Former director of Toronto International Film Festival died on January 25, aged 55.
Filmmakers James Schamus, Atom Egoyan and Hirokazu Kore-eda have led tributes from across the industry to Noah Cowan, the influentional former director of Toronto International Film Festival who died last week.
Former TIFF colleagues, long-time business partner John Vanco and key figures from the film industry, festivals and arts institutions also paid tribute to Cowan, who died aged 55 on January 25 in Los Angeles, after an illness.
Veteran US producer Schamus said: “Noah’s resume oddly conceals as much as it reveals. It would be easy to conflate his roles...
Filmmakers James Schamus, Atom Egoyan and Hirokazu Kore-eda have led tributes from across the industry to Noah Cowan, the influentional former director of Toronto International Film Festival who died last week.
Former TIFF colleagues, long-time business partner John Vanco and key figures from the film industry, festivals and arts institutions also paid tribute to Cowan, who died aged 55 on January 25 in Los Angeles, after an illness.
Veteran US producer Schamus said: “Noah’s resume oddly conceals as much as it reveals. It would be easy to conflate his roles...
- 1/30/2023
- by Screen staff
- ScreenDaily
After two consecutive years of a mostly virtual event, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is resuming in-person festivities this coming fall. The festival is set to take place September 8–18, TIFF representatives announced February 24. For its 47th edition, Toronto will feature 11 days of “the best that the international film community has to offer, while spotlighting and championing the Canadian film industry and its filmmaking talent.”
Last year, the festival provided minimal and scaled-back, in-person, socially distanced, and vaccine-mandated screenings at its various venues throughout the city. Despite its unusual format, the 2021 edition of TIFF provided an opportunity to experience the unique challenges and opportunities of forging forward with a physical film festival in the era of Covid-19, in spite of the many risks and reservations.
The festival shifted entirely to a virtual format in 2020 (as did the near entirety of the festival world), but offered a healthy selection of its...
Last year, the festival provided minimal and scaled-back, in-person, socially distanced, and vaccine-mandated screenings at its various venues throughout the city. Despite its unusual format, the 2021 edition of TIFF provided an opportunity to experience the unique challenges and opportunities of forging forward with a physical film festival in the era of Covid-19, in spite of the many risks and reservations.
The festival shifted entirely to a virtual format in 2020 (as did the near entirety of the festival world), but offered a healthy selection of its...
- 2/24/2022
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Things are changing at the Toronto International Film Festival, but a very familiar face remains at the helm. Cameron Bailey, who for the last three decades has been a major force at the organization, is stepping up to lead TIFF as CEO with a charge to prep the festival for the future and focus on a strategy of engaging audiences more widely and more often. Bailey, who got his start as a programmer before becoming creative director, most recently shared co-head leadership duties with Joana Vicente for over three years. Vicente left TIFF in December for the top post at the Sundance Institute.
News of Bailey’s appointment by the TIFF board comes after the board on Monday announced that Jeffrey Remedios, the chairman and CEO of Universal Music Canada, has replaced Jennifer Tory as TIFF board chair. TIFF leaders bill Remedios, who has served on the board for five years,...
News of Bailey’s appointment by the TIFF board comes after the board on Monday announced that Jeffrey Remedios, the chairman and CEO of Universal Music Canada, has replaced Jennifer Tory as TIFF board chair. TIFF leaders bill Remedios, who has served on the board for five years,...
- 11/30/2021
- by Chris Lindahl and Anne Thompson
- Thompson on Hollywood
Things are changing at the Toronto International Film Festival, but a very familiar face remains at the helm. Cameron Bailey, who for the last three decades has been a major force at the organization, is stepping up to lead TIFF as CEO with a charge to prep the festival for the future and focus on a strategy of engaging audiences more widely and more often. Bailey, who got his start as a programmer before becoming creative director, most recently shared co-head leadership duties with Joana Vicente for over three years. Vicente left TIFF in December for the top post at the Sundance Institute.
News of Bailey’s appointment by the TIFF board comes after the board on Monday announced that Jeffrey Remedios, the chairman and CEO of Universal Music Canada, has replaced Jennifer Tory as TIFF board chair. TIFF leaders bill Remedios, who has served on the board for five years,...
News of Bailey’s appointment by the TIFF board comes after the board on Monday announced that Jeffrey Remedios, the chairman and CEO of Universal Music Canada, has replaced Jennifer Tory as TIFF board chair. TIFF leaders bill Remedios, who has served on the board for five years,...
- 11/30/2021
- by Chris Lindahl and Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
Piers Handling, Director and CEO of Tiff announced it his last year. After almost 25 years, he will be stepping down.
Piers Handling, director and CEO of Tiff, speaks during a Toronto International Film Festival press conference. He announced Saturday he’ll step down in 2018. (Aaron Vincent Elkaim/Canadian Press)
Looking forward, 2018 will bring both a change in leadership in the organization and a new strategic plan focussing on the next five years and a new iteration of Tiff. What does the future look like? As the largest public film festival in the world, and a hub for world and new cinema year-round, our focus is on you, the audience. Tiff, in partnership with its diverse and committed supporters, will continue to provide a safe space for lovers, seekers, and creators to celebrate cinema and storytelling.
The common thread that runs through all the different identities Tiff has held over the...
Piers Handling, director and CEO of Tiff, speaks during a Toronto International Film Festival press conference. He announced Saturday he’ll step down in 2018. (Aaron Vincent Elkaim/Canadian Press)
Looking forward, 2018 will bring both a change in leadership in the organization and a new strategic plan focussing on the next five years and a new iteration of Tiff. What does the future look like? As the largest public film festival in the world, and a hub for world and new cinema year-round, our focus is on you, the audience. Tiff, in partnership with its diverse and committed supporters, will continue to provide a safe space for lovers, seekers, and creators to celebrate cinema and storytelling.
The common thread that runs through all the different identities Tiff has held over the...
- 7/30/2018
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
(Editor: This is the Keynote Speech I gave at the Dhaka Internationa Film Festival’s 4th International Conference on Women in Cinema)
It is said that movies are windows onto culture and that is what drew me into the film business. By way of introduction to the writer of this paper, the keynote speech of the Womens Conference of the Dhaka Film Festival, I myself am an American. I was born in California; my parents were born in Massachusetts and Texas. My mother’s mother was born in Texas of a German born mother; my other three grandparents were from Lithuania and Ukraine.
U.S. as we know (excluding any of the current government assertions to the contrary) is a nation of immigrants, but Americans are not very sophisticated.
While about one-third of the citizenry has passports (not including those who are legal immigrants who have their birth country passports), in one year,...
It is said that movies are windows onto culture and that is what drew me into the film business. By way of introduction to the writer of this paper, the keynote speech of the Womens Conference of the Dhaka Film Festival, I myself am an American. I was born in California; my parents were born in Massachusetts and Texas. My mother’s mother was born in Texas of a German born mother; my other three grandparents were from Lithuania and Ukraine.
U.S. as we know (excluding any of the current government assertions to the contrary) is a nation of immigrants, but Americans are not very sophisticated.
While about one-third of the citizenry has passports (not including those who are legal immigrants who have their birth country passports), in one year,...
- 2/5/2018
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Was it Godard or was it Truffaut who said “critics make the best directors”?
A film critic by trade and a poet in his heart, Brian D. Johnson began his film “Al Purdy Was Here” as a fundraising tool to save the A-frame cabin in the woods built by Canadian poet Al Purdy and his wife Eurithe. As making the film progressed, Johnson began to see much more in the film than merely a vehicle [piece] to raise money. “Al Purdy Was Here” soon evolved into something much greater, something deeply poetic by a writer who himself treasures poetry even as he critiques films….
Brian says, “It is about art and life and the fact that they are often in conflict as we try to make our lives. Poetry is my aim…finding poetry in cinema. But music was the reason I made the film.”
Canada's leading musicians and artists come together to tell the tale of Al Purdy.
The documentary features archival materials and first-hand accounts, including interviews with his publisher Howard White, editor Sam Solecki, widow Eurithe Purdy, poets Dennis Lee, Steven Heighton and George Bowering—and Bowering's wife Jean Baird, the powerhouse behind the campaign to save and restore Purdy's A-Frame cabin.
Read Indiewire for more about the movie here.
Gordon Pinsent (“Away from Her”), Michael Ondaatje (“The English Patient”), Leonard Cohen (“Natural Born Killers”), Margaret Atwood (“The Handmaid’s Tale”) all pay tribute to him along with other well known writers, actors, directors and singers who adapt his poetry.
This film premiered, naturally enough, at Tiff 2015 but I only caught up with it at Iff Panama this year because Brian – whom I met one year in Havana and loaned him $100 to pay his hotel bill -- was at Iff Panama where his film was screening. With him was our friend-in-common, Latinaphile, Helga Stephenson, so I tagged along as a friend to see a film about a person I had never heard of before. And I was entranced by what I saw.
Al Purdy was known to be a raucous, barroom brawling Canadian poet, something on a par with Charles Bukowski. In fact they were friends and corresponded extensively, but there is some question as to whether Purdy’s character as a barroom brawler was put on as his persona to help popularize his poetry. Was he actually such a rough person? His wife, Eurithe Purdy, who survived him and is featured in the movie said that at home he was quite a peaceable man (when he was not boozing it up with his pals). He was also a philosophical soul, enraptured by nature—Canada's Walt Whitman as well as its Bukowski.
Sl: How did you get these musicians?
I went to the pantheon of famous Canadian singer-songwriters and asked them to compose and record music inspired by Purdy's work. We paid engineers and musicians. But the artists licensed their songs to us for free, and in return they got to own the rights to the songs.
I got in touch with Neil Young through his brother. I loved Neil's music, and interviewed him for one of his films. Remember Neil Young: Heart of Gold directed by Jonathan Demme?
I sent Neil a Purdy poem called "My 48 Pontiac", written from the Pov of a car in a junk yard—knowing Neil loves old cars. He never did get around to recording an original number for us, but he loved the poem, and the project. So when we wanted to use "Journey Through the Past" (from Neil's 1971 Massey Hall concert album) on the soundtrack, he gave us the rights at no cost.
We selected half a dozen songs for the movie but commissioned and recorded six more, and we're assembling all of them on an album called "The Al Purdy Songbook".
Meanwhile, the film's score was composed by my son, Casey Johnson, who recorded it all with purely analog technology—in the spirit of Purdy's rough and raw esthetic.
The music played at a 2013 benefit concert to save Purdy's cabin in the woods become the impetus for me to make the movie. I remember leaving the show and telling the organizers, "The next thing you should do is an Al Purdy Songbook.") I didn't know I'd end up doing it myself. And as it turned out, it was the music that made the film possible. Musicians are more famous than poets. They have an audience. And this is a movie about a dead poet. How do you make a movie about a dead poet?
The music brings it to life . . . I suppose I could have made a zombie movie instead.
Sl: How did you cast the movie?
You get the most famous people lined up and then the rest follow. I’m friends with Michael Ondaatje. I know Margaret Atwood. I know Leonard Cohen. So I started there.
Sl: How did you finance the film?
The CBC Documentary Channel gave us 25% of the budget and that triggered the rest of the financing. The Rogers Documentary Fund and the Rogers Cable Fund became the other principal contributors.
But Ron Mann, who exec produced, got the ball rolling, and his company, Films We Like, came onboard as the Canadian distributor. We're still looking for international distribution.
The movie felt like a barn-raising, with everyone pitching in to help make it work.
Brian D. Johnson is former film critic for Maclean's, Canada's weekly newsmagazine, is the current president of the Toronto Film Critics Association. Over the years, he also worked as a musician and published poetry, a novel, and several works of non-fiction, including a 25th-anniversary history of Tiff, "Brave Films, Wild Nights, 25 Years of Festival Fever. "Al Purdy was Here” (2015) is his first feature documentary. Once again he'll be writing about film for Maclean's in May at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.
A film critic by trade and a poet in his heart, Brian D. Johnson began his film “Al Purdy Was Here” as a fundraising tool to save the A-frame cabin in the woods built by Canadian poet Al Purdy and his wife Eurithe. As making the film progressed, Johnson began to see much more in the film than merely a vehicle [piece] to raise money. “Al Purdy Was Here” soon evolved into something much greater, something deeply poetic by a writer who himself treasures poetry even as he critiques films….
Brian says, “It is about art and life and the fact that they are often in conflict as we try to make our lives. Poetry is my aim…finding poetry in cinema. But music was the reason I made the film.”
Canada's leading musicians and artists come together to tell the tale of Al Purdy.
The documentary features archival materials and first-hand accounts, including interviews with his publisher Howard White, editor Sam Solecki, widow Eurithe Purdy, poets Dennis Lee, Steven Heighton and George Bowering—and Bowering's wife Jean Baird, the powerhouse behind the campaign to save and restore Purdy's A-Frame cabin.
Read Indiewire for more about the movie here.
Gordon Pinsent (“Away from Her”), Michael Ondaatje (“The English Patient”), Leonard Cohen (“Natural Born Killers”), Margaret Atwood (“The Handmaid’s Tale”) all pay tribute to him along with other well known writers, actors, directors and singers who adapt his poetry.
This film premiered, naturally enough, at Tiff 2015 but I only caught up with it at Iff Panama this year because Brian – whom I met one year in Havana and loaned him $100 to pay his hotel bill -- was at Iff Panama where his film was screening. With him was our friend-in-common, Latinaphile, Helga Stephenson, so I tagged along as a friend to see a film about a person I had never heard of before. And I was entranced by what I saw.
Al Purdy was known to be a raucous, barroom brawling Canadian poet, something on a par with Charles Bukowski. In fact they were friends and corresponded extensively, but there is some question as to whether Purdy’s character as a barroom brawler was put on as his persona to help popularize his poetry. Was he actually such a rough person? His wife, Eurithe Purdy, who survived him and is featured in the movie said that at home he was quite a peaceable man (when he was not boozing it up with his pals). He was also a philosophical soul, enraptured by nature—Canada's Walt Whitman as well as its Bukowski.
Sl: How did you get these musicians?
I went to the pantheon of famous Canadian singer-songwriters and asked them to compose and record music inspired by Purdy's work. We paid engineers and musicians. But the artists licensed their songs to us for free, and in return they got to own the rights to the songs.
I got in touch with Neil Young through his brother. I loved Neil's music, and interviewed him for one of his films. Remember Neil Young: Heart of Gold directed by Jonathan Demme?
I sent Neil a Purdy poem called "My 48 Pontiac", written from the Pov of a car in a junk yard—knowing Neil loves old cars. He never did get around to recording an original number for us, but he loved the poem, and the project. So when we wanted to use "Journey Through the Past" (from Neil's 1971 Massey Hall concert album) on the soundtrack, he gave us the rights at no cost.
We selected half a dozen songs for the movie but commissioned and recorded six more, and we're assembling all of them on an album called "The Al Purdy Songbook".
Meanwhile, the film's score was composed by my son, Casey Johnson, who recorded it all with purely analog technology—in the spirit of Purdy's rough and raw esthetic.
The music played at a 2013 benefit concert to save Purdy's cabin in the woods become the impetus for me to make the movie. I remember leaving the show and telling the organizers, "The next thing you should do is an Al Purdy Songbook.") I didn't know I'd end up doing it myself. And as it turned out, it was the music that made the film possible. Musicians are more famous than poets. They have an audience. And this is a movie about a dead poet. How do you make a movie about a dead poet?
The music brings it to life . . . I suppose I could have made a zombie movie instead.
Sl: How did you cast the movie?
You get the most famous people lined up and then the rest follow. I’m friends with Michael Ondaatje. I know Margaret Atwood. I know Leonard Cohen. So I started there.
Sl: How did you finance the film?
The CBC Documentary Channel gave us 25% of the budget and that triggered the rest of the financing. The Rogers Documentary Fund and the Rogers Cable Fund became the other principal contributors.
But Ron Mann, who exec produced, got the ball rolling, and his company, Films We Like, came onboard as the Canadian distributor. We're still looking for international distribution.
The movie felt like a barn-raising, with everyone pitching in to help make it work.
Brian D. Johnson is former film critic for Maclean's, Canada's weekly newsmagazine, is the current president of the Toronto Film Critics Association. Over the years, he also worked as a musician and published poetry, a novel, and several works of non-fiction, including a 25th-anniversary history of Tiff, "Brave Films, Wild Nights, 25 Years of Festival Fever. "Al Purdy was Here” (2015) is his first feature documentary. Once again he'll be writing about film for Maclean's in May at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.
- 4/26/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
I have been visiting Cuba since 2000 when I went there to perfect my Spanish. My Spanish is still far from perfect but I have grown to love Cuba. Since I went there to learn and happened upon the Havana Film Festival which is held this year December 3rd to 13th, I have returned to the Festival every year and have found a world of great talent which increasingly is raring to get out into the world.
Ivan Giroud is a part of that Festival world and actually is now its most important part (aside from the films and filmmakers that is). Starting from zero, he is now considered one of the most qualified specialists in Latin American Cinema.
Read on to see who he is and how he sees Cuban and Latin American Cinema.
How did you get into film?
I was born in Havana in 1957.
I have loved cinema since I was very young. However I did not study film as there was no cinema school in Cuba until 1986.
I had a general education and graduated in Civil
Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Havana in 1981.
I am self-taught in film – what’s that called?
You are an autodidact.
Yes, an autodidact.
In the 70s, Cuba had the best cinema in the world and the best posters as well. These posters remained the finest posters in the world throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s.
Yes, they are silk-screened and on display and for sale. I myself treasure the poster of one o my favorite fims, “Suite Habana” by Fernando Pérez .
In my last year working as a civil engineer I contacted Icaic seeking employment. In 1981 friends in film, like Daisy Granados, the star of “Cecilia” gave me work on her film. I met her husband, Pastor Vega, a filmmaker who was also the first Director of the Festival from 1979 to 1990, a post he took after finishing “Portrait of Teresa” Pastor said ‘Come work with me’ and so in 1988 I entered the industry at the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (Icaic), as a senior specialist and organizer of Cuban and Latin American cinema destined for Europe and North America. The job was like a programming job.
The International Festival of the New Latin American Film in Havana (aka Havana Film Festival) had sections for auteurs, socialist countries, American films and docs. It had the best films, was the preeminent film festival for Latin American cinema and was the only market where all of Latin America gathered to consider the films. It still remains a gathering place for the cineastes throughout Latin America and includes a well-respected coterie of the pioneers of Latin American cinema who created the films that best defined Latin America Cinema in the 60s and then were silenced by the dictatorships which prevailed until the 90s….like Raúl Ruiz, Aldo Francia, Patricio Guzmán and Miguel Littin from Chile, Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos from Brazil Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino from Argentina.
At the time of the Soviet collapse in 1991 (known in Cuba as “The Special Period”), I entered the Directorate of the Festival and Vega left and returned to filmmaking. There were other Directors, and in 1994 I became the Director. Alfredo Guevera, the public face of the festival for many years came back to Cuba and became President; we worked together from 1994 to 2010, my first term as the Festival Director.
The Special Period was very, very difficult, the worst of times for everyone and for all Latin American cinema. Brazilian cinema nearly disappeared. The state film organization Embrafilme had been producing 800 films a year and that disappeared for a long time.
Argentina declined in the 90s. Mexico remained active but also declined in the quality of its films. When I began as Director, Cuba was very poor, both economically and creatively. But there was also a generational change and I learned that every decline gives birth to a new generation and new creativity, and so it was.
Schools of films began training new talent. Eictv, the International Film School, funded by Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Nobel Prize money opened its doors in 1987. New schools opened in Argentina and Brazil as well. The Havana Film Festival stood as a testimony to this growing generation as it showed the first works and shorts of the likes of Trapero and others in whom you could see new Latam talent developing.
The Havana Film Festival catalogs are a history of cinema as it was the biggest programmer of films. It still gives the best view of Latam cinema today. It is still important as it gives a full picture of Latam cinema and the people in Latam cinema. Eictv is producing the most interesting film makers in the world. For 37 years the Festival was the best, though today there are not many Latam fests. This one was different. You could get to know the whole cineaste community. It never lost a generation; the older members still make movies and the festival helps them to be seen and known.
In 2010 I went to Madrid where I spent five years. In 2002 I began working on a Dictionary of Iberoamerican Cinema. This 1,000 page book was finished in 2008. From 2008 to 2010 I was the director of the festival from Spain. I also ran an arthouse theater in Madrid, the Sala Berlanga, named after a very important Spanish director a little younger than Bunuel.
In 2012 I wanted to return to Cuba where I worked on the Cuban Dictionary of Film. In April Guevera died and Icaic pulled me back to be President and Director.
Since May 2013 I have been Director of the Casa del Festival and President of the International Festival of New Cinema in Havana.
What about the filmmaker Pavel Giroud? Is he your brother?
No, he’s my nephew. He came into the business a different way, through design. He began producing music clips and then went to Eictv. From a painter he evolved into a moviemaker. He has made three films. His newest, “El Acompañante” (“The Companion”) won the best project award at San Sebastian’s 2nd Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum in 2013.
This is Giroud’s third solo film after “The Silly Age” and “Omerta”. The producers: Luis Pacheco’s Jaguar Films is Panama’s best-known production/services company. The Cuban producer is Lia Rodriguez who also runs the industry section of the Havana Film Festival. It is also produced by the Cuba/ Panama-based Arete Audiovisual, Panama’s Jaguar Films, Venezuela’s Trampolin Impulso Creativo and France’s Tu Vas Voir (Edgard Tenembaum) who produced Walter Salles’ “The Motorcycle Diaries”.
Set in 1988 Cuba, “The Companion” is about a friendship between a disgraced boxer forced to serve as a warden – in Cuban government jingo-speak, a “companion” – for an HIV victim.
What is different about the current state of your festival?
Now there are many Latin American Film Festivals, but ours was and still is different because it allows you to know the whole cineaste community. We never lost a generation. The older generation still is making movies and the younger generation is very present. The Festival helps make them known.
What about the new developments between USA and Cuba?
That is the most asked question today.
We have always had U.S. films and U.S. citizens have always visited in cultural exchanges. We’ve had Gregory Peck, Jack Lemmon in the earliest years. We’ve invited Arthur Penn, Sean Penn, John Sayles, the Coen Brothers. Danny Glover and Benecio del Toro are frequent visitors. Annette Benning and Koch Hawk of the Academy were guests. We were always well connected to the U.S. independents so that is nothing new.
The change is that It will be easier for Americans to visit and to learn.
When I went to Cuba the first time, I was actually surprised to see so many Afro-Cubans. For some reason I assumed USA was the only nation with former slaves. I should have realized the Spanish also traded in slaves but only when I was in Cuba did I “get” it. Now I see the world so differently.
In Cuba black and white races mixed and the mixture (the mulatto) is what is a Cuban today. U.S. has segregation by and large. Latinos live together, Asian, African-Americans are all separated and that creates a totally different mentality.
I am very interested in African Diaspora films and Cuba has a lot. I have always enjoyed the documentaries. You can’t see them anywhere else.
This year there is a great documentary, “They are We" (“Ellos son nosotros”). It is anthropological about the Cuban town Matanza. Matanza has some of the best music in Cuba. It investigates their African roots in Sierra Leone and identifies ancestors and where they were from. Determined to find the exact origin of songs coming from there, the Australian filmmaker - researcher spent two years showing images throughout the region in Sierra Leonie until he confirmed that the Cubans were singing songs similar to the language of an ethnic group made extinct because of the slave trade.
I’ll send you the BBC article. (Read it here)
Thank you Ivan for this hour of your time. I am so happy to have finally connected with you after seeing you for so many years in Havana and in Toronto (where you stay with Helga Stephenson, the subject of an earlier post: Read it here )
More on Ivan:
Ivan has provided advice to other Latin American film festivals and has collaborated on research projects and screenplays, as well as in the production of theater and classical music. In 2008 he was invited to speak at the seminar Contributions of Latin American cinema to world cinema in the first American Film Congress held in Mexico City in the Congress book stories presented in common 40 years / 50 movies of Latin American cinema, of which he is one of its editors.
He was a visiting professor of the Master in Management of the Film Industry Carlos III University courses in 2010, 2011 and 2012. He is one of four directors of the Dictionary of Latin American Cinema; with Carlos F. Heredero, Eduardo Rodríguez Merchán, Benard da Costa and João project Sgae of Spain, consisting of 10 volumes and 16 thousand entries. Between 2008 and 2012 he was Director of audiovisual programming and Berlanga Room Buñuel Institute Foundation Author of Spain, a period in which he was international adviser Icaic.
Ivan Giroud is a part of that Festival world and actually is now its most important part (aside from the films and filmmakers that is). Starting from zero, he is now considered one of the most qualified specialists in Latin American Cinema.
Read on to see who he is and how he sees Cuban and Latin American Cinema.
How did you get into film?
I was born in Havana in 1957.
I have loved cinema since I was very young. However I did not study film as there was no cinema school in Cuba until 1986.
I had a general education and graduated in Civil
Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Havana in 1981.
I am self-taught in film – what’s that called?
You are an autodidact.
Yes, an autodidact.
In the 70s, Cuba had the best cinema in the world and the best posters as well. These posters remained the finest posters in the world throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s.
Yes, they are silk-screened and on display and for sale. I myself treasure the poster of one o my favorite fims, “Suite Habana” by Fernando Pérez .
In my last year working as a civil engineer I contacted Icaic seeking employment. In 1981 friends in film, like Daisy Granados, the star of “Cecilia” gave me work on her film. I met her husband, Pastor Vega, a filmmaker who was also the first Director of the Festival from 1979 to 1990, a post he took after finishing “Portrait of Teresa” Pastor said ‘Come work with me’ and so in 1988 I entered the industry at the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (Icaic), as a senior specialist and organizer of Cuban and Latin American cinema destined for Europe and North America. The job was like a programming job.
The International Festival of the New Latin American Film in Havana (aka Havana Film Festival) had sections for auteurs, socialist countries, American films and docs. It had the best films, was the preeminent film festival for Latin American cinema and was the only market where all of Latin America gathered to consider the films. It still remains a gathering place for the cineastes throughout Latin America and includes a well-respected coterie of the pioneers of Latin American cinema who created the films that best defined Latin America Cinema in the 60s and then were silenced by the dictatorships which prevailed until the 90s….like Raúl Ruiz, Aldo Francia, Patricio Guzmán and Miguel Littin from Chile, Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos from Brazil Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino from Argentina.
At the time of the Soviet collapse in 1991 (known in Cuba as “The Special Period”), I entered the Directorate of the Festival and Vega left and returned to filmmaking. There were other Directors, and in 1994 I became the Director. Alfredo Guevera, the public face of the festival for many years came back to Cuba and became President; we worked together from 1994 to 2010, my first term as the Festival Director.
The Special Period was very, very difficult, the worst of times for everyone and for all Latin American cinema. Brazilian cinema nearly disappeared. The state film organization Embrafilme had been producing 800 films a year and that disappeared for a long time.
Argentina declined in the 90s. Mexico remained active but also declined in the quality of its films. When I began as Director, Cuba was very poor, both economically and creatively. But there was also a generational change and I learned that every decline gives birth to a new generation and new creativity, and so it was.
Schools of films began training new talent. Eictv, the International Film School, funded by Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Nobel Prize money opened its doors in 1987. New schools opened in Argentina and Brazil as well. The Havana Film Festival stood as a testimony to this growing generation as it showed the first works and shorts of the likes of Trapero and others in whom you could see new Latam talent developing.
The Havana Film Festival catalogs are a history of cinema as it was the biggest programmer of films. It still gives the best view of Latam cinema today. It is still important as it gives a full picture of Latam cinema and the people in Latam cinema. Eictv is producing the most interesting film makers in the world. For 37 years the Festival was the best, though today there are not many Latam fests. This one was different. You could get to know the whole cineaste community. It never lost a generation; the older members still make movies and the festival helps them to be seen and known.
In 2010 I went to Madrid where I spent five years. In 2002 I began working on a Dictionary of Iberoamerican Cinema. This 1,000 page book was finished in 2008. From 2008 to 2010 I was the director of the festival from Spain. I also ran an arthouse theater in Madrid, the Sala Berlanga, named after a very important Spanish director a little younger than Bunuel.
In 2012 I wanted to return to Cuba where I worked on the Cuban Dictionary of Film. In April Guevera died and Icaic pulled me back to be President and Director.
Since May 2013 I have been Director of the Casa del Festival and President of the International Festival of New Cinema in Havana.
What about the filmmaker Pavel Giroud? Is he your brother?
No, he’s my nephew. He came into the business a different way, through design. He began producing music clips and then went to Eictv. From a painter he evolved into a moviemaker. He has made three films. His newest, “El Acompañante” (“The Companion”) won the best project award at San Sebastian’s 2nd Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum in 2013.
This is Giroud’s third solo film after “The Silly Age” and “Omerta”. The producers: Luis Pacheco’s Jaguar Films is Panama’s best-known production/services company. The Cuban producer is Lia Rodriguez who also runs the industry section of the Havana Film Festival. It is also produced by the Cuba/ Panama-based Arete Audiovisual, Panama’s Jaguar Films, Venezuela’s Trampolin Impulso Creativo and France’s Tu Vas Voir (Edgard Tenembaum) who produced Walter Salles’ “The Motorcycle Diaries”.
Set in 1988 Cuba, “The Companion” is about a friendship between a disgraced boxer forced to serve as a warden – in Cuban government jingo-speak, a “companion” – for an HIV victim.
What is different about the current state of your festival?
Now there are many Latin American Film Festivals, but ours was and still is different because it allows you to know the whole cineaste community. We never lost a generation. The older generation still is making movies and the younger generation is very present. The Festival helps make them known.
What about the new developments between USA and Cuba?
That is the most asked question today.
We have always had U.S. films and U.S. citizens have always visited in cultural exchanges. We’ve had Gregory Peck, Jack Lemmon in the earliest years. We’ve invited Arthur Penn, Sean Penn, John Sayles, the Coen Brothers. Danny Glover and Benecio del Toro are frequent visitors. Annette Benning and Koch Hawk of the Academy were guests. We were always well connected to the U.S. independents so that is nothing new.
The change is that It will be easier for Americans to visit and to learn.
When I went to Cuba the first time, I was actually surprised to see so many Afro-Cubans. For some reason I assumed USA was the only nation with former slaves. I should have realized the Spanish also traded in slaves but only when I was in Cuba did I “get” it. Now I see the world so differently.
In Cuba black and white races mixed and the mixture (the mulatto) is what is a Cuban today. U.S. has segregation by and large. Latinos live together, Asian, African-Americans are all separated and that creates a totally different mentality.
I am very interested in African Diaspora films and Cuba has a lot. I have always enjoyed the documentaries. You can’t see them anywhere else.
This year there is a great documentary, “They are We" (“Ellos son nosotros”). It is anthropological about the Cuban town Matanza. Matanza has some of the best music in Cuba. It investigates their African roots in Sierra Leone and identifies ancestors and where they were from. Determined to find the exact origin of songs coming from there, the Australian filmmaker - researcher spent two years showing images throughout the region in Sierra Leonie until he confirmed that the Cubans were singing songs similar to the language of an ethnic group made extinct because of the slave trade.
I’ll send you the BBC article. (Read it here)
Thank you Ivan for this hour of your time. I am so happy to have finally connected with you after seeing you for so many years in Havana and in Toronto (where you stay with Helga Stephenson, the subject of an earlier post: Read it here )
More on Ivan:
Ivan has provided advice to other Latin American film festivals and has collaborated on research projects and screenplays, as well as in the production of theater and classical music. In 2008 he was invited to speak at the seminar Contributions of Latin American cinema to world cinema in the first American Film Congress held in Mexico City in the Congress book stories presented in common 40 years / 50 movies of Latin American cinema, of which he is one of its editors.
He was a visiting professor of the Master in Management of the Film Industry Carlos III University courses in 2010, 2011 and 2012. He is one of four directors of the Dictionary of Latin American Cinema; with Carlos F. Heredero, Eduardo Rodríguez Merchán, Benard da Costa and João project Sgae of Spain, consisting of 10 volumes and 16 thousand entries. Between 2008 and 2012 he was Director of audiovisual programming and Berlanga Room Buñuel Institute Foundation Author of Spain, a period in which he was international adviser Icaic.
- 11/19/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The Toronto International Film Festival is celebrating its 40th anniversary this September. Tiff has become the most important international film festival in North America. It is a festival for the people of Toronto as well as for the film professionals who gather here for the first big event on the yearly film circuit of festivals and markets which culminates in May with the greatest film festival/ market of all, the Cannes International Film Festival and Marché.
Tiff’s red carpet Galas kick off the Academy Award Oscar Campaigns. The most important film distributors, international sales agents, producers, financiers, agents and festival programmers come to do business, buying and selling the newest of world cinema available at any festival. They gather and meet at the Hyatt which is where festival headquarters, the marketplace and conferences are held. The Hyatt itself is just around the corner from the multiplex where most of the movies are screened for the industry. Public screenings are around the city. Buyers also attend them because the Canadian public loves movies and offers a good sense of how the movies will be received publicly.
Helga Stephenson was Executive Director of the Festival from 1986 to 1996.
When she began many things in our world were changing - the financial crash of 1987, AIDS, Tiananmen Square in China, the Gulf War, genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda. Films were exploring new meanings for modern values. Native voices were just being heard, Latin American filmmakers were just emerging…
She is also founder and co-chair of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival (https://ff.hrw.org/about).
She has been CEO of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television since May 26, 2011. Her aim at the Academy is to make the Genies and the TV awards (the equivalents of the Oscars and Emmys in the U.S.) achieve the status of being engraved in the minds of every Canadian.
Did you always know you wanted to be in film?
Generationally, film was the major art form for sure. When at McGill University (Bachelor of Arts, 1969), I went to Robert Lantos’s Erotic Film Festival. We came from a generation where if it flickered on the screen, it was fabulous.
Films in the 70s both in and out of Hollywood were bursting on the screen. It was good-bye to Doris Day and hello “Bonnie and Clyde”. The screen was responding most strongly to my generation.
But there was no way then to make a living from film and so I became a PR person specializing in the arts, “a girl job” which got my foot in door.
My entry into film and TV was in 1976. Before that I was a fan. The world of film was almost exclusively male.
How did you break in?
I got there in spite of being a woman.
I moved to Toronto in the fall of 1976 from Havana where I had been teaching English in Cuso, the Canadian version of the Peace Corp.
I started an independent PR company called Sro with Maureen O’Donnell and Bob Ramsay and by our third year we were the PR company that took care of the Festival. We started the Fest’s first receptions at Cannes.
I volunteered to fundraise for the Festival and in 1982 I became Director of Communications.
At that time the classics divisions of the studios started up and women began getting jobs at the studios -- Linda Beath, Carol Greene, Mj Pekos, Donna Gigliotti. This was in the late 70s, early 80s …they were known in Cannes as “The Pink Mafia”. The numbers of women in business on Croisette in Cannes grew yearly: Aline Perry, Carole Myer, Claudie Cheval, Michele Halberstadt. No longer were they confined to PR and assistant positions or “D girls” like Marcia Nasitir who was already a veteran when we began. 20th Century Fox hired Sydney Levine, the first woman in international distribution in 1975. Agencies also began hiring women where earlier Sue Mengers and Ina Bernstein were the only female agents.
For Toronto, it was a very big leap for the Board to hire a woman. There were big arguments; it didn’t want a woman; it didn’t see how a publicity girl could jump out of the box even though she had negotiated most the deals with Hollywood.
How did they finally hire you?
I had a quite few advocates; people admired my work and they liked me. They were just not used to the idea of women in leadership positions. I had to be patient. Mounting an attack would not work. After they hired me, there was no looking back.
How did you feel throughout this? Did you feel inferior to men?
I never felt inferior; sometimes I felt locked out but I managed a style that that allowed them to allow me into the conversation.
How did you do this?
My style was very direct, even gruff, like the men.
How has it changed today?
40 years later in Canada, the business is predominately female. All three major TV networks are now run by women (Bell Media, Shaw Media and CBC). At my meetings with networks there may be 20 people in a room - mostly women. The whole market place has changed. Even banks concentrate on women, or on gays. It’s not through goodness of heart but by profit motives.
There is a huge cadre of female producers - very successful ones.
Where are the men?
I don’t know, in wealth management maybe.
How did this happen?
It seemed sudden. When I returned to the industry after raising my child,
I was shocked to see the cultural workplace was predominately women. Of course it is not perfect and to be exclusively female would be no good.
All the “culture” organizations are non-profit and encourage diversity rather than white male dominance across the board. Big corporate sponsors and networks are mostly women today in leadership positions.
I never expected to see this change happen so fast.
What were your biggest challenges in moving ahead in your career?
Balance between life and work is always very tricky especially as a single mother. I tipped toward my child and left the industry to care for her.
When I was not doing too much I brought Human Rights Watch to Canada to appease my conscience. This was 10 years ago. I wanted to feel I was doing my part to make the world a better place. I needed to know I was doing something.
What motivated you to start the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival?
They wanted to do a Film Festival, so I chaired it and found that it went back to my roots in Cuso.
Can you tell us more about it?
In the films we covered four or five years ago there was a spate of migrant films. It was so clear and obvious that what is happening today was coming. If people had been paying attention, today’s horrible situation could have been avoided. U.S. and Europe today look like a gated community.
Everyone came here for a better life. The entire continent was founded by immigrants…not anymore. This post-colonial mess all is based on anti-immigration sentiment of the current powers.
Then I became involved with establishing Reykjavik Film Festival because I was Icelandic. Joni Sigivattson the Hollywood producer suggested me for the role. Reykjavik is another film festival run by a woman.
How does it happen you are Icelandic? I thought you were Quebecoise.
I was born and raised in Montreal. My great grandmother divorced my great grandfather and came to Canada with my grandfather.
What about today’s women in the film industry both in the creative and business sides?
In film, males remain dominant.
There is still more to go on creative side than on the business side. Women directors are not where they should be, but they’re climbing.
Today there is an interesting study of Women in Media in Canada. Kay Armitrage (a former programmer of Tiff and an academic) has statistics which are not rosy.
But, a woman runs Telefilm Canada, and a woman is chair of the biggest bank. There are lots of women in very important positions in and out of the cultural sector.
Is the Academy taking any action on affirmative action or women’s parity?
It already has a predominately female staff. The Board is 60-40 male-female. It offers lots of professional seminars for and by women.
What about Tiff?
The Festival was great from day one. Linda Beath brought in the cadre of programmers – the best in world. It was the Festival of Festivals. It did not care about status of the film, but it did have world premiers. Classics divisions of the major studios and then video buyers came for the best films in the world and they loved the great audiences who made big hits so it became a great vehicle for testing the market. It became the gateway for foreign films to the U.S. niche market. That activity surged in spite of Tiff not wanting to have a market. The Market started in spite of itself and markets demand fresh product.
It is still not a formal market, but to appeal to the public, industry and press, it became more important to get the newer films.
The rapidity of information and reactions have created a new reality today. Now because of social media and the internet, it’s best to show films never seen anywhere before. Tiff still shows films that are not necessarily world premieres but obviously gives preference to WPs. And it still shows the best films in the world as it has always done. This is the key to its success over the years.
I notice about 20% of the directors are women at this year’s Festival.
There are Chinese, Hong Kong, Taiwanese, Japanese, Palestinian, Tunisian and Lebanese; Natalie Portman’s directorial debut is an Israel-u.S. coproduction. She’s one of nine U.S. directors. France has six, Canada five, Australia four, India three, U.K. three, Israel and Austria have two Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, Greece, Ukraine, Ethiopia, Norway, Sweden, New Zealand, and Pakistan have one women-directed film each.
I don’t know yet which films I favor; I’ll have to see them.
There are also In-Depth Conversations with Julianne Moore, Salma Hayek, Sarah Silverman. This year’s Industry Conference includes a series of "no-holds-barred" conversations about gender in the media to cover topics such as "Financing Female-Led Films" and "Uncovering Unconscious Bias"...
Tiff’s red carpet Galas kick off the Academy Award Oscar Campaigns. The most important film distributors, international sales agents, producers, financiers, agents and festival programmers come to do business, buying and selling the newest of world cinema available at any festival. They gather and meet at the Hyatt which is where festival headquarters, the marketplace and conferences are held. The Hyatt itself is just around the corner from the multiplex where most of the movies are screened for the industry. Public screenings are around the city. Buyers also attend them because the Canadian public loves movies and offers a good sense of how the movies will be received publicly.
Helga Stephenson was Executive Director of the Festival from 1986 to 1996.
When she began many things in our world were changing - the financial crash of 1987, AIDS, Tiananmen Square in China, the Gulf War, genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda. Films were exploring new meanings for modern values. Native voices were just being heard, Latin American filmmakers were just emerging…
She is also founder and co-chair of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival (https://ff.hrw.org/about).
She has been CEO of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television since May 26, 2011. Her aim at the Academy is to make the Genies and the TV awards (the equivalents of the Oscars and Emmys in the U.S.) achieve the status of being engraved in the minds of every Canadian.
Did you always know you wanted to be in film?
Generationally, film was the major art form for sure. When at McGill University (Bachelor of Arts, 1969), I went to Robert Lantos’s Erotic Film Festival. We came from a generation where if it flickered on the screen, it was fabulous.
Films in the 70s both in and out of Hollywood were bursting on the screen. It was good-bye to Doris Day and hello “Bonnie and Clyde”. The screen was responding most strongly to my generation.
But there was no way then to make a living from film and so I became a PR person specializing in the arts, “a girl job” which got my foot in door.
My entry into film and TV was in 1976. Before that I was a fan. The world of film was almost exclusively male.
How did you break in?
I got there in spite of being a woman.
I moved to Toronto in the fall of 1976 from Havana where I had been teaching English in Cuso, the Canadian version of the Peace Corp.
I started an independent PR company called Sro with Maureen O’Donnell and Bob Ramsay and by our third year we were the PR company that took care of the Festival. We started the Fest’s first receptions at Cannes.
I volunteered to fundraise for the Festival and in 1982 I became Director of Communications.
At that time the classics divisions of the studios started up and women began getting jobs at the studios -- Linda Beath, Carol Greene, Mj Pekos, Donna Gigliotti. This was in the late 70s, early 80s …they were known in Cannes as “The Pink Mafia”. The numbers of women in business on Croisette in Cannes grew yearly: Aline Perry, Carole Myer, Claudie Cheval, Michele Halberstadt. No longer were they confined to PR and assistant positions or “D girls” like Marcia Nasitir who was already a veteran when we began. 20th Century Fox hired Sydney Levine, the first woman in international distribution in 1975. Agencies also began hiring women where earlier Sue Mengers and Ina Bernstein were the only female agents.
For Toronto, it was a very big leap for the Board to hire a woman. There were big arguments; it didn’t want a woman; it didn’t see how a publicity girl could jump out of the box even though she had negotiated most the deals with Hollywood.
How did they finally hire you?
I had a quite few advocates; people admired my work and they liked me. They were just not used to the idea of women in leadership positions. I had to be patient. Mounting an attack would not work. After they hired me, there was no looking back.
How did you feel throughout this? Did you feel inferior to men?
I never felt inferior; sometimes I felt locked out but I managed a style that that allowed them to allow me into the conversation.
How did you do this?
My style was very direct, even gruff, like the men.
How has it changed today?
40 years later in Canada, the business is predominately female. All three major TV networks are now run by women (Bell Media, Shaw Media and CBC). At my meetings with networks there may be 20 people in a room - mostly women. The whole market place has changed. Even banks concentrate on women, or on gays. It’s not through goodness of heart but by profit motives.
There is a huge cadre of female producers - very successful ones.
Where are the men?
I don’t know, in wealth management maybe.
How did this happen?
It seemed sudden. When I returned to the industry after raising my child,
I was shocked to see the cultural workplace was predominately women. Of course it is not perfect and to be exclusively female would be no good.
All the “culture” organizations are non-profit and encourage diversity rather than white male dominance across the board. Big corporate sponsors and networks are mostly women today in leadership positions.
I never expected to see this change happen so fast.
What were your biggest challenges in moving ahead in your career?
Balance between life and work is always very tricky especially as a single mother. I tipped toward my child and left the industry to care for her.
When I was not doing too much I brought Human Rights Watch to Canada to appease my conscience. This was 10 years ago. I wanted to feel I was doing my part to make the world a better place. I needed to know I was doing something.
What motivated you to start the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival?
They wanted to do a Film Festival, so I chaired it and found that it went back to my roots in Cuso.
Can you tell us more about it?
In the films we covered four or five years ago there was a spate of migrant films. It was so clear and obvious that what is happening today was coming. If people had been paying attention, today’s horrible situation could have been avoided. U.S. and Europe today look like a gated community.
Everyone came here for a better life. The entire continent was founded by immigrants…not anymore. This post-colonial mess all is based on anti-immigration sentiment of the current powers.
Then I became involved with establishing Reykjavik Film Festival because I was Icelandic. Joni Sigivattson the Hollywood producer suggested me for the role. Reykjavik is another film festival run by a woman.
How does it happen you are Icelandic? I thought you were Quebecoise.
I was born and raised in Montreal. My great grandmother divorced my great grandfather and came to Canada with my grandfather.
What about today’s women in the film industry both in the creative and business sides?
In film, males remain dominant.
There is still more to go on creative side than on the business side. Women directors are not where they should be, but they’re climbing.
Today there is an interesting study of Women in Media in Canada. Kay Armitrage (a former programmer of Tiff and an academic) has statistics which are not rosy.
But, a woman runs Telefilm Canada, and a woman is chair of the biggest bank. There are lots of women in very important positions in and out of the cultural sector.
Is the Academy taking any action on affirmative action or women’s parity?
It already has a predominately female staff. The Board is 60-40 male-female. It offers lots of professional seminars for and by women.
What about Tiff?
The Festival was great from day one. Linda Beath brought in the cadre of programmers – the best in world. It was the Festival of Festivals. It did not care about status of the film, but it did have world premiers. Classics divisions of the major studios and then video buyers came for the best films in the world and they loved the great audiences who made big hits so it became a great vehicle for testing the market. It became the gateway for foreign films to the U.S. niche market. That activity surged in spite of Tiff not wanting to have a market. The Market started in spite of itself and markets demand fresh product.
It is still not a formal market, but to appeal to the public, industry and press, it became more important to get the newer films.
The rapidity of information and reactions have created a new reality today. Now because of social media and the internet, it’s best to show films never seen anywhere before. Tiff still shows films that are not necessarily world premieres but obviously gives preference to WPs. And it still shows the best films in the world as it has always done. This is the key to its success over the years.
I notice about 20% of the directors are women at this year’s Festival.
There are Chinese, Hong Kong, Taiwanese, Japanese, Palestinian, Tunisian and Lebanese; Natalie Portman’s directorial debut is an Israel-u.S. coproduction. She’s one of nine U.S. directors. France has six, Canada five, Australia four, India three, U.K. three, Israel and Austria have two Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, Greece, Ukraine, Ethiopia, Norway, Sweden, New Zealand, and Pakistan have one women-directed film each.
I don’t know yet which films I favor; I’ll have to see them.
There are also In-Depth Conversations with Julianne Moore, Salma Hayek, Sarah Silverman. This year’s Industry Conference includes a series of "no-holds-barred" conversations about gender in the media to cover topics such as "Financing Female-Led Films" and "Uncovering Unconscious Bias"...
- 9/10/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Human Rights Watch Film FestivalMarch 24 to April 2 at Tiff Bell Lightbox The 12th annual Human Rights Watch Film Festival unveils eight films at Lightbox which will provoke, anger and make us think. Its focus is international human rights abuses and those who fight them through the powerful medium of documentary films. Canada, Indonesia, Sudan, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Palestine, Guatemala, the United States and Hungary are represented, as curated by CEO of the Academy of Canadian Cinema Helga Stephenson and Tiff’s Magali Simard, Manager of Film Programmes. We spoke with Simard about this year’s must-see offerings. Magali, what […]...
- 3/22/2015
- by Anne Brodie
- Monsters and Critics
The 2015 Canadian Screen Awards--Canada's version of the Academy Awards-- feature film nominations are cool. Never in a million years would our Academy dream of nominating films like the Oscar-snubbed "Mommy," whose director Xavier Dolan is having a good day with 13 nominations, David Cronenberg's love-it-or-hate-it "Maps to the Stars" (11 nominations) or foreign gems "In Her Place" or "Tu Dors Nicole." CEO of the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television Helga Stephenson unveiled film and television nominees today across 128 categories, including seven in digital media. Canucks, the 2015 Canadian Screen Awards will broadcast live on CBC from the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto, on March 1, 2015, at 8pm. Head here for the TV nominees. Best Motion Picture | Meilleur filmCast No Shadow – Chris Agoston, Christian Sparkes, Allison WhiteFall - Mehernaz LentinIn Her Place - Igor Drljaca, Yoon Hyun Chan, Albert ShinMaps...
- 1/13/2015
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Thompson on Hollywood
In its 40th anniversary year, the Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff) will receive the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television honour.
The first Academy Legacy Award comes in recognition of “unyielding dedication in bringing international acclaim to Canadian talent in film, television or digital media.”
“Tiff put Canada on the world stage,” said Academy CEO Helga Stephenson. “It brought Canadian cinema into the international spotlight. It established Toronto as a key date on the festival circuit for players around the globe.
“The Academy salutes Tiff for its resolute commitment to Canadian cinema.”
The awards will be presented at Canada Stars In Awards Season in Beverly Hills on February 19 celebrating excellence of Canadian talent in the film and television industry co-hosted by the Academy, Telefilm Canada and the Consulate General of Canada in Los Angeles.
“Tiff’s commitment to showcasing Canadian cinema, to both Canadians and the world, has played an important role in promoting homegrown talent and success...
The first Academy Legacy Award comes in recognition of “unyielding dedication in bringing international acclaim to Canadian talent in film, television or digital media.”
“Tiff put Canada on the world stage,” said Academy CEO Helga Stephenson. “It brought Canadian cinema into the international spotlight. It established Toronto as a key date on the festival circuit for players around the globe.
“The Academy salutes Tiff for its resolute commitment to Canadian cinema.”
The awards will be presented at Canada Stars In Awards Season in Beverly Hills on February 19 celebrating excellence of Canadian talent in the film and television industry co-hosted by the Academy, Telefilm Canada and the Consulate General of Canada in Los Angeles.
“Tiff’s commitment to showcasing Canadian cinema, to both Canadians and the world, has played an important role in promoting homegrown talent and success...
- 1/6/2015
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
For the first time ever, Toronto International Film Festival along with Telefilm Canada had a pre-Toronto reception for the trade. Held at Soho House on a flawless L.A. day, with views of West Hollywood and Beverly Hills all the way to the Pacific Ocean, the trade had the happy hours to greet and catch up with each other and to preview trailers of the films Canada will be showing at the festival. And best of all, Tiff gave everyone a 2 lb. 4 oz. catalog (even more than one to gift to other colleagues) to take home instead of having to pack them into our suitcases to take back from Toronto.
Maybe it’s the drought here in L.A. that gives me the yearning for rain, but the films on my must-see list include a couple about rain: the Tiff Doc, “Monsoon” by Surla Gunnarsson and “October Gale” by Ruba Nadda (“Cairo Time”) starring Patricia Clarkson and Scott Speedman, a Special Presentation being sold by Myriad.
Canada has the most coproduction treaties of any other nation, and Seoul Korea is the chosen city in this year’s City to City program. The coproduction between Canada and So. Korea, “In Her Place” by writer-director Albert Shin, showing in the Discovery Section looks very compelling. Elle Driver is selling this drama about a wealthy couple secretly seeking to adopt the unborn child of an impoverished and troubled rural teenager.
Other trailers we watched included Contemporary World Cinema entries, “Felix and Meira” by Maxime Giroux, being sold by Udi – Urban Distribution International, “Love in the Time of Civil War” by Rodrigue Jean (Isa: Les Films du 3 Mars) and “Heartbeat” by Andrea Dorfman.
In Midnight Madness, “The Editor” looks pretty good. Park Entertainment is selling it. Xavier Dolan, Bruce Greenwood and Catherine Keener star in “Elephant Song” by Charles Biname which is a Special Presentation. Another Special Presentation is “Preggoland” by Jacob Tierney (“The Trotsky”).
Trailers from Discovery included “Guidance”, the debut film by Pat Mills, “Big Muddy”, “The Valley Below” by Kyle Thomas, “Wet Bum” by Lindsay Mackay, (Isa: Traction Media), “Backcountry” by Adam MacDonald, (Isa: Event Film Distribution, Us: contact Cinetic), “Bang Bang Baby” a surreal, fever-dream fusion of small-town musical and 1950s sci-fi debut feature which writer-director Jeffrey St. Jules developed from his own short at the Cannes Film Festival Residence Program.
Peter Goldwyn of The Samuel Goldwyn Company and Matt Dentler of iTunes, talked up the unprecedented (for a foreign language film) success reaching the top 20 films on iTunes of “ The German Doctor” directed by Lucia Puenzo.
Paul Federbush and I spoke of new horizons of the international labs of Sundance Institute. Sundance Industry’s Rosy Wong introduced me to Lisa Ogdie, Sundance Ff’s Shorts Programmer. Strand’s Marcus Hu, who has two films in the festival (Films Distribution’s “Girlhood” and Pyramide’s “Xenia”) was there, Frank Wuliger looking at the Gersh trailer of “October Gale”, Rebecca (Bec) Smith of UTA as were so many others.
New acquisitions gigs were discussed: Bobby Rock looking for international sales agent,Cinema Management Group ( Dene Anderberg, Cmg’s VP of Sales and Operations, was also there schmoozing) and for Random Media, the new U.S. distribution company founded by Eric Doctorow (formerly head of Paramount Home Video) in November 2013, which will release films through Cinedigm.
Telefilm and Tiff have held a similar soiree for four years in NewYork. I’m sure Andrew Karpen, former Co-ceo of Focus Features, who is launching the new distribution company Bleecker Street was there in N.Y.
Rachel Shapiro, also happily working on many projects at once and her friend, producer Melanie Backer, Laurie Woodrow of RightsTrade a global online marketplace for film, television and digital rights licensing whose “Market On Demand” streamlines film, television, and digital rights sales and acquisitions for content owners, sales agents and distributors who can reach thousands of industry buyers, and buyers can search, screen, and license rights from sellers of thousands of titles.
Bonnie Voland with her hands full for Im Global and its many lines, reminisced with Carolle Brabant, Executive Director of Telefilm Canada and Brigitte Hubmann of Telefilm about the five (!) regimes of the Toronto International Film Festival she has known…from before Helga Stephenson all the way to Cameron Bailey who was there talking up the upcoming festival and hearing peoples’ raves or rants.
Also reminiscing with Brigitte about their days at Goethe Institut was Margit Kleinman who is now director of Villa Aurora, the artist-in-residence program for artists in Germany housed in the Pacific Palisades former home of German émigré, the novelist Lion Furchtwanger. I didn’t have time to ask if they would host the German Academy Award party this year for their submission for Best Foreign Language film, Dominik Graf’s “Beloved Sister”. Since its premiere at the Berlinale this year, international sales agent Global Screen has sold the rights to Music Box for U.S. who will release it in December, and to Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Poland and Croatia thus far.
Our dear friend, Ian Birnie, programmer for Mumbai Film Festival and the Louisiana International Film Festival was there with so many others. It was a wonderful moment to catch up and to forget the pressure we are all under preparing our screenings and meetings for Tiff.
Even though he wasn’t there, I want to mention a brief interchange I had with producer rep Cassian Elwes of Elevated Film Sales, who is repping “Black and White” with Kevin Costner and co-repping the Paul Bettany movie with Jennifer Connelly, “Shelter”, with UTA at Tiff. “In Venice I have Bogdanovich’s ‘She's Funny that Way’ which is in a three way split between me, CAA and UTA and Joe Dante's movie ‘Burying the Ex’ which I'm doing with CAA.”
Steven Raphael and Mj Pekos were fronting for the reception and also are repping “Voiceover” and “Dark Horse” at Tiff.
There was no need to show trailers to the buzz films like the Gala film “Foxcatcher”, which has Oscar expectations are already swirling around it and which premiered in Cannes and is being sold by Kimberly Fox’s Panorama Media and Annapurna (already sold to Sony Pictures Classics for U.S. as well as to Canada-Métropole Films Distribution and Mongrel Media Inc., France-Mars Films, Germany-Koch Media Gmbh, Japan-Longride Inc. So. Korea-Green Narae Media, Switzerland-Ascot Elite Entertainment Group, Taiwan-Long Shong International, United Kingdom- Entertainment One Uk. The film has already earned Bennett Miller the Best Director prize at Cannes.
Another not previewing was Benedict Cumberbatch starring in the much talked about Alan Turing biopic “ The Imitation Game”, and his portrayal of the legendary British code breaker and mathematician is generating talk of a Best Actor nod at this year's Academy Awards. FilmNation is repping this and has already sold it to The Weinstein Company for U.S., Belgium to Paradiso Filmed Entertainment, Greece to Seven Films, Hong Kong (China) to Edko Films Ltd, Israel to Lev Films (Shani Films), Italy toVidea - Cde S.P.A., Japan toGaga Corporation, So. Korea to Medialog Corp., Sweden to Svensk Filmindustri, Ab, Switzerland to Ascot Elite Entertainment Group, Taiwan to Applause Entertainment Ltd. Taiwan Branch, Thailand to M Pictures Co., Ltd.
Two other hot films are Lone Scherfig's “The Riot Club” repped by Hanway and already sold to Universal Pictures for No. America, Belgium-Lumière, France-Selective Films, Germany-Prokino Filmverleih Gmbh, Hong Kong (China)-Golden Scene Company Limited, Italy-Notorious Pictures, Benelux-Lumiere, Poland-Kino Swiat, Switzerland-Pathe Films Ag, United Arab Emirates-Front Row Filmed Entertainment and the U.K. Kingdom-Universal Pictures International and Noah Baumbach's “ While We're Young”, produced by Scott Rudin and repped by FilmNation (again!), with no sales on record yet.
See Cameron Bailey on CBC News discussing Tiff:
Video | TIFF2014: 4 buzz-worthy films at the fest If you want to know more about sales in Toronto, please check back with www.SydneysBuzz.com/Reports for the Toronto By Numbers Report and after the festival for the Toronto Rights Roundup.
Maybe it’s the drought here in L.A. that gives me the yearning for rain, but the films on my must-see list include a couple about rain: the Tiff Doc, “Monsoon” by Surla Gunnarsson and “October Gale” by Ruba Nadda (“Cairo Time”) starring Patricia Clarkson and Scott Speedman, a Special Presentation being sold by Myriad.
Canada has the most coproduction treaties of any other nation, and Seoul Korea is the chosen city in this year’s City to City program. The coproduction between Canada and So. Korea, “In Her Place” by writer-director Albert Shin, showing in the Discovery Section looks very compelling. Elle Driver is selling this drama about a wealthy couple secretly seeking to adopt the unborn child of an impoverished and troubled rural teenager.
Other trailers we watched included Contemporary World Cinema entries, “Felix and Meira” by Maxime Giroux, being sold by Udi – Urban Distribution International, “Love in the Time of Civil War” by Rodrigue Jean (Isa: Les Films du 3 Mars) and “Heartbeat” by Andrea Dorfman.
In Midnight Madness, “The Editor” looks pretty good. Park Entertainment is selling it. Xavier Dolan, Bruce Greenwood and Catherine Keener star in “Elephant Song” by Charles Biname which is a Special Presentation. Another Special Presentation is “Preggoland” by Jacob Tierney (“The Trotsky”).
Trailers from Discovery included “Guidance”, the debut film by Pat Mills, “Big Muddy”, “The Valley Below” by Kyle Thomas, “Wet Bum” by Lindsay Mackay, (Isa: Traction Media), “Backcountry” by Adam MacDonald, (Isa: Event Film Distribution, Us: contact Cinetic), “Bang Bang Baby” a surreal, fever-dream fusion of small-town musical and 1950s sci-fi debut feature which writer-director Jeffrey St. Jules developed from his own short at the Cannes Film Festival Residence Program.
Peter Goldwyn of The Samuel Goldwyn Company and Matt Dentler of iTunes, talked up the unprecedented (for a foreign language film) success reaching the top 20 films on iTunes of “ The German Doctor” directed by Lucia Puenzo.
Paul Federbush and I spoke of new horizons of the international labs of Sundance Institute. Sundance Industry’s Rosy Wong introduced me to Lisa Ogdie, Sundance Ff’s Shorts Programmer. Strand’s Marcus Hu, who has two films in the festival (Films Distribution’s “Girlhood” and Pyramide’s “Xenia”) was there, Frank Wuliger looking at the Gersh trailer of “October Gale”, Rebecca (Bec) Smith of UTA as were so many others.
New acquisitions gigs were discussed: Bobby Rock looking for international sales agent,Cinema Management Group ( Dene Anderberg, Cmg’s VP of Sales and Operations, was also there schmoozing) and for Random Media, the new U.S. distribution company founded by Eric Doctorow (formerly head of Paramount Home Video) in November 2013, which will release films through Cinedigm.
Telefilm and Tiff have held a similar soiree for four years in NewYork. I’m sure Andrew Karpen, former Co-ceo of Focus Features, who is launching the new distribution company Bleecker Street was there in N.Y.
Rachel Shapiro, also happily working on many projects at once and her friend, producer Melanie Backer, Laurie Woodrow of RightsTrade a global online marketplace for film, television and digital rights licensing whose “Market On Demand” streamlines film, television, and digital rights sales and acquisitions for content owners, sales agents and distributors who can reach thousands of industry buyers, and buyers can search, screen, and license rights from sellers of thousands of titles.
Bonnie Voland with her hands full for Im Global and its many lines, reminisced with Carolle Brabant, Executive Director of Telefilm Canada and Brigitte Hubmann of Telefilm about the five (!) regimes of the Toronto International Film Festival she has known…from before Helga Stephenson all the way to Cameron Bailey who was there talking up the upcoming festival and hearing peoples’ raves or rants.
Also reminiscing with Brigitte about their days at Goethe Institut was Margit Kleinman who is now director of Villa Aurora, the artist-in-residence program for artists in Germany housed in the Pacific Palisades former home of German émigré, the novelist Lion Furchtwanger. I didn’t have time to ask if they would host the German Academy Award party this year for their submission for Best Foreign Language film, Dominik Graf’s “Beloved Sister”. Since its premiere at the Berlinale this year, international sales agent Global Screen has sold the rights to Music Box for U.S. who will release it in December, and to Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Poland and Croatia thus far.
Our dear friend, Ian Birnie, programmer for Mumbai Film Festival and the Louisiana International Film Festival was there with so many others. It was a wonderful moment to catch up and to forget the pressure we are all under preparing our screenings and meetings for Tiff.
Even though he wasn’t there, I want to mention a brief interchange I had with producer rep Cassian Elwes of Elevated Film Sales, who is repping “Black and White” with Kevin Costner and co-repping the Paul Bettany movie with Jennifer Connelly, “Shelter”, with UTA at Tiff. “In Venice I have Bogdanovich’s ‘She's Funny that Way’ which is in a three way split between me, CAA and UTA and Joe Dante's movie ‘Burying the Ex’ which I'm doing with CAA.”
Steven Raphael and Mj Pekos were fronting for the reception and also are repping “Voiceover” and “Dark Horse” at Tiff.
There was no need to show trailers to the buzz films like the Gala film “Foxcatcher”, which has Oscar expectations are already swirling around it and which premiered in Cannes and is being sold by Kimberly Fox’s Panorama Media and Annapurna (already sold to Sony Pictures Classics for U.S. as well as to Canada-Métropole Films Distribution and Mongrel Media Inc., France-Mars Films, Germany-Koch Media Gmbh, Japan-Longride Inc. So. Korea-Green Narae Media, Switzerland-Ascot Elite Entertainment Group, Taiwan-Long Shong International, United Kingdom- Entertainment One Uk. The film has already earned Bennett Miller the Best Director prize at Cannes.
Another not previewing was Benedict Cumberbatch starring in the much talked about Alan Turing biopic “ The Imitation Game”, and his portrayal of the legendary British code breaker and mathematician is generating talk of a Best Actor nod at this year's Academy Awards. FilmNation is repping this and has already sold it to The Weinstein Company for U.S., Belgium to Paradiso Filmed Entertainment, Greece to Seven Films, Hong Kong (China) to Edko Films Ltd, Israel to Lev Films (Shani Films), Italy toVidea - Cde S.P.A., Japan toGaga Corporation, So. Korea to Medialog Corp., Sweden to Svensk Filmindustri, Ab, Switzerland to Ascot Elite Entertainment Group, Taiwan to Applause Entertainment Ltd. Taiwan Branch, Thailand to M Pictures Co., Ltd.
Two other hot films are Lone Scherfig's “The Riot Club” repped by Hanway and already sold to Universal Pictures for No. America, Belgium-Lumière, France-Selective Films, Germany-Prokino Filmverleih Gmbh, Hong Kong (China)-Golden Scene Company Limited, Italy-Notorious Pictures, Benelux-Lumiere, Poland-Kino Swiat, Switzerland-Pathe Films Ag, United Arab Emirates-Front Row Filmed Entertainment and the U.K. Kingdom-Universal Pictures International and Noah Baumbach's “ While We're Young”, produced by Scott Rudin and repped by FilmNation (again!), with no sales on record yet.
See Cameron Bailey on CBC News discussing Tiff:
Video | TIFF2014: 4 buzz-worthy films at the fest If you want to know more about sales in Toronto, please check back with www.SydneysBuzz.com/Reports for the Toronto By Numbers Report and after the festival for the Toronto Rights Roundup.
- 9/1/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
By the time of his death in April of this year, Roger Ebert had firmly established himself as being, among other things, the most famous film critic of all time. For decades, filmmakers and film fans from all over the world relied on Ebert’s writings and television broadcasts to not only illuminate us on what treasures the film world had available for us that we might not have already seen, but also to deepen our understanding and appreciation for the great works that we had. He was one of the voices who helped elevate the world of movies from being viewed as a commercially-driven entertainment racket to being to seen as a legitimate art form as worthy of dissection and discussion as any other, and because of that the film industry has taken every opportunity over the last few months to pay tribute to the man as often as possible. The...
- 9/4/2013
- by Nathan Adams
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Goodbye Genies and Geminis, and the inherent confusion of having TV and movie awards so closely named, and hello Canadian Screen Awards.
Announced today, honours for the best on screens both big and small will be combined into one overall award that also seeks to take into account what else Canadians are creating on platforms beyond television and film with the introduction of a digital media component, an attempt to modernize the award and reflect how people consume media.
"The Canadian Screen Awards celebrate the beginning of a new era in multi-platform entertainment," said Academy CEO Helga Stephenson in an email press release. "Canadians are watching and consuming in a million different ways now, from the silver screen to the mobile screen, so we've updated the Academy to today's multi-screen reality with the launch of the first ever Canadian Screen Awards."...
Announced today, honours for the best on screens both big and small will be combined into one overall award that also seeks to take into account what else Canadians are creating on platforms beyond television and film with the introduction of a digital media component, an attempt to modernize the award and reflect how people consume media.
"The Canadian Screen Awards celebrate the beginning of a new era in multi-platform entertainment," said Academy CEO Helga Stephenson in an email press release. "Canadians are watching and consuming in a million different ways now, from the silver screen to the mobile screen, so we've updated the Academy to today's multi-screen reality with the launch of the first ever Canadian Screen Awards."...
- 1/15/2013
- by Andrea Miller
- Cineplex
This year’s Toronto was competing in my psyche with the recent loss of my mother. My focus was less on finding the greatest of films this year. I hear from others that the festival offered a good mix, if not the most outstanding, selection of films. Personally, I am discovering that a new community has opened its arms to me and the films that are standing out most for me are by women and about women. My community, those women who have lost their mothers, is sharing a unique and profound rite of passage whose meaning continuously unfolds.
In Toronto I was hyper aware of the women and their position in this corner of the world I inhabit. Canadian women, Helga Stephenson, Director Emerita of the Toronto Film Festival, predecessor to Piers Handling; Michele Maheux, Executive Director and COO of Tiff ever since I've known her which has been a long time; Linda Beath who headed United Artists when I was beginning my career and who has since moved to Europe where she teaches at Eave (European Audio Visual Entrepreneurs), Kay Armitrage, programmer of the festival for 24 years and professor at University of Toronto, are all women to helped me envisage myself as a professional in the film business, and they are still as vibrant and active as when we met more than 25 years ago. Carolle Brabant, Telefilm Canada’s Executive Director continues Canada’s female lineage as does Karen Thorne-Stone, the President and CEO of Ontario Media Development Corporation.
18 films currently are in a large part attributable to Omdc; they include Nisha Pahuja’s doc The World Before Her (contact Cinetic) (Best Doc Feature of 2012 Tribeca Ff), Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz (Isa: TF1), Deepa Mehta’s Midnight’s Children (Isa: FilmNation), Anita Doron’s The Lesser Blessed, (Isa: EOne) Ruba Nadda’s Inescapable (Isa: Myriad), Alison Rose’s doc, Following the Wise Men.
Tiff’s new program for year-round support of mid-level Canadian filmmakers, Studio, under the directorship of Hayet Benkara is bringing industry mentorship to 16 filmmakers with experience, shorts in the festival circuit, features in development. Exactly half of these filmmakers are women. This was a conscious move on Hayet’s part. She said there is always such a predominance of males without thinking about it that she decided to bring balance.
Then a look at some more of the Canadian talent here brings me to the Birks Diamonds celebration of seven Canadian women: Anais Barbeau-Lavalette, Manon Briand, Anita Doron, Deepa Mehta (Midnight’s Children), Kate Melville, and Ruba Nadda which honored each with a Birks diamond pendant in a reception hosted by Shangri-La Hotel and Telefilm Canada where 300 guests mingled and caught up with each other. The pre-eminence of women was again made so apparent to me.
Talking to publicist Jim Dobson at Indie PR at the reception of Jordanian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir whose film When I Saw You was so evocative of the 60s, a time of worldwide freedom and even optimism among the fedayeem in Jordan looking to resist the Expulsion of the Palestinians from Palestine; he said that all five of his clients here are women directors, “I had When I Saw You, (Isa: The Match Factory), Satellite Boy (Isa: Celluloid Dreams/ Nightmare), Hannah Arendt (The Match Factory), Inch'allah (Isa: eOne), English Vinglish (Isa: Eros Int')."
Of the 289 features here at Tiff, Melissa Silverstein at Women and Hollywood is trying to zero in on the women directors, so watch her blogs More Women-Directed Films Nab Deals out of Tiff, Tiff Preview: Women Directors to Watch and Tiff Preview: The Female Directing Masters Playing at the 2012 Toronto Film Festival.
Add to this the upcoming Sundance initiative on women directors that Keri Putnam is heading up (more on that later!) and I am feeling heartened by the consciousness of women, directors and otherwise, out there. That is saying a lot since last season in Cannes with the pathetic number of women directors showing up in the festival and sidebars this past spring.
Here is the Female Factor for Tiff 12 which scores an A in my book:
Gala Presentations - 6 out of 20 = c. 30% which is way above the usual 13% which has been the average up until Cannes upended that with its paltry 2%..2 of these were opening night films.
Mira Nair The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Also showed in Venice. Isa: K5. Picked up for U.S. and Canada by IFC. Shola Lynch Free Angela & All Political Prisoners. Isa: Elle Driver Deepa Mehta Midnight’s Children. Isa: FilmNation already sold to Roadshow for Australia/ N.Z., Unikorea for So. Korea, DeaPlaneta for Spain. Ruba Nadda Inescapable. Isa: Myriad. Canada: Alliance. Liz Garbus Love, Marilyn. Isa: StudioCanal. HBO picked up No. American TV rights. Madman has Australia. Gauri Shinde English Vinglish. Isa: Eros International.
Masters – 0 – Could we say that women directors have not been around that long or shown such longevity as the men? Lina Wertmiller was a long time ago. I don’t even know if she is still alive. Ida Lupino was an anomaly. Who else was there in those early days? Alice Guy-Blaché ?
Special Presentations - 13 out of 70 = 19%
Everybody Has A Plan - Argentina/ Germany/ Spain - Ana Piterbarg - Isa: Twentieth Century Fox International - U.S.: Ld Entertainment, U.K.: Metrodome Lines Of Wellington - Also in Venice, San Sebastian Ff - Portugal - Valeria Sarmiento - Isa: Alfama Films. Germany: Ksm Cloud Atlas--Germany - Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski - Isa: Focus Int'l. - U.S. and Canada: Warner Bros. , Brazil - Imagem, Finland - Future Film, Eastern Europe - Eeap, Germany X Verleih, Greece - Odeon, Iceland - Sensa, India - PVR, So. Korea - Bloomage, Benelux - Benelux Film Distributors, Inspire, Slovenia - Cenemania, Sweden - Noble, Switzerland - Ascot Elite, Taiwan - Long Shong, Turkey - Chantier Inch'allah – Canada - Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette - Isa and Canada: Entertainment One Films Hannah Arendt – Germany – Margarethe von Trotta – Isa: The Match Factory Imogine – U.S. – Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini - Isa: Voltage. U.S.: Lionsgate/ Roadside Attractions acquired from UTA, Netherlands: Independent Ginger and Rosa – U.K. – Sally Potter – Isa: The Match Factory. U.S. contact Cinetic Love is All You Need – Also played in Venice) Denmark – Susanne Bier – Isa: TrustNordisk - U.S. : Sony Pictures Classics, Canada: Mongrel, Australia - Madman, Brazil - Art Films, Bulgaria - Pro Films, Colombia - Babilla Cine, Czech Republic - Aerofilms, Finland - Matila Rohr Nordisk, Germany - Prokino, Hungary - Cirko, Italy - Teodora, Japan - Longride, Poland - Gutek, Portugal - Pepperview Lore – Australia/ Germany/ U.K. – Cate Shortland – Isa: Memento. U.S.: Music Box, France: Memento, Germany - Piffl, Hong Hong - Encore Inlight, So. Korea - Line Tree, Benelux - ABC/ Cinemien, U.K., Artificial Eye Dreams for Sale – Japan – Miwa Nishkawa – Isa: Asmik Ace Stories We Tell – Canada – Sarah Polley - Isa: Nfb. U.K.: Artificial Eye Liverpool – Canada – Marion Briand - Isa: Max Films. Canada: Remstar Venus and Serena – U.S./ U.K. – Michelle Major, Maikin Baird. Producer's Rep: Cinetic
Mavericks - 3 out of 7 “Conversations With” were with women (43%)
Discovery 11 out of 27 = 40% which includes The-Hottest-Public Ticket for the Israeli Film directly below (a Major Buzz Film Among its Public)
Fill the Void by Rama Burshtein, a first-time-ever Hasidic woman director Kate Melville’s Picture Day Alice Winocour Augustine - Isa: Kinology 7 Cajas by Tana Schembori from Paraguay - Isa: Shoreline Gabriela Pichler’s Eat Sleep Die from Sweden, Serbia and Croatia - Isa: Yellow Affair Oy Rola Nashef’s Detroit Unleaded France’s Sylive Michel’s Our Little Differences Contact producer Pallas Film Russian censored film Clip from Serbia by Maja Milos - Isa: Wide sold to Kmbo for France, Maywin for Sweden, Artspoitation for U.S. Satellite Boy by Australian Catriona McKenzie - Isa: Celluloid Dreams/ Nightmares Ramaa Mosley’s The Brass Teapot - Isa: TF1 sold to Magnolia for U.S., Intercontinental for Hong Kong, Cien for Mexico, Vendetta for New Zealand Veteran Korean-American Grace Lee’s Janeane from Des Moines.
Tiff Docs 7 out of 29 = 24% - Women traditionally have directed a greater portion of docs
Christine Cynn (codirector ) The Act of Killing - Isa: Cinephil Janet Tobias No Place on Earth - Isa: Global Screen Sarah Burns (codirector) The Central Park Five Isa: PBS sold to Sundance Select for U.S. Treva Wurmfeld Shepard & Dark - Contact Tangerine Entertainment Nina Davenport First Comes Love - Contact producer Marina Zenovich Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out - Isa: Films Distribution Halla Alabdalla As If We Were Catching a Cobra (Comme si nous attraptions un cobra) about the art of caricature in Egypt and Syria! Halla is Syrian herself, studied science and sociology in Syria and Paris - Isa: Wide
Contemporary World Cinema 11 out of 61 = 18%
Children of Sarajevo by Aida Begic, Sarajevo - Isa: Pyramide Baby Blues by Katarzyna Rostaniec, Poland. Contact producer The Cowards Who Looked to the Sky by Yuki Tanada, Japan - Isa: Toei Comrade Kim Goes Flying by Anja Daelemans (co-director), Belgium/ No. Korea. The first western financed film out of No. Korea Three Worlds by Catherine Corsini, France - Isa: Pyramide sold to Lumiere for Benelux, Pathe for Switzerland Middle of Nowhere by Ava DuVernay, U.S. - Contact Paradigm Talent Agency The Lesser Blessed by Anita Doron, Canada - Isa: eOne Watchtower by Pelin Esmer, Turkey/ France/ Germany- Isa: Visit Films Jackie by Antoinette Beumer, Netherlands - Isa: Media Luna When I Saw You by Annemarie Jacir, Palestine,/ Jordan/ Greece All that Matters is Past by Sara Johnsen, Norway- Isa: TrustNordisk
Tiff Kids 0 out of 5. Any meaning to this???
City To City – Mumbai 0 Out Of 10 Any meaning to this???
Vanguard 2 out of 15 = 13% (the average for most festivals)
90 Minutes– Norway – Eva Sorhaug - Isa: Level K Peaches Does Herself – Germany - Peaches. Contact producer. See Indiewire review.
Midnight Madness 0 out of 9 which is fine with me, thank you. This is a boy's genre or a date-night genre for girls and boys with a plan for the night.
In Toronto I was hyper aware of the women and their position in this corner of the world I inhabit. Canadian women, Helga Stephenson, Director Emerita of the Toronto Film Festival, predecessor to Piers Handling; Michele Maheux, Executive Director and COO of Tiff ever since I've known her which has been a long time; Linda Beath who headed United Artists when I was beginning my career and who has since moved to Europe where she teaches at Eave (European Audio Visual Entrepreneurs), Kay Armitrage, programmer of the festival for 24 years and professor at University of Toronto, are all women to helped me envisage myself as a professional in the film business, and they are still as vibrant and active as when we met more than 25 years ago. Carolle Brabant, Telefilm Canada’s Executive Director continues Canada’s female lineage as does Karen Thorne-Stone, the President and CEO of Ontario Media Development Corporation.
18 films currently are in a large part attributable to Omdc; they include Nisha Pahuja’s doc The World Before Her (contact Cinetic) (Best Doc Feature of 2012 Tribeca Ff), Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz (Isa: TF1), Deepa Mehta’s Midnight’s Children (Isa: FilmNation), Anita Doron’s The Lesser Blessed, (Isa: EOne) Ruba Nadda’s Inescapable (Isa: Myriad), Alison Rose’s doc, Following the Wise Men.
Tiff’s new program for year-round support of mid-level Canadian filmmakers, Studio, under the directorship of Hayet Benkara is bringing industry mentorship to 16 filmmakers with experience, shorts in the festival circuit, features in development. Exactly half of these filmmakers are women. This was a conscious move on Hayet’s part. She said there is always such a predominance of males without thinking about it that she decided to bring balance.
Then a look at some more of the Canadian talent here brings me to the Birks Diamonds celebration of seven Canadian women: Anais Barbeau-Lavalette, Manon Briand, Anita Doron, Deepa Mehta (Midnight’s Children), Kate Melville, and Ruba Nadda which honored each with a Birks diamond pendant in a reception hosted by Shangri-La Hotel and Telefilm Canada where 300 guests mingled and caught up with each other. The pre-eminence of women was again made so apparent to me.
Talking to publicist Jim Dobson at Indie PR at the reception of Jordanian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir whose film When I Saw You was so evocative of the 60s, a time of worldwide freedom and even optimism among the fedayeem in Jordan looking to resist the Expulsion of the Palestinians from Palestine; he said that all five of his clients here are women directors, “I had When I Saw You, (Isa: The Match Factory), Satellite Boy (Isa: Celluloid Dreams/ Nightmare), Hannah Arendt (The Match Factory), Inch'allah (Isa: eOne), English Vinglish (Isa: Eros Int')."
Of the 289 features here at Tiff, Melissa Silverstein at Women and Hollywood is trying to zero in on the women directors, so watch her blogs More Women-Directed Films Nab Deals out of Tiff, Tiff Preview: Women Directors to Watch and Tiff Preview: The Female Directing Masters Playing at the 2012 Toronto Film Festival.
Add to this the upcoming Sundance initiative on women directors that Keri Putnam is heading up (more on that later!) and I am feeling heartened by the consciousness of women, directors and otherwise, out there. That is saying a lot since last season in Cannes with the pathetic number of women directors showing up in the festival and sidebars this past spring.
Here is the Female Factor for Tiff 12 which scores an A in my book:
Gala Presentations - 6 out of 20 = c. 30% which is way above the usual 13% which has been the average up until Cannes upended that with its paltry 2%..2 of these were opening night films.
Mira Nair The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Also showed in Venice. Isa: K5. Picked up for U.S. and Canada by IFC. Shola Lynch Free Angela & All Political Prisoners. Isa: Elle Driver Deepa Mehta Midnight’s Children. Isa: FilmNation already sold to Roadshow for Australia/ N.Z., Unikorea for So. Korea, DeaPlaneta for Spain. Ruba Nadda Inescapable. Isa: Myriad. Canada: Alliance. Liz Garbus Love, Marilyn. Isa: StudioCanal. HBO picked up No. American TV rights. Madman has Australia. Gauri Shinde English Vinglish. Isa: Eros International.
Masters – 0 – Could we say that women directors have not been around that long or shown such longevity as the men? Lina Wertmiller was a long time ago. I don’t even know if she is still alive. Ida Lupino was an anomaly. Who else was there in those early days? Alice Guy-Blaché ?
Special Presentations - 13 out of 70 = 19%
Everybody Has A Plan - Argentina/ Germany/ Spain - Ana Piterbarg - Isa: Twentieth Century Fox International - U.S.: Ld Entertainment, U.K.: Metrodome Lines Of Wellington - Also in Venice, San Sebastian Ff - Portugal - Valeria Sarmiento - Isa: Alfama Films. Germany: Ksm Cloud Atlas--Germany - Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski - Isa: Focus Int'l. - U.S. and Canada: Warner Bros. , Brazil - Imagem, Finland - Future Film, Eastern Europe - Eeap, Germany X Verleih, Greece - Odeon, Iceland - Sensa, India - PVR, So. Korea - Bloomage, Benelux - Benelux Film Distributors, Inspire, Slovenia - Cenemania, Sweden - Noble, Switzerland - Ascot Elite, Taiwan - Long Shong, Turkey - Chantier Inch'allah – Canada - Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette - Isa and Canada: Entertainment One Films Hannah Arendt – Germany – Margarethe von Trotta – Isa: The Match Factory Imogine – U.S. – Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini - Isa: Voltage. U.S.: Lionsgate/ Roadside Attractions acquired from UTA, Netherlands: Independent Ginger and Rosa – U.K. – Sally Potter – Isa: The Match Factory. U.S. contact Cinetic Love is All You Need – Also played in Venice) Denmark – Susanne Bier – Isa: TrustNordisk - U.S. : Sony Pictures Classics, Canada: Mongrel, Australia - Madman, Brazil - Art Films, Bulgaria - Pro Films, Colombia - Babilla Cine, Czech Republic - Aerofilms, Finland - Matila Rohr Nordisk, Germany - Prokino, Hungary - Cirko, Italy - Teodora, Japan - Longride, Poland - Gutek, Portugal - Pepperview Lore – Australia/ Germany/ U.K. – Cate Shortland – Isa: Memento. U.S.: Music Box, France: Memento, Germany - Piffl, Hong Hong - Encore Inlight, So. Korea - Line Tree, Benelux - ABC/ Cinemien, U.K., Artificial Eye Dreams for Sale – Japan – Miwa Nishkawa – Isa: Asmik Ace Stories We Tell – Canada – Sarah Polley - Isa: Nfb. U.K.: Artificial Eye Liverpool – Canada – Marion Briand - Isa: Max Films. Canada: Remstar Venus and Serena – U.S./ U.K. – Michelle Major, Maikin Baird. Producer's Rep: Cinetic
Mavericks - 3 out of 7 “Conversations With” were with women (43%)
Discovery 11 out of 27 = 40% which includes The-Hottest-Public Ticket for the Israeli Film directly below (a Major Buzz Film Among its Public)
Fill the Void by Rama Burshtein, a first-time-ever Hasidic woman director Kate Melville’s Picture Day Alice Winocour Augustine - Isa: Kinology 7 Cajas by Tana Schembori from Paraguay - Isa: Shoreline Gabriela Pichler’s Eat Sleep Die from Sweden, Serbia and Croatia - Isa: Yellow Affair Oy Rola Nashef’s Detroit Unleaded France’s Sylive Michel’s Our Little Differences Contact producer Pallas Film Russian censored film Clip from Serbia by Maja Milos - Isa: Wide sold to Kmbo for France, Maywin for Sweden, Artspoitation for U.S. Satellite Boy by Australian Catriona McKenzie - Isa: Celluloid Dreams/ Nightmares Ramaa Mosley’s The Brass Teapot - Isa: TF1 sold to Magnolia for U.S., Intercontinental for Hong Kong, Cien for Mexico, Vendetta for New Zealand Veteran Korean-American Grace Lee’s Janeane from Des Moines.
Tiff Docs 7 out of 29 = 24% - Women traditionally have directed a greater portion of docs
Christine Cynn (codirector ) The Act of Killing - Isa: Cinephil Janet Tobias No Place on Earth - Isa: Global Screen Sarah Burns (codirector) The Central Park Five Isa: PBS sold to Sundance Select for U.S. Treva Wurmfeld Shepard & Dark - Contact Tangerine Entertainment Nina Davenport First Comes Love - Contact producer Marina Zenovich Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out - Isa: Films Distribution Halla Alabdalla As If We Were Catching a Cobra (Comme si nous attraptions un cobra) about the art of caricature in Egypt and Syria! Halla is Syrian herself, studied science and sociology in Syria and Paris - Isa: Wide
Contemporary World Cinema 11 out of 61 = 18%
Children of Sarajevo by Aida Begic, Sarajevo - Isa: Pyramide Baby Blues by Katarzyna Rostaniec, Poland. Contact producer The Cowards Who Looked to the Sky by Yuki Tanada, Japan - Isa: Toei Comrade Kim Goes Flying by Anja Daelemans (co-director), Belgium/ No. Korea. The first western financed film out of No. Korea Three Worlds by Catherine Corsini, France - Isa: Pyramide sold to Lumiere for Benelux, Pathe for Switzerland Middle of Nowhere by Ava DuVernay, U.S. - Contact Paradigm Talent Agency The Lesser Blessed by Anita Doron, Canada - Isa: eOne Watchtower by Pelin Esmer, Turkey/ France/ Germany- Isa: Visit Films Jackie by Antoinette Beumer, Netherlands - Isa: Media Luna When I Saw You by Annemarie Jacir, Palestine,/ Jordan/ Greece All that Matters is Past by Sara Johnsen, Norway- Isa: TrustNordisk
Tiff Kids 0 out of 5. Any meaning to this???
City To City – Mumbai 0 Out Of 10 Any meaning to this???
Vanguard 2 out of 15 = 13% (the average for most festivals)
90 Minutes– Norway – Eva Sorhaug - Isa: Level K Peaches Does Herself – Germany - Peaches. Contact producer. See Indiewire review.
Midnight Madness 0 out of 9 which is fine with me, thank you. This is a boy's genre or a date-night genre for girls and boys with a plan for the night.
- 9/21/2012
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Helga Stephenson When I first began attending the Toronto Festival of Festivals as it was called in 1985, Helga was its executive director and she introduced me to her second in command, Piers Handling who has taken good care of us ever since. We still meet in Toronto and in December at the Havana Film Festival in Cuba. A few days after that infamous day September 11, she invited the stranded Americans to her home for comfort. For a while she disappeared into the corporate Viacom in Toronto, or would reappear wearing various different hats. Now she has been appointed…...
- 6/1/2011
- Sydney's Buzz
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