SHORTS COLUMN: East Coast and West Coast Bust Out Signature Short Film Showcases in October

Three years ago, a group of filmmakers in New York City decided to create a Big Apple-based short film festival, which they nicknamed NYC Shorts. This year, the 3rd annual installment of the New York City Short Film Festival takes place October 24 - 27 with 17 of the scheduled 31 shorts slated as NYC premieres. Coincidentally, earlier this month on October 9th, a group of Los Angeles-based filmmakers held the third incarnation of a short film showcase they founded called Direct from the Mailroom. These two opposite-coast events share a common mandate: they're organized by short filmmakers, for the benefit of short filmmakers.
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TORONTO '07 CRITICS NOTEBOOK | "Private," "Lars," and "Young Girls" Offer Troubled Youth; "Besieged Fortress" Doc Shows War in Nature

Frustrated youth form the centerpieces of several smaller films at the Toronto International Film Festival this year, and a few bigger ones, too--although even those entries come from filmmakers currently in nascent stages of their careers. "Nothing is Private," a late festival feature purchased by Warner Independent and focused on the discomfiting sexual awakening of a Persian-American teenager, marks the directorial debut of Alan Ball, whose was the creator of the HBO television series "Six Feet Under" and wrote the screenplay for "American Beauty." Ball's screenplay for "Private" frequently confuses depravity for dark humor, and it's hard to tell what the film is trying to say and at what points it intends to be taken seriously. Still, it's easy to see audiences take a liking to the story--which involves young Jasira (Summer Bishil) and her taboo-soaked sexual encounters (including a few with a next door neighbor played by Aaron Eckhart)--since its main provocations suggest an unholy marriage of "American Beauty" and "American Pie."
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TORONTO '07 CRITICS NOTEBOOK | Dylan, Who, Lou Reed Music Fims Rock, "Margot" Is Bittersweet, Lumet Thrills

Rock flicks, crime thrillers, domestic melodramas, political statements and cult auteurs--the panoply of genres and styles at Toronto is an evergreen achievement befitting one of the very best international festivals. But this year's edition delivered an especially heady cross-pollination that made certain themes and ideas reverberate more than they would by themselves. Take music: a trio of films with completely different approaches to Bob Dylan, The Who and Lou Reed were rhapsodic viewing in tandem. Todd Haynes' "I'm Not There," easily one of the best and most ambitious films of the year, fragments the many chapters of the folk-rock troubadour's life and reshuffles the cards to form a fascinating meditation on identity and personal responsibility, transforming the pop prophet's intimidating, cryptic life into a deeply empathetic and surprisingly accessible journey.
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TORONTO '07 CRITICS NOTEBOOK | Discovery Section A Mixed Bag; "King of the Hill" and "Cocochi" Shine

Containing fourteen films from a dozen countries, the Discovery section of the Toronto International Film Festival is like a miniature festival on its own. Yet the ambiguous definition of the section's title, rather than the cultural range of the program, suggests the nature of its content. Technically, Discovery is programmed as a means of showcasing emerging talent and searching for future success stories--but, based on this year's line up, it could also refer to the categorical experiments conducted by beginning filmmakers. Several of the films rely on specific technical or narrative-based techniques, as though the creators are exploring (and hence "discovering") the potential of their medium. Predictably enough, the result is a mixed bag, but not without a few gems.
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TORONTO '07 CRITICS NOTEBOOK | Canadian Filmmakers Cronenberg and Maddin Shine, Greenaway Makes A Comeback with "Nightwatching"

It's impossible to be everything to everyone, right? Not if you're the Toronto International Film Festival, which has heartily served the insatiable cinematic needs of North American studios, stars, press, programmers and movie-mad civilians for more than 30 years. Safely vaccinated with the cream of the crop from Berlin, Cannes and Venice, the festival of festivals is perennially immune to having a disastrous year. The trick, of course, is to make the world premieres as memorable as all those other international festival faves. And at the halfway point, this year's edition has a trio of Canadian native sons holding that maple leaf high.
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TORONTO '07 CRITICS NOTEBOOK | Midnight Madness Mixed, With Duds "Sukiyaki," "Frontier(s)," Standouts "Dainipponjin" and "Inside"

With The Toronto International Film Festival, being as large and prestigious as it is, its no surprise that their Midnight Madness lineup would be one of the more varied and sophisticated programs out there. In a program containing new works for classic cult directors like Dario Argento, George Romero and Takashi Miike, there's bound to be some high points and some duds along the way. Cops, cowboys, Nazis, zombies and drug-hungry nurses all come out to play, and some of it is not pretty.
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SHORTS COLUMN | "Pariah" Leads The Pack of Outstanding Shorts at Outfest '07

Outfest '07, the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival running July 12 - 23, boasts twelve short film programs brimming with what the festival's website optimistically labels as "world premieres." One such gem, "Pariah," actually made its local debut a few weeks earlier at the Los Angeles Film Festival, where it walked away with the Audience Award for Best Short. And while a few other of the festival's supposed world premieres are actually unspooling in Hollywood after already having played Toronto's Inside Out, New York's NewFest, or San Francisco's Frameline31, premiere bragging rights are inconsequential when Outfest programmers have once again assembled such a world-class collection of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered-themed shorts.
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LAFF '07 CRITICS NOTEBOOK 2 | Mixing Politics and Religion with the Usual Ups and Downs

Programming world premieres at a large festival that runs post-Sundance cannot be easy. I am constantly impressed, however, by the skills of programmers at SXSW and Tribeca for finding good films that have yet to play on the festival circuit. But it is particularly hard for the Los Angeles Film Festival, which takes place last in that circuit of four. That being said, programmers Rachel Rosen and Doug Jones have done an admirable job this year coming up with brand new documentaries and narratives.
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CANNES '07 CRITICS NOTEBOOK | Mining for Genre Gems in Cannes

The first thing one notices when looking for genre fare at the Cannes Film Festival is that you won't find it in the Midnight section. Featured as part of the Out of Competition program, Midnight in Cannes 2007 contained two edgy dramas from veteran directors and one light heist flick. But when the strongest thing in the midnight selection is a 3D concert film meticulously directed to perfection by a mainstream Hollywood director (I'm speaking of Mark Pellington's "U2 3D", of course, co-directed Catherine Owens who was supposedly mainly responsible for the onstage visuals), its time to search deep into the festival's sidebars to find the real genre gems.
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CANNES '07 CRITICS NOTEBOOK | "Secret Sunshine" Lights Up Competition; Akin and Tarr Stumble, and Korine's Nuns Fly High

"The fragility of human joy" -- the words are spoken in "A Mighty Heart," but the sentiment runs throughout several Cannes films, as random tragedy or political circumstance dashes characters' hopes for happiness. In a most trenchant way, South Korean director Lee Chang-dong's "Secret Sunshine" -- a new frontrunner for major Cannes prizes -- focuses on a young widow, Shin-ae (Jeon Do-yeon). After moving from Seoul to the town of Miryang, where her late husband was born, Shin-ae tries to fit into her new smalltown surroundings. But an unexpected event throws her life into further turmoil.
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CANNES '07 CRITICS NOTEBOOK | Camera D'Or Candidates Emerge

The vetted progress of distribution deals dominates the omnipresent chatter at most major film festivals, closely accompanied by evaluations of the movies' artistic merits. Industry and aesthetic outlooks collide when news of deals break, mainly focused on whether business is allotting its finances to the deserving parties. There's little doubt that the latest offerings from established auteurs will successfully make their way beyond the festival circuit - a certain fate, as the New York Times recently pointed out, for Gus Van Sant's "Paranoid Park," and several other high profile titles screening at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
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CANNES '07 CRITICS NOTEBOOK | Competition Heats Up With Seidl, Van Sant, and Schnabel

Cannes may have kicked off last week, but the race for the Palme d'Or really only began to pick up speed on days five and six of the festival, with screenings of Ulrich Seidl's "Import/Export," Gus Van Sant's "Paranoid Park," Carlos Reygadas' "Silent Light," and Julian Schnabel's "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." While outside of competition, Michael Winterbottom has proven himself to be, once again, a politically astute and highly nimble filmmaker, even when working with superstar Angelina Jolie.
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CANNES '07 CRITICS NOTEBOOK | Complicated Lovers and Genders in Cannes Sidebars

On the 60th anniversary poster for the Cannes Film Festival, familiar movie faces effortlessly bound through the air. The gravity-defying spectacle-designed by Christophe Renard from photographs of Wong Kar Wai, Bruce Willis, and several others spotlights a strikingly broad selection of craftsmen and performers from contemporary cinema. In addition to addressing the range of artistic contributors, such an astute proclamation of diversity is also applicable to the festival's organization. While nearly two dozen features compete for attention in the main competition and slightly fewer entries screen in Un Certain Regard track, the handful of movies shown in the Directors Fortnight and International Critics Week sidebars practically exist in separate festivals.
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CANNES '07 CRITICS NOTEBOOK | To Each His Own: Cannes Competition Offers Romanian Resonance; while "SiCKO" Makes Emotional Appeal

"To Each His Own Cinema" -- that's the rough English translation of "Chacun Son Cinema," the name of the 33-short-film program commissioned for the 60th anniversary edition of the Cannes Film Festival, that is screening tonight (Sunday). It's a fitting moniker for an event whose tastes range the entire spectrum of cinematic production, from the most rigorous (Alexandre Sokurov) to the most popular ("Ocean's Thirteen").
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Sundance Institute Selects 14 Projects for 2006 June Directing/Screenwriting Labs

Fourteen projects have been selected for the Sundance Institute's June Director's and Screenwriters Labs, taking place at the Sundance Resort in Utah from May 29 - June 29, 2006. Nine directing fellows have been chosen to work with advisors on their work, while the six writers will join the directors and advisors for a week of work on their projects. Gyula Gazdag is serving as artistic director for the Directors Lab, while Todd Graff is serving as artistic director for the Screenwriters Lab.
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Critics Diary: New And Noteworthy At Toronto '05

Until last week, this year's Oscar frontrunner looked to be a leftover from last year's Toronto International Film Festival. Though a startling number of critics have gotten behind "Crash," I belong to the equally outspoken contingent that can't stand Paul Haggis' hateration ensemble, with its condescendingly simple-minded "racism is bad" message and the manipulative emotional theatrics it uses to hammer it home. But as Toronto 2005 draws to a close, I'm pleased to report that I've seen enough top-notch entries here that "Crash" should be a non-issue come Oscar-time.
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Critics Diary: Romance, Cigarettes, Capote, and an Irish Transvestite

Romance and cigarettes. You could make a compelling case that those two ingredients are what the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival is all about. Romance, of course, remains the age-old standby. As for cigarettes, it seems like everyone's lighting up on screen these days (everyone, that is, except the characters in "Thank You for Smoking," a satire in which Aaron Eckhart plays an unscrupulous tobacco lobbyist). In keeping with the theme, it seems only fitting that John Turturro's new film, "Romance and Cigarettes," should kick off the latest round of award-worthy performances worth pointing out at the festival.
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Critics Diary: Adaptations, "Pride & Prejudice," "Bee Season," "Tristram Shandy," "Everything Is Illuminated"

When it comes to spotting awards contenders at the Toronto International Film Festival, it helps to start by finding the films that started off as books. Adaptations don't always make the best movies, but at least you have a pretty good idea of what you're in for. Take "Pride & Prejudice", for example. Focus Features just unveiled an intoxicating new version of Jane Austen's beloved novel starring Keira Knightely that stands a fair shot at a Best Picture nomination (insofar as it's better than a couple of last year's Best Picture nominees, although it remains to be seen what competition the fall season holds).
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Critics Diary: Reese & Charlize, "Walk the Line" and "North Country"

It's a strange thing being only two weeks into September and feeling fairly certain that at least one major category of the Oscar race is already over, done, and decided. Then again, that's the nature of the Toronto International Film Festival, where the press and public get their first look at the year's top award contenders. Consider the response to Jamie Foxx in "Ray" at last year's festival, then imagine the same momentum applied to the Johnny Cash biopic "Walk the Line", which premieres today in Toronto. However, it's not Joaquin Phoenix, who plays Cash with the single-minded focus of a runaway train, but co-star Reese Witherspoon who steals the show, and if the Academy is listening, they might as well go ahead and give her the award.
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Critics Diary: The 'O Word', "Brokeback Mountain" and "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada"

As always, the "O word" is on everybody's lips at the Toronto International Film Festival. It's still a bit early in the festival to start calling favorites, but as far as this critic is concerned, Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain" and Tommy Lee Jones' "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" lead the pack so far. For those with their eyes on awards season, both films have already enjoyed their first round of accolades, with Jones roping best actor honors at Cannes and Lee fresh from wrangling the Golden Lion in Venice.
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