Todd over at Twitch has the full list of TIFF Films for the 2008 festival (which starts September 4). The list goes live on the TIFF website at 3pm. Full descriptions of all the films go live on August 26, but the Midnight Madness and Sprockets Family Films are already posted.
Download the Full List (right click, save as .PDF)
See Also: Row Three’s TIFF Subsite
Here are about three dozen films that leap out at me (based on country, director, limited info) until the more information is forthcoming. After the Jump.
Obviously a huge chunk of these films, in particular the programmes for Documentaries, Contemporary World Cinema, Discoveries, Canada First, Visions and Vanguard flicks will require full catalogue descriptions come August 29 (and likely a fair bit of time with the IMDb) before I know what I want to see. However, Based on my knowledge of what is up and coming, here are the titles that I’ve carved out on first go around along with an ultra-brief reasoning.
Burn after Reading (Coen Brothers) – Comedy swing for those Big Lebowski fences
The Good The Bad The Weird (Kim Jee-Woon) – Kimchi-Western from S.Korea
Three Monkeys (Nuri Bilge Ceylan) – HD-digital gorgeous dark drama
Public Enemy Number One (Jean-Francois Richet) – Gangster biopic starring Vincent Cassel and Ludivine Sagnier
Tokyo Sonata (Kiyoshi Kurosawa) – Very Dark Drama from Japan horror-meister
Sky Crawlers – (Mamoru Oshii) – latest prestige feature anime
Vinyan (Fabrice du Welz) – Sci-fi flick from the director of Calvaire
Ashes of Time Redux – (Wong Kar-Wai) – re-edit of sumptuously odd 1988 Kung-Fu melodrama
Blindness (Fernando Meirelles) – Latest from City of God director – Starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Gael Garcia Bernal and Danny Glover (Row Three Review)
Genova (Michael Winterbottom) – latest from Tristram Shandy, 24-Hour Party People, Code 46 director. Stars Collin Firth and Catherine Keener
Che (Steven Soderbergh) – 4 hour biopic of Che Guevara
Brothers Bloom (Rian Johnson) – Caper Comedy starring Adrian Brody and Rachel Weisz.
Happy-Go-Lucky (Mike Leigh) – Improvised dramedy? Latest from one of my favourite Brits.
Synecdouche, New York (Charlie Kaufman) – the writer of Being John Malkovich and starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman – I’m there
The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky) – Requiem for a Dream/The Fountain director starring Mickey Rourke. Yes, it’s a wrestling picture
Zack & Miri Make a Porno (Kevin Smith) – latest Kevin Smith is worth going to for the Q&A
32 Short Films about Glenn Gould (Francois Girard) – Time to finally catch up with this Canadian classic
Flame & Citron (Ole Christian Madsen) – I love this Danish director. This one again stars Mads Mikkelsen and appears to be a 1940s period piece.
Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas) – Juliette Binoche in a family drama by another favourite director.
Jerichow (Christian Petzold) – know nothing about this, but loved directors previous film Yella (Row Three Review)
Toronto Stories vs. New York, New York – this years pair of ‘anthology films. I might do one. As usual, there are some great directors featured therein
White Night Wedding (Baltasar Kormakur) – My favourite Icelander is back with a new film
Pontypool (Bruce McDonald) – New Bruce is good – and this is a horror flick!
Sauna (Antti-Jussi Annila) – Crazy Finnish horror
The Midnight Madness Programme (Row Three post) is already live on the TIFF Site:
Acolytes (Jon Hewitt) – Aussie Slasher!
The Burrowers (J.T. Petty) – Horror/Western hybrid!
Chocolate (Prachya Pinkaew) – Ong Bak with girl!
Deadgirl (Marcel Sarmiento, Gadi Harel ) – A dead girl on a table.
Eden Log (Franck Vestiel) – French Sci-Fi!
JCVD (Mabrouk El Mechri) – Being Jean Claude Van Damme! Should be a treat!
Martyrs (Pascal Laugier) – Ultra-Gory French Horror!
Not Quite Hollywood (Mark Hartley) – Aussie Exploitation Doc!
Sexykiller (Miguel Martí) – Zombies!
“Flame & Citron (Ole Christian Madsen) – I love this Danish director. That’s all I know.”
Horrible movie. I wouldn’t waste my time.
Horrible in what way? I’m a huge fan of PRAG and how Madsen gets so much out of Body language. IMDb indicates it’s a 40′s period piece starring Mads Mikkelsen and Thure Lindhardt. Can’t be that bad can it?
Did you like Anders Morgenthaler’s PRINCESS?
It basically takes the occupational period and real people who lived through it hostage to sell tickets to an uninspired timid, boring noir-story that we’ve a million times before. There’s nothing historic about it, nothing is authentic, the acting is as superficial as in a hollywood blockbuster, and only a few times does the film even look any good. The characters in no way feel like they are living people, which is a problem in any film, but even more so when they are supposed to portray actual people who did at one point, live. It’s a C-grade film noir, which is fine, but for Madsen to take this particular story hostage just to finance his own noir-film should have him serve jailtime.
I haven’t seen any of Anders Morgenthalers films. His TV show was fun for a short while, and his comic strip hits a funny one about once every 25 strips.
I’m not a fan of the intentionally-out-of-focus poster series for this years fest.
the line-up does not really compare with last years, I mean on first glance.
I am interested in checking out Pontypool, which would be my first Bruce Macdonald film I think.
Well, last year was one of the best years for films in the 10 years I’ve been going.
It does come down to choices though, even the most hard-core viewer can only take in a sliver of a festival, and whether or not you happen to go to the ‘good ones’ or the ‘bad ones’ will determine whether or not it is a good festival (in a personal sense).
I’m just under halfway through posting a post in the TIFF section for each movie. I’ve included every bit of information I have so far. I’ll be continually updating this with links to reviews, trailers (mostly supplied through Todd’s great work over at Twitch) and descriptions.