TIFF BELL Lightbox Apr 14-28

PROGRAMMING AT TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX

April 14 – April 28, 2011

SPROCKETS TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL FOR CHILDREN AND YOUTH

The 14th annual Sprockets festival takes place April 5-17, 2011 and showcases more than 100 films from 28 countries for children aged 3 through 18. The festival offers an exclusive opportunity for audiences to see films from around the world on the big screen, Q&A with filmmakers and guests, plus FREE on-site activities each weekend. This year, Sprockets has expanded its programming to public weekends, April 9-10 and 16-17.

Circus Dreams is the Closing Night film for Sprockets 2011 and will be screened on Sunday, April 17 at 4:15 p.m. at TIFF Bell Lightbox. This vibrant documentary examines the lives of the young performers of Circus Smirkus, a travelling circus group and training programme. The performers, all aged 12 to 18, not only have to learn the difficult arts of juggling and walking the tightrope while dealing with classic teen issues (gossip, burgeoning romance), but have to step up to save the circus when it faces a mounting financial crisis. Circus Dreams is an inspiring testament to the power of youthful dreams.

TIFF CINEMATHEQUE

Kaboom! The Films of Gregg Araki

Araki’s career intertwines themes of tragic romantic love and alienated youth set against the backdrop of post-punk anthems, hyper-stylized Valley Girl vocabulary and eye-popping art direction. Additional films in the series include Smiley Face (2007), his beloved slap-happy stoner comedy; Totally F***ed Up (1993), an expedition into the melancholic teenage wasteland of the ’90s; and Nowhere (1997), the Araki-described ‘Beverly Hills 90210 on acid’ starring Shannen Doherty, Rose McGowan, Ryan Phillippe, Heather Graham, Mena Suvari and Christina Applegate.

Totally F***ed Up
Saturday, April 16 at 7:30 pm

The Living End
Saturday, April 16 at 9:15 pm
Monday, April 18 at 7:00 pm

Smiley Face
Tuesday, April 19 at 7:00 pm

The Doom Generation
Wednesday, April 20 at 7:00 pm

Nowhere
Wednesday, April 20 at 9:00 pm

The Free Screen

The Free Screen is committed to independent and avant-garde works – contemporary as well as historical – and to an exploration of numerous art forms and disciplines as they relate to works of art made for the cinema.

Ne change rien – Toronto Premiere!

Thursday, April 21 at 7:00 pm

Hollywood Classics: April 24 to June 7

Focusing on recently restored or newly struck 35mm prints, this selection encompasses a broad spectrum of tones, styles and genres, from Ernst Lubitsch’s droll comedy Cluny Brown (1946), to Joseph H. Lewis’ corrosive crime film The Big Combo (1955). Paul Newman graces the screen in the moody atmospherics of Robert Rossen’s The Hustler (1961), while Jane Russell stars as an ambitious woman transcending the past in Raoul Walsh’s The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956). The mini-series of Fritz Lang’s American thrillers continues with Secret Beyond the Door (1948), Lang’s treatment of the classic Bluebeard story coloured by Freudian-Gothic traceries.

The Big Combo Joseph H. Lewis

Sunday, April 24 at 1:00 pm

Tuesday, April 26 at 6:30 pm

Canadian Open Vault

A Married Couple: April 15

Allan King, 1969, Canada

TIFF’s Canadian Open Vault programme is part of TIFF’s efforts to make our country’s rich cinematic heritage more accessible to audiences. Every year, TIFF strikes a new print of a Canadian classic and re-releases it theatrically. A re-struck and restored version of master filmmaker Allan King’s classic cinema-verité film, one of the most influential and celebrated Canadian films ever made , A Married Couple records the collapse of a couple’s marriage. The film captures a society in upheaval, unable to reconcile the new demands of women (and men) with the traditional roles ascribed to them. This special screening will be introduced by Zoë Druick, whose comprehensive and insightful monograph on A Married Couple was published in 2010 by TIFF and the University of Toronto Press.

Special PresentationS and Film Series

Family Classics

Debuting as part of the Sprockets Toronto International Film Festival for Children and Youth, TIFF’s new, ongoing series of Family Classics Saturday matinees kicks off with six films from the Disney vault including the timeless Mary Poppins (1964). From charming musical fantasies to grand adventures on the high seas and powerful sagas of the wilderness, these enchanting films continue to delight audiences of all ages.

Mary Poppins Robert Stevenson
Saturday, April 16 at 12:30 pm

Pete’s Dragon Don Chaffey & Don Bluth
Saturday, April 23 at 2:00 pm

In Conversation With…

Christopher Doyle on Chungking Express: Saturday, April 23

Wong Kar-wai’s visually dazzling fusion of offbeat romantic comedy and coolly postmodern reverie was a signature film of the millennium. Chungking Express follows parallel, inverted love stories involving two nameless cops (Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung), a spunky noodle-stand vendor (Faye Wong) and a mysterious, bewigged female criminal on the run (Brigitte Lin). Award-winning cinematographer Christopher Doyle – whose long and legendary collaboration with Wong Kar-wai has been complemented by films for such major directors as Stanley Kwan, Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou, Edward Yang, Gus Van Sant, Jim Jarmusch and many others – takes the TIFF Bell Lightbox stage to launch the exclusive run of Chungking Express and to discuss his work on this milestone of modern cinema and his extraordinary career as one of the world’s pre-eminent cinematographers

NEW RELEASES

Every week, TIFF will launch exclusive engagements, giving audiences multiple opportunities to watch the best of international and Canadian cinema’s past and present on the big screen. Regular $12.00/Students $9.50/Seniors $9.50

Release Date: Fri. April 15, 2011

Good Food, Bad Food

Coline Serreau, 2010, France, Mongrel Media

This urgent new documentary from activist-filmmaker Coline Serreau travels from France to India, Brazil, Switzerland and the Ukraine to interview people who are fighting both the ecological and political damages caused by corporatized food production and distribution. These individuals offer inspiring examples of self-sufficiency based on small, local facilities, freedom from chemical fertilizers and a sustainable and ecologically-sound method of agriculture.

EXHIBITIONS

Tim Burton – running to April 17, 2011

Only 5 Days Left for Audiences to Visit Before Balloon Boy Floats Away April 17!

This major exhibition, organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, explores Burton’s creative vision and his artistic development from early significant drawings he made as a teenager to sophisticated renderings used to create characters for his most treasured recent films. Tim Burton runs until April 17, 2011 at TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto. 

For the final week beginning April 11, the Tim Burton exhibition will be open daily Tuesday to Sunday from 10 am to 10 pm.

Mary Pickford and the Invention of the Movie Star - running to July 3, 2011

The inaugural exhibition in TIFF’s new Canadian Film Gallery, Mary Pickford and the Invention of the Movie Star chronicles the life and career of one of the first and greatest stars of the silent cinema. Amassed over a 30-year period by private collector Rob Brooks, this exhibition draws on his extraordinary collection of 1,900 items including photographs, posters, memorabilia, postcards, and products endorsed by Pickford. The exhibition is curated by Sylvia Frank, Director of TIFF’s Film Reference Library and Special Collections.