Free events at TIFF Lightbox this holiday weekend

In recognition of the Family Day holiday in Ontario on Monday (and Presidents' Day in the United States), the Toronto International Film Festival will be hosting two full days of free events this weekend. From Sunday, February 20 to Monday, February 21, you'll have a chance to explore the wide range of offerings and activities at the Bell Lightbox completely free of charge.

They'll have a number of film screenings in their five theatres, including several by Tim Burton. They'll offer their ongoing exhibitions on Tim Burton and Mary Pickford. Additionally, they'll have some special events, music and workshops just for the occasion.

Lightbox is a very impressive facility that offers a variety of new ways to experience cinema. They also have terrific year-round programming, visiting filmmakers and artists, and an educational component. Roger Ebert praised the new building with writings and tweets such as "TIFF's wonderful new Bell Lightbox is one swell place to see a movie."

Festival international Montréal/Nouvelles Musiques: 5th edition (2011)

The 5th edition of the Festival international Montréal/Nouvelles Musiques (2011) returns to showcase the avant-garde music scene. The theme this year is “Music in Motion.” The festival also celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Semaine internationale de musique actuelle — the founding event in 1961 for Quebec’s new music scene organized by Pierre Mercure.

Many of the concerts feature a fusion between artistic disciplines. Nine of the concerts feature dance. Others draw on video art and performance. Jean-François Laporte mounts an audio-visual installation called Khrônos. In addition, there will be after hours events, a music lounge, conference and roundtable discussion.

One of the more interesting-sounding performances will be a composition by the festival's director Walter Boudreau. His piece Apportez Votre Cellulaire is an audience participation piece for organ, harpsichord, wind quintet, electronics and cellphones from the audience. The audience will be divided into twelve sections, each with its own conductor. There will be a twenty minute rehearsal before it is performed.

25th Teddy Awards for LGBT/queer cinema - winners

As the 61st Berlin International Film Festival draws to a close, a number of juries gave out awards. The Teddy Awards presented their 25th edition of prizes for the best in LGBT cinema at a “jubilee gala” at Tempelhof airport.

The prize for Best Feature went to the Argentinian film Ausente (Absent) by Marco Berger about a student taking advantage of a teacher's position. The Documentary award went to Marie Losier's exploration of a pansexual couple The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye. Céline Sciamma's Tomboy which tells of ten-year-old girl passing herself off as a male won the Teddy Jury award.

Special Teddy Awards were given to the Sout-African entertainer and HIV/AIDS activist Pieter-Dirk Uys for his commitment especially in the educational advertising about HIV/AIDS in South-African schools, and to New German Cinema director and screenwriter Werner Schroeter.

The Teddy jury at the Berlinale 2011 consisted of Marcus Hu (jury president), Beth Sá Freire, Jin Park, Kriengsak Silakong, Andrejs Visockis, Istvan Szebesi, Jason Barker, Mara Fortes and Sarah Neal.

34th Japan Academy Prize - winners led by Confessions

The Nippon Academy-shō Association for Excellence in Japanese Film held its 34th Japan Academy Prize ceremony today at New Takanawa Prince Hotel in Tokyo. The big prizes of the night went to Kokuhaku (Confessions), which captured the awards for Picture, Director, Screenplay and Editing.

Sang-il Lee’s Akunin (Villain) had led with 15 nominations and actually emerged with the most wins, winning five awards. It won all four acting categories as well as the award for Music.

Takashi Miike's Jûsan-nin no Shikaku (13 Assassins) also captured four awards. It won for Cinematography, Lighting, Art Direction and Sound Recording.

The Foreign Film prize went to Avatar, which beat out The Hurt Locker, Inception, Toy Story 3 and Invictus.

15th Annual Prism Awards - nominations

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

12th Festival Montréal en lumière (Montreal Festival of Lights), Feb. 17-27

The 12th edition of the Festival Montréal en lumière (Montreal Festival of Lights) kicks off tonight and continues until February 27. This is an all-encompassing festival that brings a touch of excitement and culture to the dreary days of February. It celebrates music, food, performing arts and outdoor activities. It all culminates with the Nuit blanche à Montréal on February 26-27, with 175 activites that are mostly free.

This year's festival has a focus on women. Honourary co-president of the festival actress Carole Bouquet will read excerpts from Lettres à Génica, folies d’amour by Antonin Artaud. The other co-president is soprano Marie-Josée Lord, who will perform a solo recital at Théâtre Maisonneuve, Place des Arts, accompanied by the Orchestre Métropolitain.

Other performers you can look forward to include Vanessa Paradis, Omara Portuondo, Lizz Wright, Emilie Simon, Béatrice Bonifassi, Ladies of the Canyon, NEeMA and Emilie-Claire Barlow.

56 of the world's top women chefs will be guest chefs at local restaurants including Honourary president Anne-Sophie Pic, the only woman chef to rate three Michelin stars. She will be at Toque!, while others include Elizabeth Falkner at DNA, Melissa Craig at Chez L'Epicier, Nathalie Beauvais at La Porte, Roberta Sudbrack at Cafe Ferreira, and Cristina Bowerman at Graziella.

The Arts & Faith Top 100 films (2011)

Arts & Faith, an online forum run by Image Journal released their 2011 list of The Arts & Faith Top 100 Films. This is something they've done every year since 1999, and this is the second release since Image Journal assumed responsibility of the forum. They cover the arts from a Christian or spiritual basis.

Surprisingly, the list is an excellent and representative assortment of ourstanding films, regardless of one's religious inclinations. It doesn't skew to recent years as many lists do, but includes older classics such as the silent film La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (The Passion of Joan of Arc) by Carl Theodor Dreyer, which was chosen as the number one film. Many are foreign films -- in fact, they boast of an increase since last year's list which had fewer than one-quarter of the selections in English. They've included documentaries such as Born into Brothels and animated films such as Miyazaki's Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (Spirited Away).

But there are also many titles that one might think were completely unsuited for the faithful. It included the Romanian abortion story 4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile (4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days). Some seem to have no discernible spiritual themes, while others are have an outright anti-religious tone such as There Will Be Blood.

TIFF announces new programmer for Africa and Middle East

The Toronto International Film Festival has announced the appointment of a new programmer for films from Africa and the Middle East. 

Rasha Salti has programmed previously for the Abu Dhabi Film Festival and CinemaEast Film Festival. She joins a strong, highly-regarded team of programmers at TIFF, one of the world's top festivals and the world's largest public film festival.

Be sure to catch some of TIFF's ongoing events at the Bell Lightbox in honour of Black History Month. This weekend on Sunday February 20 at 3:30pm, there will be a free screening of short films by African-Canadian filmmakers in Lightbox's Cinema 4. Many of the filmmakers will be in attendance and a reception follows.

This free screening is part of a series of free events taking place at Lightbox on Sunday and Monday, February 20-21.

32nd Rhubarb Festival, February 16-27

Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in Toronto presents the 32nd edition of its Rhubarb Festival, which starts tonight and runs until February 27. They bill the festival as "Canada's premiere experimental performance festival" and it features contemporary theatre, dance, performance art, music and hybrid forms by Ravi Jain, Alex Napier, Claire Calnan, emergency exit, Mark Shyzer and others.

Buddies in Bad Times Theatre is a professional Canadian theatre company dedicated to the development and presentation of queer theatre, and is committed to work that challenges the boundaries of theatrical and social convention.

Buddies in Bad Times Theatre is located at 12 Alexander Street, two blocks north of Carlton and Yonge or two blocks south of Wellesley and Yonge on the east side.

29th Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois, February 16-27

The 29th Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois begins tonight with a sold-out Canadian premiere of En terrains connus (Familiar Grounds). The festival, which highlights Quebec films, continues for the next twelve days to showcase the best of what was a very strong year for Quebec cinema. They will screen 293 films over this period, 80 of which are premieres.They will also have a number of industry events, parties, special events and awards.

En terrains connus (Familiar Grounds) held its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival last week. It opens in Quebec theatres on Friday, February 18.

A short film that I co-directed with Katarina Soukup of Catbird Productions plays next week at the festival. Notes from the Kuerti Keyboard plays on Friday, February 25 at 9:45pm at the Cinémathèque québécoise (335, boul. De Maisonneuve Est), Salle Claude-Jutra.

Brit Awards 2011 - winners include Arcade Fire and Justin Bieber

A couple of nights after their surprise triumph at the 2011 Grammy Awards by winning of the top award Album of the Year, Arcade Fire continued their hot streak by winning two more prizes at the 2011 Brit Awards in London. They took Best International Group and Best International Album for their release The Suburbs. Their competition included acts such as the Black Eyed Peas, Kings of Leon, and Vampire Weekend.

Fellow Canadian Justin Bieber bounced back from being shut out at the Grammys to capture the award for International Breakthrough Act.

British rapper Tinie Tempah (Patrick Okogwu) also won two awards. He claimed the Best Single for Pass Out and was also named British Breakthrough Act. Having reunited seventeen years after breaking up, the boy-band Take That won the honour for Best British Group.

The other international award winners were Rihanna (Best International Female) and Cee Lo Green (Best International Male).

Nominations announced for the Inaugural Comedy Awards

The American broadcasters Comedy Central and MTV (both Viacom) announced the nominations for its Inaugural Comedy Awards. Easy A, Cyrus and Kick-Ass led the film nominations with four each. Their nominations included Best Comedy Film, where they were joined by Get Him to the Greek and The Other Guys.
 
30 Rock led in the television section with seven nominations. The Office and Modern Family followed with four each. The three are nominated for Comedy series alongside cult favourites It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Eastbound & Down.

Nominees were selected by the prestigious "The Comedy Awards" Board of Directors, which include: James Burrows, Stephen Colbert, Billy Crystal, James Dixon, Whoopi Goldberg, Brad Grey Caroline Hirsch, Martin Lesak, Seth MacFarlane, Adam McKay, Jimmy Miller, Conan O'Brien, Peter Principato, Don Rickles, Joan Rivers, Jay Roach, Chris Rock, Ray Romano, Rory Rosegarten, Phil Rosenthal, Michael Rotenberg, George Schlatter, Sharon Sheinwold Jackson, Mitzi Shore, Jon Stewart, Lily Tomlin and Sandy Wernick.

The winners of each category will be chosen by an invitation-only voting body comprised of nearly 1000 members from the comedy community – including writers, producers, performers and directors. The public can vote online for the Best Original Viral category at http://www.thecomedyawards.com/.

Call for submissions: National Screen Institute (NSI) New Voices program

The National Screen Institute has put out a call for submission for its NSI New Voices program, designed to jump-start the careers of Canadian Aboriginal artists in the film and television industry. Nine Aboriginal adults aged 18-35 will be selected for this skills development program that includes six weeks of training and an eight week work placement in an industry setting.

The National Screen Institute is a leading national training school for film, television and digital media. Although based in Winnipeg, programs are open to all Canadian residents. Non-residents of Winnipeg are responsible for their accommodation and travel expenses. There is no cost for the program, however; in fact, you will be paid during your participation.

The deadline for applications is Thursday, March 31, 2011, 4:30 p.m. Central Time. The program begins in late April.

For more information, go to the National Screen Institute website:

Call for submissions: 15th Annual Reel Asian Film Festival

The Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival has put out their call for submissions for their 2011 festival, their 15th edition. They are Canada's largest Asian film festival dedicated to films and videos by East and Southeast Asian artists in Canada, the U.S., Asia and all over the world.

Their deadline is June 1, 2011. But if you submit by the earlybird deadline of April 1, there is no submission fee. 

From my observations and experience as a filmmaker and regular participant in their festival, they treat their guest filmmakers very well, and they have excellent volunteers, staff and audiences. Participating filmmakers receive an honourarium and are eligible to win a number of awards which come with substantial prizes in cash or goods & services.

The 2011 Reel Asian Festival takes place November 8-13 in Toronto and 18-19 in Richmond Hill.

TIFF Lightbox presents free seminar: Making Your First Feature

The Toronto International Film Festival's Bell Lightbox facility continues its innovative and diverse programming with educational offerings. They've partnered with York University's Department of Film to present a series of industry panels called York Film Downtown.

The program was launched in November and last month they presented a panel on documentaries. This Thursday, they host a panel on making your first feature film. Moderated by Amnon Buchbinder, Chair of York University's Department of Film, the panel features three of Canada's hottest emerging filmmakers and the distributor Robin Smith of KinoSmith.

The panel is free. It's also open to the public, not just York University students.

It takes place this Thursday, Feb 17, at 7 pm at the TIFF Bell Lightbox Learning Studios. TIFF Bell Lightbox is located at Reitman Square, 350 King Street West in Toronto.