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On The Film Army Front: August ’13 Edition
Well, now that TIFF has come to an end, let’s take a trip back to August.
If you can believe it, August was busier than my experience with the Toronto International Film Festival. At Film Army, I was checking out different programmes hosted by Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox, watching smaller independent fare, as well as getting ready for TIFF while setting up IFFFT coverage – the International Fetish Film Festival Toronto.
It’s great to cover all sorts of bases with my writing. It truly feels like I get a taste of everything.
The programmes at the Lightbox introduced me to more eclectic foreign movies. These being the films of Leos Carax and other assorted works brought to audiences by Turkish filmmakers.
It was great to finally see what all the hubbub was about with Carax’s Holy Motors, and it was neat uncovering obscure bizarre oddities from Turkey. Even if the films weren’t necessarily winners, I could appreciate the fly-on-the-wall takes these projects offered.
A highlight for me was watching Pavan Moondi’s Everyday Is Like Sunday, a little-known mumblecore flick that ran at Toronto’s Carlton Cinema during a fleeting theatrical run. Moondi’s film had technical flaws as well as running into a couple of unavoidable low-budget hurdles.
But, what really impressed me about Everyday Is Like Sunday is how often I laughed and how frequently I felt for the characters. There’s a very laid back approach to the free-form story in Moondi’s film, and it helps greatly. He’s able to grab honest observations and reactions without having to drill his actors for the right touch. To those who caught this film during it’s blink-or-you’ll-miss-it limited engagement: you witnessed an underdog worth rooting for.
And, then the festival coverage. When I attended TIFF’s press conference revealing Canadian content featured at this year’s event, it was a fairly exciting experience. It also helped that the venue was well run and informative to boot.
But, I was equally eager – and nervous – to watch some films at the International Fetish Film Festival. With these smaller types of festivals, the line separating good taste and inappropriate counterpoints tends to get blurred. Festivals with this sort of rebellious attitude makes my defense grow, but I always like to be proven wrong.
While the festival did a good job keeping content generally tasteful (at least, judging by the films I saw), the selection wasn’t very good. I didn’t see anything worthwhile and the only positive point I made about anything I saw was that the music was catchy during one of the shorts. Uh oh…
All in all, I’m very glad to have tackled all that I snagged. Here are some links:
TIFF 2013′S CANADIAN LINE-UP IS CANUCKARIFFIC
BEING THE POLA OPPOSITE OF A GOOD FILM
TGIS: THANK GOODNESS IT’S SUNDAY
I TRAVELED TO TURKEY AND ALL I GOT WERE THESE STUMPED SHORTS
MUSIC AND SAFE WORDS GO LIMP AT THE TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FETISH FILM FESTIVAL
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