Search results for: Lynne Ramsay

Not unlike other years, 2011 had its share of particular titles that dominated cinematic conversations (though I don’t recall ever having had more conversations about a new film than The Tree of Life), with the end of the year heralding shoe-in awards fodder for hotly anticipated, overbearing biopics, starring Meryl Streep and Michelle Williams.

TIFF's co-directors Cameron Bailey and Piers Handling have got us salivating with the smorgasbord list of world premiere offerings for next September. Opening film comes as a surprise, as we've haven't heard much about it, but seeing that doc filmmaker Davis Guggenheim has a great relationship with the festival, From The Sky Down a doc about U2 (20 or so years after Phil Joanou's U2: Rattle & Hum) will take centre stage. Doc-programmer guru Thom Powers makes sure that the fest will be a rocking good edition by also adding Pearl Jam Twenty from fanboy Cameron Crowe.

Today co-directors Cameron Bailey and Piers Handling of the Toronto International Film Festival announce the first batch of titles that are the make-up of the 36th edition. Today's the pair will read off mostly Gala screening mentions (our Blake Williams will be LIVE tweeting), which in turn give us a strong indication as to what will be shown in Venice and what Telluride, NYFF and BFI London Film Festivals might salvage/lasso as their own.

Following 2006's Pardonnez-moi and 2009's The Actress' Ball, in her third outing as a filmmaker, Maïwenn goes for the socially-minded type of a film packaged as a ensemble comedy with her misspelled titled Polisse.

Regardless what larger themes or shifting styles that are discovered or get attached to this year's Cannes batch, one of the major conversation starters is the prominence of global female filmmakers at the festival. There are 22 feature films by female directors (and I'm not even including the short films) which should be a record for any festival in recent memory.