Toronto – From October 17 to December 14, Cinematheque Ontario’s Fall Season will offer Toronto audiences cinematic treats and restored buried treasures. Opening October 17 with a return engagement of War and Peace, the season also includes the sixth edition of Home Movie Day; retrospectives of the films of David Lean and Japanese master Nagisa Oshima; cutting- edge Canadian and international experimental works in The Free Screen; the Toronto premiere of The Exiles; a spotlight on the Cannes Film Festival’s prestigious Directors’ Fortnight programme; and the Canadian premiere of the restored version of Berlin Alexanderplatz.

Free Events

Cinematheque Ontario will participate for the third time in the City of Toronto’s annual Scotiabank Nuit Blanche celebrations taking place on October 4 with The Art of Silent Comedy, dedicated to masters of silent comedy. The eight-film selection features Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton and French silent film star Max Linder in his rarely screened Seven Years Bad Luck (1921), all with live piano accompaniment. The programme is co-presented by the Consulat Général de France à Toronto.

Now in its sixth year, Home Movie Day is an annual worldwide celebration of amateur films and filmmaking. On October 18, the Film Reference Library will present a curated programme of local home movies, and give audiences the opportunity to meet with archivists and learn about film preservation. Home movie submissions are being accepted until October 3rd. Call 416-967-1517 for further details about the event and programme updates, or go to filmreferencelibrary.ca.

Running from October 27 to December 10, The Free Screen continues to offer the most innovative filmmaking from both emerging and established film and video artists. This season’s programme includes “Cinema and Disjunction”, a co-presentation with The Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT), featuring the world premiere of new architectural films by artists Daniel Young, Christian Giroux and Adrian Blackwell; Free Films Made Freely: The Experimental Cinema of Paolo Gioli, featuring six films by one of Italy’s most important experimental filmmakers curated by Patrick Rumble; Takashi Ishida In Person, a selected retrospective of the film and video works of the renowned Japanese animator; and the restored archival 35mm print of Mário Peixoto’s Limite (1931), an enthralling and elliptical depiction of three castaways battling unforgiving waters.

Director’s Retrospectives

Encounter David Lean, running from October 24 to December 6, is a comprehensive retrospective that offers 16 films in total, including 10 new prints recently restored by the British Film Institue (BFI). The retrospective opens with Doctor Zhivago (1965), a sprawling epic that follows the doomed romance of Zhivago and Lara throughout the Russian revolution of 1917. Lean’s other multiple Academy Award®-winning epics are also included in the retrospective: Lawrence of Arabia (1962), a spectacular biopic based on accounts of British officer T. E. Lawrence’s efforts to unify various desert tribes against the Ottoman Turks during World War I; The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), tells the story of a group of British POWs forced by their Japanese captors to build the infamous titular bridge during World War II; and Lean’s last film, A Passage to India (1984), a powerful examination of politics, prejudice and cultural divide in British-ruled India. Audiences will also have the opportunity to see some of Lean’s early, intimate dramas such as This Happy Breed (1944), a Technicolor portrait of the trials and tribulations of a middle-class British family during the interwar years; Blithe Spirit (1945), a supernatural comedy of bickering wives and eccentric psychics; Brief Encounter (1945), a heartbreaking drama about an affair between a doctor and a housewife; and Hobson’s Choice (1953), a working-class comedy starring Charles Laughton as a despotic boot maker who will not allow his daughters to marry, considering them a fine source of free labour. The retrospective is co-presented by the BFI. 

After years of research and preparation, Cinematheque Ontario’s Senior Programmer James Quandt brings to audiences In the Realm of Oshima: The Films of Japanese Master Nagisa Oshima, the first major Oshima retrospective in North America in 20 years. Running from October 31 to December 9 and presented largely in newly struck prints, the 26-film retrospective will provide a substantial overview of Oshima’s transgressive and provocative body of work, including all of his fiction feature films plus two of his late documentaries. The retrospective opens on October 31 with a recently struck print of Cruel Story of Youth (1960), a vertiginous examination of the alienated, amoral and apolitical youth of post-war Japan. Shot and acted with ferocious intensity, Night and Fog in Japan (1960) is a cinematic essay on the dynamics of political movements in 1950s Japan, and marked a significant breakthrough in Oshima’s work. For many critics, the high point of Oshima’s independent Sozosha cinema of the 1960s was the exquisitely designed and shot Death by Hanging (1968), a stinging Brechtian black comedy that tells the true story of R., a Korean student who is hanged for the rape and murder of two women but survives his execution. Boy (1969), based on another real-life case, is a stunning and trenchant tale that follows a family who use their child to make money by deliberately getting involved in road accidents and making the drivers pay compensation. With The Ceremony (1971), Oshima incisively chronicles the powerful Sakadura clan’s fortunes and woes from 1946 to the film’s present, as its members gather for yearly ceremonies: burials, weddings, reunions. Oshima’s international period is most famed for his provocative In the Realm of the Senses (1976), based on a true story of fatal sexual obsession in 1930s Japan. In tune with the director’s previous filmic essays on racism and brutality, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983) brought Oshima another important critical success. David Bowie plays Celliers, a rebellious World War II POW in Japan, and Ryuichi Sakamoto plays the fanatical camp commander who becomes increasingly fixated on Bowie’s character. Taboo (2000), Oshima’s first fiction film in 14 years, set in 1865 Kyoto, is a powerful tale of homosexual desire among samurai.

Exclusive Limited Runs and Special Screenings

Back by popular demand, Sergei Bondarchuk’s epic masterwork War and Peace (1965–67) will provide Toronto audiences with the unique opportunity to compare and contrast it with the first fully-staged Canadian production of Prokofiev’s great opera, presented by the Canadian Opera Company from October 10 to November 1. Bondarchuk’s War and Peace, a sweeping adaptation of Tolstoy’s novel, follows five aristocratic Russian families whose domestic lives are shadowed by the war against Napoleon’s invading army. Presented in its original full-length Russian-language version, the film will be shown twice from October 17 to October 20.

Celebrating UNESCO’s designation of October 27 as World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, The Film Reference Library co-presents the recently restored print of Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s A Cuban Fight Against Demons (1972). In danger of disappearing forever, it stands as evidence of the spirit of experimentation that has energized the Cuban film tradition since the revolution. Alexandra Anderson, Associate Professor at Ryerson University, will talk about the international collaboration to save Cuba’s film heritage.

On October 25 and 26, Cinematheque Ontario continues its tradition of presenting the films of Russian master Alexander Sokurov, pairing his latest fiction feature, the poetic and allusive Alexandra (2007), with a special return screening of Elegy of Life: Rostropovich Vishnevskaya (2006), an intimate, probing portrait of late Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and his wife, opera singer and star of Alexandra Galina Vishnevskaya.

Kent Mackenzie’s astonishing debut feature The Exiles (1961) receives its long-overdue release. The film is a lacerating portrait of the isolation and hardship endured by the Native American community living in the once-prominent Bunker Hill area of Los Angeles. In its Toronto Premiere, The Exiles has three screenings on November 14, 18 and 19 and is co-presented with imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival.

Screening in a new 35mm print on November 28 and 29, François Truffaut’s L’Enfant sauvage (1969) was an international critical hit, and it endures as one of the director’s finest works. Based on the true story of a feral child discovered in the woods of Aveyron in 1798, the film draws on the medical reports of Dr. Jean Itard, who passionately took on the case for scientific research.

A Fortnight at Cannes: Forty Years of the Quinzaine, running from November 21 to December 9, is Cinematheque Ontario’s spotlight on the Cannes Film Festival’s prestigious Directors’ Fortnight programme, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this year. The series features 16 groundbreaking Canadian and international films, including Don Shebib’s Goin’ Down the Road (1970), the Canadian classic about two unemployed Maritimers who take off to unfriendly Toronto seeking the good life; Robert Bresson’s Le Diable probablement (1977), an uncompromising portrayal of the last six months in the life of a young Parisian in search of his death; Allan King’s A Married Couple (1969), the searingly honest portrait of a middle-class couple and their deteriorating marriage (introduced by Allan King); Djibril Diop Mambéty’s Touki-Bouki (1973), the Senegalese art-house favourite that follows the exhilarating odyssey of two alienated lovers through Dakar; Denys Arcand’s Réjeanne Padovani (1973), a powerful examination of the corrupt allegiances of class; Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets (1973), a gritty classic of American cinema; André Forcier’s L’eau chaude, L’eau frette (1976), concentrated on the inhabitants of a run-down tenement in Montreal; and Jean Pierre Lefebvre’s strikingly beautiful Les Dernières fiançailles (1974), a moving and unsentimental portrait of an elderly couple.

Cinematheque Ontario, in conjunction with the Goethe-Institut Toronto, proudly presents the Canadian premiere of the restored version of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 15-hour magnum opus, Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980/Remastered 2006). A towering cinematic monument, produced as a mini-series for German television, Fassbinder’s adaptation of Alfred Döblin’s novel came to symbolize the state of Germany during the increasingly tainted final years of the Weimar Republic, as the nation descended into imminent purgatory. It will screen in three parts from December 12 to December 14.

Ongoing Series

Classic Sundays: Treasures from the Bologna Film Festival screens seven films from October 26 to December 7.  This season features the Toronto premiere of a restored English version of Jacques Tati’s delirious Mon Oncle (1958), a brilliant satire about the impersonality, tedium and sterility of modern life; the beautiful archival CinemaScope print of John Sturges’s Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), a gripping tale of a town’s collective wartime guilt; Otto Preminger’s Bonjour Tristesse (1958), a devastating portrait of the carefree life of a rich playboy father (David Niven) and his teenage daughter (Jean Seberg); and Lev Kuleshov’s boggling The Great Consoler (1933), a film of startling narrative and visual invention, often cited as one of the bravest works against Stalinism.

Cinematheque Ontario screenings are held at the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Jackman Hall, 317 Dundas Street West (McCaul Street entrance), Toronto. Regular tickets are $5.90 for members and $10.14 for non-members. Limited Runs and Special Presentations are $7.08 for members and $11.56 for non-members. Lecture Series tickets are $9.91 for members and $15.33 for non-members. Prices do not include GST, building-fund fee or service charges. Films playing at Cinematheque Ontario that have not been rated by the Ontario Film Review Board are restricted to individuals 18 years of age or older. Our box office is located at the Manulife Centre, 55 Bloor Street West (main level, north entrance, open Monday to Saturday, 10a.m. to 6p.m.), or call 416-968-FILM or toll-free 1-877-968-FILM. Tickets go on sale beginning September 30 for members and October 14 for non-members.

Cinematheque Ontario thanks its supporters Bell, RBC, Ontario Media Development Corporation, Canada Council for the Arts, City of Toronto Economic Development Office, Toronto Arts Council and Ontario Arts Council.

Cinematheque Ontario is a year-round screening programme dedicated to presenting transformative world cinema through thoughtfully curated retrospectives, filmmaker monographs, and international programme tours. Cinematheque Ontario presents an ambitious selection of more than 400 films annually, including acclaimed director’s retrospectives, national and regional cinema spotlights, thematic programmes, exclusive limited runs, and classic and contemporary Canadian and international cinema, including many new and rare archival prints. For more information, visit cinemathequeontario.ca