TIFF 2011: The Rest of the Canadian Line-up Brings Maddin, Vallée, McDonald, Pool, Veninger, and A Wealth of Shorts and First-Timers

With big names like Cronenberg and Polley already announced a couple of weeks ago, it came time this morning to announced the rest of the home team for the Toronto International Film Festival. This morning, they filled in some of the gaps in the Special Presentations, Vanguard, and Real to Reel sections, and at the same time presented the full line-ups for their Canada First! and Short Cuts programmes, the former highlighting feature debuts, and the latter comprised of a whopping 43 Canadian short films running anywhere from 4 to 28 minutes long.

We saw the announcements of Maddin’s Keyhole and Vallée’s Venice Days entry Café de Flore coming from a mile away. Invariably, almost all any given year’s Canada’s Top Ten list (a prestigious, juried selection of the ten best Canadian films of the year) have appeared somewhere in TIFF’s Canadian categories. Also from Venice, we have the non-Canadian helmer Mary Harron showing her filmed in Montreal vampire tale The Moth Diaries (featuring Canada’s new “it” actress of the moment in Sarah Gadon), and from Locarno film fest, TIFF receives Philippe Falardeau’s Monsieur Lazhar.

Of all of the announced titles, one of the more intriquing titles is one of the short films. Following in the footsteps of Wim Wenders’ already critically lauded film Pina (recently announced in TIFF’s Masters programme), Ora is a 3D dance film of a different sort. Filmed with military-grade thermal cameras, Philippe Baylaucq’s film captures the body heat of its figures in motion, in what is sure to be one of the most innovative films of the festival, Canadian or otherwise.

We’ve also got a doc from Léa Pool. Pool appeared in the 2008 festival with Mommy is at the Hair-Dressers, which eventually ended up in Canada’s Top Ten. This decidedly different turn takes a look at breast cancer, and the fundraising strategies that have fought the disease.

To commemorate Bruce McDonald’s sequel to his 90’s cult classic Hard Core Logo, TIFF is showing the update in their Masters programme (quite a compliment for Mr. McDonald!), and playing the original as this year’s pick in Canada Open Vault, which has shown Atom Egoyan’s The Adjuster and Allan King’s A Married Couple in recent years.

So we’ve now got a running total of 146 feature films, which is roughly half of the final tally for last year. Here is a full list of today’s announced titles:

GALAS
Starbuck Ken Scott, Canada North American Premiere

SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS
Afghan Luke Mike Clattenburg, Canada North American Premiere
Breakaway Robert Lieberman, Canada World Premiere
Café de Flore Jean-Marc Vallée North American Premiere
Edwin Boyd Nathan Morlando, Canada World Premiere
Goon Michael Dowse, Canada World Premiere
Keyhole Guy Maddin, Canada World Premiere
Monsieur Lazhar Philippe Falardeau, Canada North American Premiere
The Moth Diaries Mary Harron, Canada/Ireland North American Premiere

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA
388 Arletta Avenue Randall Cole, Canada World Premiere
Billy Bishop Goes to War Barbara Willis-Sweete, Canada World Premiere
I’m Yours Leonard Farlinger, Canada World Premiere
Sisters&Brothers Carl Bessai, Canada World Premiere

MASTERS
Hard Core Logo II Bruce McDonald, Canada Toronto Premiere

REAL TO REEL
Pink Ribbons, Inc Léa Pool, Canada World Premiere
Surviving Progress Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks, Canada World Premiere

VANGUARD
Doppelgänger Paul Dylan Akio Smith and Kris Elgstrand, Canada World Premiere
i am a good person/ i am a bad person Ingrid Veninger, Canada World Premiere

CANADIAN OPEN VAULT
Hard Core Logo Bruce McDonald, Canada

CANADA FIRST!
Programme’s Opening Night Wetlands (Marécages) Guy Édoin, QC North American Premiere
Amy George Yonah Lewis, Calvin Thomas, ON Canadian Premiere
Leave It On The Floor Sheldon Larry, ON Canadian Premiere
Nuit #1 Anne Émond, QC World Premiere
The Odds Simon Davidson, BC World Premiere
The Patron Saints Brian M. Cassidy, Melanie Shatzky, QC World Premiere
Romeo Eleven (Roméo Onze) Ivan Grbovic, QC North American Premiere

SHORT CUTS
4am Janine Fung, ON, 4’ North American Premiere
Afternoon Tea DJ Parmar, BC, 13’ World Premiere
Combustion Renaud Hallée, QC, 4’ World Premiere
Derailments (Deragliamenti) Chelsea McMullan, BC, 11’ World Premiere
The Devil’s Due Alexander Gorelick and Adam Shaheen, ON, 5’ World Premiere
Doubles with Slight Pepper Ian Harnarine, ON, 16’ World Premiere
The Encounter Nicholas Pye, ON, 7’ World Premiere
A Film Portrait on Reconstructing 12 Possibilities that Preceded the Disappearance of Zoe Dean Drum Eduardo Menz, QC, 11’ World Premiere
The Fuse: Or How I Burned Simon Bolivar Igor Drljaca, ON, 9’ World Premiere
Good Boy Isaac Cravit, ON, 5’ World Premiere
Heart of Rhyme Cory Bowles, NS, 16’ World Premiere
Hidden Driveway Sarah Goodman, ON, 5’ World Premiere
Hope Pedro Pires, QC, 10’ World Premiere
If I Can Fly Yoakim Bélanger, QC, 10’ International Premiere
Issues Enrico Colantoni, ON, 6’ World Premiere
Lie Down and Die Kyle Sanderson, ON, 7’ World Premiere
Little Theatres: Homage to the Mineral of Cabbage Stephanie Dudley, ON, 5’ North American Premiere
Mandeep Darrin Klimek, ON, 6’ World Premiere
No Words Came Down Ryan Flowers and Lisa Pham, BC, 23’ World Premiere
Of events (D’aléas) Mathieu Tremblay, QC, 9’ World Premiere
One Night With You (Une nuit avec toi) Jeanne Leblanc, QC, 13’ World Premiere
Ora Philippe Baylaucq, QC, 15’ World Premiere
The Paris Quintet in Practice Makes Perfect Benjamin Schuetze, BC, 11’ World Premiere
Patch Town Craig Goodwill, ON, 28’ World Premiere
Pathways Dusty Mancinelli, ON, 12’ World Premiere
The Pedestrian Jar Evan Morgan, ON, 4’ World Premiere
The Red Virgin Sheila Pye, ON, 17’ World Premiere
A River in the Woods Christian Sparkes, NL, 12’ Toronto Premiere
La Ronde Sophie Goyette, QC, 23’ North American Premiere
Solar Wind (Vent solaire) Ian Lagarde, QC, 18’ World Premiere
Sorry, Rabbi Mark Slutsky, QC, 10’ World Premiere
Spirit of the Bluebird Xstine Cook and Jesse Gouchey, AB, 6’ Canadian Premiere
Sundays (Les dimanches) Jean-Guillaume Bastien, QC, 14’ World Premiere
Surveillant Yan Giroux, QC, 17’ World Premiere
Tabula Rasa Matthew Rankin, MB and QC, 10’ World Premiere
Throat Song Miranda de Pencier, ON and NU, 15’ World Premiere
Trotteur Arnaud Brisebois and Francis Leclerc, QC, 9’ Canadian Premiere
Up In Cottage Country Simon Ennis, ON, 10’ World Premiere
Waning Gina Haraszti, QC, 8’ World Premiere
Water (Acqua) Raha Shirazi, ON, 8’ World Premiere
We Ate the Children Last Andrew Cividino, ON, 11’ World Premiere
The Weight of Emptiness (Le poids du vide) Alain Fournier, QC, 13’ World Premiere
A Yodeling Farmer Mike Maryniuk and John Scoles, MB, 6’ World Premiere