titles. Featuring filmmakers such as Alex Cox, Julie Dash, Shirley Clarke, Chick Strand, and Michael Snow.
Gulistan: An Evening of Iranian Short Films with Parastoo and Faraz Anoushahpour, borrows its title from the program’s closing film — Mehraneh Atashi’s Gulistan (The Flower Garden) — where, in an attempt to speak under censorship, flowers become the face of what cannot be shown. Films featured include: Mr. and Mrs. Farhid; Wherever the War, Whoever the Enemy; Three Minutes of Headless Life; Koocheh Zoghali; Men of My Dreams; In the House of Fire; Head Bug; Nazarbazi; and Gulistan. The February 8 screening will be introduced by guest Wavelength Presents curators Parastoo and Faraz Anoushahpour.
This programme is created in solidarity with the people of Iran and in support of Woman, Life, Freedom.
Midnight Madness Presents
February 25
Programmers Liane Cunje and Peter Kuplowsky will host a virtual Q&A with director Anthony Waller.
Since 1988, TIFF’s annual Midnight Madness programme has presented the wildest and strangest cinematic provocations from around the world while cultivating an infectiously raucous audience experience. Fans of this series can look forward to screening Mute Witness, Anthony Waller’s 1995 Midnight Madness barn burner pits an American make-up effects artist (Marina Zudina) against a criminal cabal of snuff filmmakers who give pursuit after she witnesses their latest grisly “production” in a deserted Moscow film studio.
SPECIAL EVENTS
TIFF Next Wave Presents: Gay Mean Girls – Season 2
January 18, 6:30pm
Join us for the launch of Season 2 of the hit web series, Gay Mean Girls. The series follows student journalist Savannah Lin who becomes embroiled in the complicated dynamics of a “safe space” for queer POC teens while pursuing a video essay about chosen family. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with creator Heyishi Zhang, creator and co-producer Hayley Wong, lead actor Jenna Phoa, and co-producer Maddy Falle.
Special Screening of Variety and Q&A with filmmaker Bette Gordon
January 19, 6:15pm
The screening will be followed by a Q&A led by Jason McBride, author of Eat Your Mind: The Radical Life and Work of Kathy Acker.
Variety represents a time capsule brought back by its recent rediscovery and rightly deserving of its cult status. Bette Gordon’s first feature is a pure product of its time. An early example of American underground filmmaking. Shot on the streets with a minimum budget and boasting a script by influential experimental novelist and punk poet Kathy Acker, the atmosphere of 1980s New York is ingrained in the film, where Gordon delves into social undercurrents to find transgression that fully deserves Nan Goldin and Cookie Mueller’s names in its credits.
Lunar New Year - Kung Fu Panda 2
January 22, 3pm
Following the screening of Kung Fu Panda 2, join the festivities in the TIFF Bell Lightbox atrium for a Lion Dance by Hong Luck Kung Fu Association to celebrate Lunar New Year and bring good luck and prosperity.
Bell Let’s Talk Day: Free Screening & Talk
January 25
TIFF's Bell Let's Talk Day programming returns January 25 with a special free screening and conversation about mental health, and a mindful art-making workshop in the atrium. Programming info will be available on tiff.net on January 11.
Black History Month – Love Jones Screening and Musical Performance
February 4, 3pm
Following the screening of Love Jones, audiences are invited to the TIFF Bell Lightbox atrium for a special musical performance inspired by the film and presented in partnership with Manifesto. Manifesto creates spaces that inspire, develop, and amplify diverse communities of young people through arts, culture and media.
Black History Month – Set It Off and ’90s Karaoke
February 11, 6pm
Audiences are encouraged to get dressed up for a special performance and ’90s Karaoke night in the TIFF Bell Lightbox atrium following the screening of Set It Off, presented with TIFF Next Wave.
TIFF Members and TIFF Under 25-Free Pass Holders receive access to year-round TIFF benefits including free access to more than 300 Cinematheque screenings. To learn more and join as a TIFF Member, visit tiff.net/membership.