Must See ‘Martyrs’ part of TIFF’s Midnight Madness

The Toronto Film Festival announced the line ups for the Wavelengths, Sprockets Family Zone and Midnight Madness sections with names like Quentin Tarantino, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Gene Simmons participating to the festivities, but to be honest there aren’t that many films that peak my curiosity with the exception of Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs (see the picture above). A late 2007 pick up for The Weinsteins, this is the story of a terrifying cycle of violence that follows a group of girls. The picture is apparently so nasty, that France is almost banning the picture slapping it with a must be over 18 classification.

Two other titles that I have a low level interest are a meta-comedy from director Mabrouk El Mechri. The action laugher JCVD stars Jean Claude Van Damme playing himself in the midst of a post office heist. Cannes was bombarded by Cannes market advertisements for this project, and a caught a trailer for it and told myself this could be the first film of his that I might actually want to see. Finally, Mark Hartley’s Not Quite Hollywood is a docu film with talking heads such as Quentin Tarantino, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dennis Hopper and Stacy Keach whom all recall Australian exploitation films from the 1970s and ’80s. I’m always up for a refresher course in film studies, so this might be something worth checking out as well. The doc was picked up by the Magnet Releasing (Magnolia Pictures’s label).

Here is the list of films named for the section, I imagine there might be some additional add-ons. 

Mabrouk El Mechri’s JCVD
JT Petty’s The Burrowers
Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel’s Deadgirl
Miguel Marti’s Sexykiller
Toshio Lee’s Detroit Metal City
Mark Hartley’s Not Quite Hollywood
Jon Hewitt’s Acolytes
Prachya Pinkaew Chocolate
Franck Vestiel’s Eden Log
Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs 

Sprockets Family Zone

Marco Kreuzpaintner’s Krabat
Jacques-Remy Girerd’s Mia Et Le Migou
Gabor Csupo’s The Secret Of Moonacre
Thomas Borch Nielsen’s Sunshine Barry & The Disco Worms

Wavelengths sidebar: features six programmes showcasing works from James Benning, Olaf Nicolai, Pat O’Neill, Nathaniel Dorsky, Jennifer Reeves, Ben Russell and Jean-Marie Straub.