Breaking out around the time where NYFF is on its last legs, Montreal's Festival du nouveau cinéma (October 12 to 23) kicks in with about four times the size in volume, and obviously more of an eclectic range. This year is the festival's big 40 - and for the occasion they've commissioned some of the names who've been a part of the festival to each contribute a short film in the context of what is being called the "Cartes Blanches" series. Denis Côté, Deco Dawson, Sophie Deraspe, Rodrigue Jean, Zacharias Kunuk, Marie Losier, Catherine Martin, Bruce McDonald, Théodore Ushev and Denis Villeneuve will each submit a four minute short.
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.
#10. Play - Ruben Östlund (Cannes 2011)
Riveting, harrowing, infuriating. Never has adolescent bullying and manipulation been so watchably mundane. Östlund has clearly got this meandering realism down to a T; applying it to a clearer form and purpose has its ups and downs in comparison to his previous, more free-form film, Involuntary. Borrows, and expands on, the better moments of Haneke's Code Unknown, which is to say: he understands the depressing impossibility of inter-cultural unity.
The final tally and full list of films presented at this year's TIFF have been announced today and hardcore cinephiles will have many options available to them out of the 261 film selected.