2011 Worldwide Short Film Festival - award winners [UPDATED]

At the closing awards picnic on the last day of the festival, the 17th annual Worldwide Short Film Festival announced their prizewinners.

The Bravo!FACT Award for Best Canadian Short went to Sang Froid (Cold Blood), by Montrealer Martin Thibaudeau. It tells a touching story of a boy and his mother at the hospital. The winner of Best Live Action Short was Aglaée by Rudi Rosenberg. Belgian filmmaker Samuel Tilman’s Nuit Blanche (Sleepless Night) was a runner-up.

The Best Documentary Short film was Susan Koenen’s I Am a Girl. Scottish filmmaker Iain Gardner's Tannery won Best Animated Short. The Best Experimental Short was Erään hyönteisen tuho (The Death of an Insect) by Kiitos, Hannes Vartiainen and Pekka Veikkolainen.

The winner for the Screenplay Giveaway Prize and its prize package worth $70,000 was David Widdicombe for his script Wake. The runner-up was Jason Hreno for Sam and Rea’s Fault.

BlackCreek Summer Music Festival, June 4-August 31

Tonight is the kickoff for the inaugural BlackCreek Summer Music Festival in Toronto. It launches with a concert by superstar Spanish tenor Plácido Domingo, along with soprano Sondra Radvanovsky.

Concerts will include a mix of classical and pop performances such as James Taylor, Diana Krall, Tony Bennett, Helen Mirren, Jeremy Irons, James Earl Jones, Lorin Maazel, and the London Symphony Orchestra.

Concerts take place at the Rexall Centre at York University. The festival continues throughout the summer with a break for the Rogers Cup tennis championship.

fu-GEN's 8th Annual Potluck Festival

The fu-GEN Asian-Canadian Theatre Company's 8th Annual Potluck Festival takes place tonight at St. Luke’s United Church in Toronto. fu-GEN is a theatre company devoted to developing Asian-Canadian playwrights and actors. Every year, participating playwrights are given an opportunity to workshop and develop a short play idea over several months that is then presented as a staged reading known as the Potluck Festival.

This year's participating playwrights are Rong Fu, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, Jane Luk, Adriano Sobretodo Jr, Donald Woo and Nelson Yu. This year, they are also presenting in various locations throughout venue of St. Luke's.

Be sure to stay until afterwards when they always bring out a whole lot of good food.

Tickets are Pay-What-You-Can ($10 suggested) and the show begins at 7:30pm. You'll want to get there early to make sure you get a ticket.

1st Festival Classica, June 3-5

This weekend marks the inaugural edition of Festival Classica, Quebec's premiere urban classical music festival. Over the next few days, you'll have an opportunity to experience an array of fine programming featuring orchestral symphonies, opera and world music performances.

Featured performers include l'Orchestre symphonique de Longueuil with conductor Marc David, singers Marie-Josée Lord, Daniel Taylor and François Le Roux, pianists Serhyi Salov and Wonny Song, violonist Alexandre da Costa, a performance of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana with a chorus of 200, opera on the big screen and an invitation to join a "Dance-Along" and waltz with an orchestral accompaniment under the stars.

Most of the events will take place at Village Park in Saint-Lambert, just across the south side of Montreal. There will be several free outdoor shows and ticketed indoor shows at Saint-Barnabas and Saint-Lambert churches.

14th annual Subtle Technologies Festival, June 2-5

After some pre-festival events the last few days, tonight is the beginning of the main part of the 14th annual Subtle Technologies Festival.

Subtle Technologies is a gathering of artists, scientists, technologists, engineers and the general public. The festival brings people together to share cross-disciplinary ideas, explore new technologies, showcase creativity and incubate the next generation of practitioners at the intersection of art, science and technology.

It features film, performance and exhibitions. There will also be a symposium with panels and discussions.

The 14th Subtle Technologies Festival runs from June 2 to 5 at Innis Town Hall, 2 Sussex Ave, Toronto ON M5S 1J5, and at various locations around Toronto.

2011 TIFF Emerging Filmmakers Competition - finalists announced

The Toronto International Film Festival has announced the finalists of their second RBC Emerging Filmmakers Competition. The 20 participating filmmakers of the 2010 TIFF Talent Lab were asked to make a short film on a given theme with selected films becoming eligible to win prizes. This year's theme was "family."

The jury has selected their five finalists for the competition. The five finalists are Esther and Leib by Sean Wainsteim (Toronto), My First Movie by Gabriel Taraboulsy (Montréal), Next of Kin by Kara Blake (Montréal), The Revenge Plot by Jared Raab, and Saturday Night by Kaveh Nabatian (Montréal, Quebec).

In addition to prizes selected by the festival jurors, the finalists compete for the $5,000 Fan Favourite Award. All of the awards for the emerging filmmakers will be presented during TIFF 2011, taking place September 8-18.

As an incentive to vote, you become eligible to win a prize package worth $5,000. It includes a trip to Toronto, 3 nights in a four or five star hotel, double tickets to two TIFF screenings and $1,000 spending money. The voting period is June 2011 and the prizewinner for this contest will be selected on July 5, 2011.

Film review: The Hangover Part II

Writer: Scot Armstrong, Craig Mazin, Todd Phillips; based on characters by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore
Director: Todd Phillips
Producer: Daniel Goldberg, Todd Phillips
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong, Jeffrey Tambor
Raunchy Buddy Comedy
1 hours, 42 minutes

Unoriginal.

Unfunny.

Racist.

Homophobic.

17th Worldwide Short Film Festival, May 31-June 5

After launching on the weekend with a free party at Yonge & Dundas Square, the 17th Worldwide Short Film Festival begins tonight with an opening night gala followed by an after-party.

The opener is traditionally of award-winning short films from around the world. Tonight's program consists of Bukowski, West of the Moon, Big Bang Big Boom, Lipsett Diaries (Les journaux de Lipsett), Na Wéwé (You Too) and The Lost Thing.

Tomorrow morning, the festival's excellent Symposium of industry panels and workshops kicks off with a master class featuring award-winning director Kari Skogland, (Fifty Dead Men Walking, The Stone Angel) and actor Callum Keith Rennie (The Killing, Californication) on Directing Performance.

The screening takes place at the Bloor Cinema, 506 Bloor Street West just east of Bathurst Street. The show begins at 7:00 pm. The program repeats at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) on Sunday June 5 at 9:30 pm.

THR’s Drama Showrunners Roundtable Video

Last month, The Hollywood Reporter hosted a roundtable interview with writers of summer movies. Now they've begun a round of roundtable interviews in advance of the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards later this fall.

Today, they posted their Drama Showrunners roundtable. These are usually the creators and head writers of a television series. They are generally credited onscreen as Executive Producers.

The featured creatives in this discussion are Mike Royce (Men of a Certain Age), Jason Katims (Friday Night Lights, Parenthood), Graham Yost (Justified), Frank Darabont (The Walking Dead), John Wells (Shameless), Kurt Sutter (Sons of Anarchy) and Terence Winter (Boardwalk Empire).

It is unfortunate that as with the previous roundtable, all of the the assembled writers here are middle-aged white males. But that is the current state of the industry. Among the issues they discuss are disputes between the studio and the network; being creative while staying within a budget; and how they plan to end their series.

59th Stratford Shakespeare Festival, May 30-Oct 30

Tonight is opening night for the 59th season of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, just 90 miles west of Toronto. The opening play is a Shakespeare comedy, The Merry Wives of Windsor. It will be directed by Tony Award-winning director Frank Galati in his Stratford debut, and stars Geraint Wyn Davies as Sir John Falstaff.

Three other Shakespeare plays will be staged over the coming months: Richard III, Titus Andronicus, Twelfth Night. They will also present the Shakespeare-themed Shakespeare's Will by Vern Thiessen about the recollections of Shakespeare's widow Anne Hathaway.

The other plays presented are not by Shakespeare. They are The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck), The Homecoming (Harold Pinter), Hosanna (Michel Tremblay), The Little Years (John Mighton) and The Misanthrope (Molière). They will also present the two musicals Camelot (Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe) and Jesus Christ Superstar (Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice).

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival runs until October 30 when it closes with afternoon performances of Camelot and The Homecoming.

Le Festival St-Ambroise Fringe de Montréal, May 30-June 19

Tonight is the opening night for the 21st edition of Le Festival St-Ambroise Fringe de Montréal (Montreal Fringe Festival). It kicks off with a free Fringe-for-All at Café Campus, 57 Prince-Arthur Est just east of Boulevard Saint-Laurent. Fringe artists will be on hand to present a small taste of what lies ahead.

This promises to be the biggest Montreal Fringe ever with 500 artists performing 110 shows at 30 venues over the 20 day period. But things will start slowly and picking up steam until the second half where the Parc des Ameriques at St-Laurent and Rachel becomes the Fringe Park. They will present all manner of shows, free music, workshops and films.

The festival introduced Nuits du Fringe (Fringe After Dark) last year and this year they continue with expanded offerings such as Slowdance Night, Strip Spelling Bee, Crowd Karaoke and the farewell run of the 13th HOUR.

37th Annual Alberta Film & Television Awards (Rosies) - winners

Last night, the Alberta Media Production Industries Association (AMPIA, formerly known as the Alberta Motion Picture Industries Association) held its 37th Annual Alberta Film & Television Awards or Rosie Awards at the Marriot at River Cree in Edmonton.

The winner for Best Dramatic Feature was Michael Dowse's Fubar II, also known as Fubar: Balls to the Wall. It had been up against A Heartland Christmas, A Legend of Whitey, The Corrupted, The Future is Now and The Pharmacist.

The documentary Code Breakers took three awards: Best Documentary - Over 30, Cinematographer - Non-Fiction, Over 30, and Overall Sound - Non-Fiction. Another The Nature of Things documentary Tipping Point also won three awards - Best Director and Best Screenwriter for Niobe Thompson and Tom Radford, and Best Editor.

The big winner for television series was the CBC drama Heartland. Its five awards were Best Dramatic Series, Best Director - Drama Over 30 (Francis Damberger), Best Actor (Shaun Johnston), Cinematographer - Drama Over 30 (Craig Wrobleski) and Best Editor - Drama Over 30 (Ken Filewych). The movie based on the series A Heartland Christmas won for Sound - Drama.

Worldwide Short Film Festival 2011 kicks off with free party

Although the Worldwide Short Film Festival doesn't begin until Tuesday night, the festival is launching this year with a free "Square Party" to give everyone a taste of what's in store. The festivities take place starting at 8pm on Sunday night at Yonge and Dundas Square.

The festival has already started showing short films in the "Short Bus" that has been driving around the city to give people an opportunity to watch short films for free in a traveling theatre. It will continue showing up at various locations to screen films until the last day of the festival on Sunday.

They've also announced that Award-winning director Kari Skogland, (Fifty Dead Men Walking, The Stone Angel) will lead an inspiring Master Class with actor Callum Keith Rennie (The Killing, Californication) on Directing Performance.

Also new this year, they will be having a full day of programming at the CN Tower including films suitable for children, and also a date night where you get dinner and a movie for $20.

65th Nastro d'Argento (Silver Ribbon) Awards for Italian film - nominations

The Sindacato Nazionale dei Giornalisti Cinematografici Italiani (Association of Italian Film Critics) announced the nominations for their 65th Nastro d'Argento (Silver Ribbon) Awards.

Leading with seven nominations was the recent Cannes competitor Habemus Papam (We have a Pope) by Nanni Moretti. It received nominations for Best Director, Producer, Story, Cinematography, Editing, Art Direction and Costume Design.

Two films followed closely with six nominations. Benvenuti al Sud (Welcome to the South) received nominations for Best Comedy, Producer, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress and Screenplay, while Nessuno mi può giudicare (Nobody Can Judge Me) picked up nominations for Best New Director, Comedy, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress and Screenplay. Earlier this month at the 55th David di Donatello Awards, Paola Cortellesi won Best Actress for Nessuno mi può giudicare (Nobody Can Judge Me), while Valentina Lodovini of Benvenuti al Sud (Welcome to the South) won Best Supporting Actress.

La Solitudine dei Numeri Primi (The Solitude of Prime Numbers) picked up five nominations. A number of films nabbed four: Malavoglia (The House by the Medlar Tree), Una vita tranquilla (A Quiet Life), Vallanzasca - Gli angeli del male (Angels of Evil), 20 sigarette (20 Cigarettes),  Immaturi (The Immature) and La banda dei Babbi Natale (The Santa Claus Gang). The last two titles are comedies by Paolo Genovese.

Free screening of Bodyguards and Assassins

The Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival is presenting a free screening tonight in celebration of Asian Heritage Month.

Bodyguards and Assassins by Teddy Chan Tak Sun is an action-packed epic martial arts film set in 1905. Its all-star cast includes Donnie Yen, Nicholas Tse, Leon Lai, Wang Xueqi and Tony Leung Ka-fai.

The film won 8 awards at the 2010 Hong Kong Film Awards including Best Film. It set a record for the most nominations in the event's history with eighteen. It also won Best Actor (Wang Xueqi) and Best Supporting Actor (Nicholas Tse) at the 4th Asian Film Awards.

The screening takes place tonight at the Toronto Underground Cinema at 186 Spadina Ave. It begins at 8pm and runs 2 hours and 19 minutes.