TIFF BELL Lightbox May 12 -26

PROGRAMMING AT TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX

May 12 – May 26, 2011

TIFF CINEMATHEQUE

The New Auteurs: Wandering, Wondering: The Films of Kelly Reichardt

The New Auteurs series highlights the most important, daring and visionary of contemporary filmmakers. Each installment presents a solo retrospective, a Carte Blanche screening of a film selected by the filmmaker, and the release of their most recent film.

For its second installment, The New Auteurs presents celebrated American independent filmmaker Kelly Reichardt and her impressive body of work, from May 12 to 17. Reichardt implicitly addresses America’s state of mind with a quietly powerful poetic realism, while radically challenging the country’s founding myths and ideologies. This retrospective begins with a new print of her debut film River of Grass (1993) — a sun-drenched take on film noir — and culminates with the multiple award-winning Old Joy (2006), starring indie folk icon Will Oldham.  The series also includes the director’s newest release, Meek’s Cutoff (2010), starring Michelle Williams in a twist on the Western genre; Ode (1999), a moody Gus Van Sant-esque reconfiguration of a ‘60s Southern Gothic tale originally shot on Super 8; Wendy and Lucy (2008), which was awarded Best Picture by the Toronto Film Critics Association; and Reichardt’s Carte Blanche pick, Nicholas Ray’s modern-day Western drama The Lusty Men (1952), a lyrical and deeply emotional ode to male nostalgia, loneliness and illusions, presented in a rare archival print.

River of Grass

Thursday, May 12 at 7:00 pm

Meek’s Cutoff New Release!

Plays daily beginning Friday, May 13. See tiff.net for screening times

Wendy and Lucy

Saturday, May 14 at 7:00 pm

Monday, May 16 at 7:00 pm

Filmmaker Carte Blanche: The Lusty Men Nicholas Ray

Saturday, May 14 at 9:15 pm

Ode Toronto Premiere!

Sunday, May 15 at 5:00 pm

Old Joy

Sunday, May 15 at 8:30 pm

Tuesday, May 17 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 Hustler Robert Rossen

Sunday, May 15 at 1:00 pm

Tuesday, May 17 at 6:30 pm

The Revolt of Mamie Stover Raoul Walsh

Sunday, May 22 at 1:00 pm

Tuesday, May 24 at 6:30pm

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.

Double Tide Sharon Lockhart

Wednesday, May 25 at 7:00 pm

Special PresentationS and Film Series

Family Classics

TIFF’s new, ongoing series of Family Classics Saturday matinees kicks presents films from the Disney vault. 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.

Never Cry Wolf Carroll Ballard

Saturday, May 14 at 2:00 pm

Swiss Family Robinson Ken Annakin

Saturday, May 21 at 2:00 pm

In Conversation With…
Laurent Cantet on The Class: Wednesday, May 18
Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, Laurent Cantet’s The Class (Entre les murs) is a bracingly intelligent and quietly powerful docudrama that captures the challenges, triumphs and tragedies of the modern-day classroom. Real-life teacher and novelist François Bégaudeau plays himself in this fictionalized version of his own experiences instructing a racially mixed class from a disadvantaged Parisian neighbourhood. Subverting the usual pattern of the inspirational-teacher genre, Cantet pointedly illustrates how the students can teach, challenge and enlighten Bégaudeau as much as he can them. Laurent Cantet will introduce this special screening of The Class and discuss the process of making the film.

Student Film Showcase

Tuesday, May 24 in Toronto, Thursday, May 26 in Vancouver

TIFF hostsits eighth annual Student Film Showcase which features the work of student filmmakers from across Canada. Presented in association with the Film School Consortium — a national group of 16 universities and colleges — this programme celebrates Canada’s most promising young talent. Emerging filmmakers develop career-enhancing relationships and take part in panels and workshops with industry professionals.

LEARNING AND WORKSHOPS

Mary Pickford Weekend: May 14-15

In conjunction with the free exhibition Mary Pickford and the Invention of the Movie Star in the Canadian Film Gallery, TIFF presents a weekend of special events that explore the legacy of one of the greatest stars of the silent screen:

Saturday, May 14:

Mary Pickford: From Actress to Icon

Noted silent film scholars Charlie Keil and Rob King of the University of Toronto’s Cinema Studies Institute trace Pickford’s rise from anonymous player to movie star to global icon. Their talk will be followed by a specially selected programme of three key films from Pickford’s career: An Arcadian Maid (1910), The New York Hat (1912) and Wilful Peggy (1910).

Sunday, May 15:

My Best Girl
Curatorial Perspectives: Mary Pickford and the Invention of the Movie Star Exhibition Tour

The first 20 purchasers of tickets to the special screening of Pickford’s last silent film, My Best Girl (1927), will be treated to a discussion and guided gallery tour of Mary Pickford and the Invention of the Movie Star by exhibition curator and Film Reference Library director Sylvia Frank. Frank will explore the curatorial challenges of the exhibition and will discuss some of its major themes: Pickford’s Toronto roots, her contribution to film history, and her status as one of the first “celebrities” as we use the term today.

TIFF Next Wave: Battle of the Scores
Friday, May 13 from 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm

This new event created by the TIFF Next Wave Committee gives the traditional Battle of the Bands competition a cinematic twist. Teenaged bands will create their own scores to accompany a specially selected short film, and will then have the opportunity to perform their work life in one of TIFF Bell Lightbox’s state-of-the-art cinemas. The TIFF Next Wave Committee is supported by the Slaight Family Foundation Learning Fund.

2 Days to Make a Movie: Stop Motion

TIFF’s stop-motion animation boot camp returns, now condensed into two days of intense creation. Participants will work to script, storyboard, set design, prop design, costume/craft, edit and screen a short stop-motion film after two full days of fun, fantastical filmmaking.

Saturday, May 14 – Sunday, May 15 (ages 16–18)

Saturday, May 28 – Sunday, May 29 (ages 12–14)

Saturday, June 4 – Sunday, June 5 (ages 9–11)

All workshops run 10:00 am to 4:00 pm

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: Friday, May 13, 2011
Meek’s Cutoff
Kelly Reichardt, 2010, USA, KinoSmith Inc. 
It’s 1845 and a wagon team of three families have hired a guide to take them on the Oregon Trail and over the Cascade Mountains. They become lost and while suffering from hunger, thirst and fear, they encounter a Native American who forces them to reassess everything.  From Kelly Reichardt, the director of Wendy and Lucy, Meek’s Cutoff stars Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood, Will Patton, Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Shirley Henderson, Neal Huff, Rod Rondeaux and Tommy Nelson.

The Strange Case of Angelica (O estranho caso de Angélica)

Manoel de Oliveira, 2010, Portugal/Spain/France/Brazil

A charming magic-realist fable from Manoel de Oliveira, one of cinema’s true masters and, at 102 years of age, the world’s oldest working filmmaker. The Strange Case of Angelica centres on the young photographer Isaac, who is called late one night to take a final photograph of the recently deceased Angelica. When he looks through the viewfinder, however, the young beauty seems to return to life, smiling and beckoning to the astonished Isaac. Obsessed by this lovely, spectral vision, Isaac follows Angelica into a fantastical dream-world where the bonds of the earthly realm become ever more remote. Whimsical, beguiling and lovingly crafted, The Strange Case of Angelica is a moving ode to impossible love.

Release date: Thursday, May 26, 2011

The Invisible Eye (La mirada invisible)

Diego Lerman, 2010, Argentina

A taut, allegorical drama set against the backdrop of Argentina’s military regime in the early 1980s, The Invisible Eye focuses on Marita (Julieta Zylberberg), a lonely and repressed assistant teacher at an elite Buenos Aires private school. Eager to please the despotic head professor, Maria starts spying on her students; however, rebellion infiltrates the classroom when her surveillance starts feeding an unhealthy obsession with one of them. Diego Lerman’s adaptation of Martin Kohan’s award-winning novel Moral Sciences is a compelling portrait of how dictatorship affects even the most intimate aspects of life. The Invisible Eye is co-presented by the Global Film Initiative and is part of the Global Lens 2011 film series.

EXHIBITIONS

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.