Andy Warhol: Stars of the Silver Screen

review & photos by Allan Tong

TIFF's winter exhibition, Andy Warhol: Stars of the Silver Screen may well have been called Andy Warhol: Starfucker. Though it boasts some rare photographs, intriguing films and a miniature replica of Warhol's Factory of the mid-sixties (below) where the pop artist held court, the overall exhibition is disappointing.

Warhol fans, such as myself, won't be surprised by the exhibition's theme: the artist's adoration for movie stars, such as Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. Display cases jammed with books, photographs and other Hollywood memorabilia, plus dozens of movie posters spanning the decades until Warhol's1987 death, hammer home the one-note idea that a shy, sensitive and gay man growing up in industrial Pittsburgh escaped into the movies. Well, so what? Don't we all watch movies to escape? Don't we hang photos of movie stars because we want to be like them or be with them?

AMPAS announces 10 Documentary Shorts on 2015 Oscar shortlist

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that the field of Documentary Short Subject contenders for the 88th Academy Awards® has been narrowed to 10 films, of which five will earn Oscar® nominations.

Voters from the Academy’s Documentary Branch viewed this year’s 74 eligible entries and submitted their ballots to PricewaterhouseCoopers for tabulation.

The 88th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 14, 2016, at 5:30 a.m. PT at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.

The Directors Guild of Canada presents the 14th Annual DGC Awards

The Directors Guild of Canada handed out 19 awards tonight honouring the best work created by Members this past year in a star-studded, elegant event. Three special career acknowledgments were also handed out during the evening, including the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award to filmmaker David Cronenberg.

Arisa Cox and Sean Cullen co-hosted the Awards Gala which was held at The Carlu in Toronto. Presenters included this country’s hardest working filmmakers and actors; Jerry Ciccoritti, Jason Priestley, Catherine O’Hara, Helen Shaver, Dan Levy to name just a few.

The Directors Guild of Canada (DGC) is a national labour organization that represents over 3,000 key creative and logistical personnel in the screen-based industry covering all areas of direction, design, production and editing. The DGC negotiates and administers collective agreements and lobbies extensively on issues of concern for members including Canadian content conditions, CRTC regulations and ensuring that funding is maintained for Canadian screen-based programming.

Toronto's European Union Film Festival announces full 2015 lineup

EUFF screenings are FREE
A number of paid advance reservations are available online
November 14 - 28, 2015
The Royal – 608 College St.

The European Union Film Festival (EUFF) is very proud to announce the 28 extraordinary features being showcased at the 2015 edition of the Festival, one from each of the EU member countries.

Making their North American debut at the eleventh EUFF are: Robert Thalheim’s PARENTS (Germany), a modern, honest and humorous portrait of the contemporary family; and Simonas Askelavicius and Ricardas Marcinkus’ SAUL AND PAUL ROBBED THEM ALL (Lithuania), a heartwarming comedy on two average Joes whose lives are turned upside down by a wealthy girlfriend-stealing Georgian.

Academy announces 124 documentary features submitted for 2015 Oscar race

One hundred twenty-four features have been submitted for consideration in the Documentary Feature category for the 88th Academy Awards®.

Several of the films have not yet had their required Los Angeles and New York qualifying releases. Submitted features must fulfill the theatrical release requirements and comply with all of the category’s other qualifying rules in order to advance in the voting process. A shortlist of 15 films will be announced in December.

Doc Circuit Montréal 2015 Programming Announced

Doc Circuit Montréal’s (DCM) 11th edition will be held from November 14-18 2015. With over 30 events programmed and 100 local and international guests, DCM is a key market to documentary professionals now more than ever.

This year’s programming is more ambitious and broad than ever before, offering 3 initiatives for emerging filmmakers, 20 professional activities and 10 networking events. The revitalized team led by programmer Samara Chadwick has been attentive to the needs of the community. Says Chadwick: “This year, we conceived DCM’s event with a deliberate attentiveness to optimized networking formats, and oxygenated and unexpected discussions among major industry players.”

Doc Circuit Montréal’s 11th edition will address the key themes of Coproduction, Big Data, Impact Producing, Online Storytelling, and Strategy: everything from Format, to Festivals, to Financing, to Distribution. New formats include the 1:1 Meetings and the Roundtables, as well as the UXdoc Focus, which spans over the three days of programming. Returning this year are the celebrated Talent Lab, Cuban Hat and Eurodoc Pitches, the Beat Dox D+M event and DCM’s central event: the One-on-One Pitches.

Academy announces 81 countries in competition for 2015 Foreign Language Film Oscar

Eighty-one countries have submitted films for consideration in the Foreign Language Film category for the 88th Academy Awards®. Paraguay is a first-time entrant.

The 88th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 14, 2016, at 5:30 a.m. PT at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.

The 88th Oscars® will be held on Sunday, February 28, 2016, at the Dolby Theatre® at Hollywood & Highland Center® in Hollywood, and will be televised live by the ABC Television Network at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.

Tribute to Chantal Akerman at the 18th Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM)

In light of the tragic death of filmmaker Chantal Akerman, the Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal / Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) will pay tribute to the distinguished member of the cinema community. Her final film, No Home Movie, presented in the official competition at the Locarno Festival this summer, will be screened at this November’s RIDM, as will a portrait of the director, I Don't Belong Anywhere - Le cinéma de Chantal Akerman, directed by Marianne Lambert, who will attend the festival. Festivalgoers will also have the chance to rediscover Akerman’s De l’autre côté, her 2002 documentary about Mexican migrants.

19th Reel Asian Film Festival – full programming announced

REEL ASIAN CELEBRATES 19TH YEAR

The Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival (Reel Asian), presented by National Bank, celebrates its 19th annual edition from November 5 to 15, 2015 with high-profile guests from around the world, screening venues in Toronto, North York, and Richmond Hill, and a special exhibition by acclaimed Canadian filmmaker and artist, Randall Okita. This year, Reel Asian will present 72 films from over 10 regions including Afghanistan, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Canada and the United States.

Ontario VQA Wine + Fall Harvest Tasting

Last night, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) and Wine Country Ontario hosted the Ontario VQA Wine + Fall Harvest Tasting at the Burroughes Building on Queen Street West.

Twenty-two Ontario wine producers sampled a total of 24 wines to go along with eight food stations representing local chefs, cheeses and foods. The wine and some of the food was available for purchase at the site.

Each winery presented a single wine, mostly in the $15-20 range. The one winery that sampled a higher-end product was Norman Hardie from Prince Edward County. Their table poured their Unfiltered Niagara Pinot Noir ($39) which was noticeably denser and richer than the others. Still, the other Pinot Noirs from Henry of Pelham, Coyote's Run, Rosehall Run and G Marquis (Magnotta) were tasty and fresh, as well as being excellent values.

imagineNATIVE Announces Feature Films and Documentaries

imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival
Announces Feature Films and Documentaries
Plus
The Witching Hour Program • Industry Series

imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, with presenting sponsor Bell Media, announces the Festival’s feature length films and documentaries, the return of The Witching Hour: Late Night Program, and the FREE Industry Series with panels, talks and case studies.

The 16^th imagineNATIVE Festival will present feature length films from October 14-18, 2015 such as Esprit de Corps, a Filipino film about two military cadets in a brutal training camp during the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship; The Dead Lands, the first-ever Maori-language action film, starring Lawrence Makoare (The Lord of the Rings) and James Rolleston (Boy); Chasing the Light, a dark comedy by Blackhorse Lowe with comparisons to Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino films; Le Dep, a French film about a young Innu woman held at gunpoint while working at her father’s dépanneur; and The Last Saint, a film with an unapologetic look at gang wars and drug addiction, directed by Rene Naufahu, known for his role in The Matrix trilogy.

Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Power In The Blood Wins 2015 Polaris Music Prize

Buffy Sainte-Marie has won the 2015 Polaris Music Prize for the album Power In The Blood, besting the nine other albums on the Polaris Short List.

Sainte-Marie performed the songs “Power In The Blood” and “Carry It On” during her Polaris Gala set.

The Prize, which goes to the best Canadian album of the year based on “artistic merit without regard to genre, sales history or label affiliation,” was determined by a Grand Jury of 11 music media professionals drawn from the greater Polaris jury pool of roughly 200 writers, editors, broadcasters, DJs and personalities from across the country.

Call for submissions: 2016 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival

Submissions for Hot Docs 2016 are now open.

Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is North America’s largest documentary festival, conference and market. Each year, the Festival presents a selection of approximately 200 cutting-edge documentaries from Canada and around the globe.

The 2016 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival will take place from April 28–May 8.

TIFF 2015 review – Der Nachtmahr

Der Nachtmahr
Directed by AKIZ

Review by Allan Tong

Sixteen-year-old German Tina (Carolyn Genzkow) attends a wild drug-fuelled pool party one night with her friends, imagines her own death and slowly descends into madness. Or does she?

The premise of Der Nachtmahr is a riff off Polanki's 1965 psychological thriller Repulsion which director AKIZ freely acknowledges as an influence. The key difference between that film and this is that Tina sees an E.T.-like creature that nobody else does, so her parents and friends believe she's nuts.

TIFF 2015 reviews – Keith Richards: Under the Influence / Janis: Little Girl Blue

Keith Richards: Under The Influence
Directed by Morgan Neville

Janis: Little Girl Blue
Directed by Amy Berg

Reviews by Allan Tong

Documentaries of two sixties rock icons screened at TIFF last week. Of the two, Morgan Neville's Keith Richards: Under the Influence attracted more attention because its subject flew into Toronto and personally presented this film the night before its worldwide release on Netflix.

Neville, who directed the Oscar-winning 20 Feet From Stardom (good, but overrated), described Under the Influence at a press conference as a “scrapbook” that he never intended to be an adaptation of Ricahrds' superb memoir, Life. On those terms, Neville succeeeds and it explains the holes in the documentary. Notably, the film completely ignores the influences of early Stones' guitarist Brian Jones and first wife Anita Pallenberg in Richards' early life and career. Also, while it's true it's been done to death, there's no mention of Richards' drug addictions and drug bust.