In a recent article in24 Hours Toronto, NHL legend Ken Dryden described TIFF as “where you see what you don’t see anywhere else — where movies matter.” Movies definitely matter in this building and TIFF is committed to offer audiences the opportunity to experience the best of classic and contemporary cinema on the big screen with an appreciative audience.
TIFF Cinematheque Special Screenings is devoted to classics, favourites, rarities, and recent restorations. This season’s impressive lineup boasts 35mm prints exploring works throughout the ages; from classics like Lloyd Bacon’s 1933 backstage musical,42nd Street,screening on May 23 at 6:30 p.m. to Lena Dunham’s 2010 feature film debutTiny Furniturescreening on May 14 at 3:30 p.m.
Additional highlights include:
Award-winning Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami’sThrough the Olive Treesscreening onMay 18 at 8:45 p.m.
Reel Injunseeks to redress the stereotypes and misconceptions created by a century’s worth of often ignorant, sometimes malicious depictions of North America’s Indigenous peoples. Featuring clips from hundreds of classic and contemporary films and interviews with both Native and non-Native artists and activists —Reel Injunis a vital corrective to a skewed film history, and offers an encouraging perspective on the growth of the Indigenous New Wave.
OnMay 13 at 1:00 p.m.,Jesse Wentewill be joined for a post-screening discussion with guests: Ariel Smith (Nêhiyaw), award-winning filmmaker, video artist, writer and cultural worker;Melanie Nepinak Hadley, Executive in Charge of Production for CBC Drama;Cowboy Smithx, award-winning filmmaker of Blackfoot Ancestry from the Piikani and Kainai tribes of southern Alberta; and Ryan McMahon, an Anishinaabe comedian, writer, actor and media maker based out of Treaty #1 territory (Winnipeg).
Award-winning experimental vocalist and artistTanya Tagaqdiscusses Alethea Arnaquq-Baril’s documentaryAngry Inuk, preceded by the short filmTungijuq, and its integral endeavour to challenge existing misconceptions about seal hunting and its role in Inuit culture. St. Lawrence Market wil providing delicious local bites.
Canada on Screen
Continuing our year-long celebration of Canadian film, Canada on Screen, TIFF presents Canada on Screen Shorts Programme 4 — a mixed programme of shorts spotlighting some of the most significant live-action, animated, and avant-garde works ever produced in our country.
dir. Adina Smith | USA 2016 | 96 min. A troubled man (Mr. Robot’s Rami Malek) on the run recalls the mysterious events that brought him to his present fugitive state, in the enigmatic, elliptical and moving second feature from director Sarah Adina Smith (Midnight Swim).
The second film from American-Israeli writer and director Rama Burshtein (Fill the Void), The Wedding Plan is a poignant and funny romantic comedy about love, marriage and faith in life’s infinite possibilities.
Laura Poitras follows her Oscar-winning Edward Snowden documentaryCitizenfourwith this behind-the-scenes portrait of Wikileaks mastermind Julian Assange, who continues his whistleblowing crusade while under house arrest in an English country estate.
MAY 19
Certain Women
dir. Kelly Reichardt USA 2016 | 107 min.
Kelly Reichardt (Wendy and Lucy,Night Moves) directs Laura Dern, Michelle Williams, Kristen Stewart and Lily Gladstone in this tripartite portrait of striving, independent women whose lives intersect in suggestive and powerful ways.
MAY 19
The Commune
dir. Thomas Vinterberg Denmark/Sweden/Netherlands 2016 | 111 min.
The new film from Danish auteur Thomas Vinterberg (The Hunt,The Celebration) focuses on a middle-aged professional couple in 1970s Denmark who decide to experiment with communal living by inviting a group of friends and random eccentrics to cohabit with them in a sprawling house.