TIFF 2011: Eye of the Storm

Grace Wang  is both a Far-Flung Correspondent for Roger Ebert and a Programming Associate for The Toronto International Film Festival. She is, therefore, the ideal person to report on TIFF for The Spectator Arts Blog. In this, the first in a short series of posts, Grace introduces us to the inner workings of the festival and reviews one of its highest profile films. In subsequent posts, she will review a further selection of the best of TIFF 2011.

I used to watch movies at the Toronto International Film Festival. Now, I watch other people watch movies at TIFF. About 400,000 of them.

In a way, that sums up my latest experience of the largest film festival in North America and the leading public film festival in the world: no longer skirting on the edge of frenzy, I now peek out from the eye of the storm, and it is anything but calm.

It is disorienting, exhausting, overwhelming… This year’s festival took place on September 8th – 18th and showcased 336 films from 65 countries, including 123 world premieres, 28 international premieres and 98 North American premieres. Each film brings teams of talents, filmmakers, producers, agents and publicists who need to be taken care of – times that by 2-3 screenings per film and add in 1200 accredited media and 4000 industry people, and approximately 400,000 audiences who descend upon Toronto from all over the world, and you begin to have a slight idea of the scale of madness that strive and thrive over 11 days every September in Toronto.

It is also enchanting, exciting, elating… 17 programmes highlight everything from star-studded affairs (Gala) to master filmmakers (Masters) to avant garde visions (Wavelength) to documentaries that are stranger than fiction (Real to Reel). There is a strong Canadian presence with 34 Canadian features and 49 Canadian shorts.

The variety extends to running time as well: This year’s longest feature, Mark Cousins’s The Story of Film: An Odyessy (currently being shown on More4 on Saturday nights) flows 900 minutes long and was screened free twice throughout the Festival, providing a vital account of the history of cinema that also doubles as free film school to the public. The shortest films were 349 (for Sol LeWitt) and Ars Colonia at under 1 minute each.

In between, there were 61 first features from emerging filmmakers and 11 installations mounted in various venues across the city (Future Projections), not to mention a genre-loving, action-heavy Midnight Madness section.

But, it all comes down to one.

One film. One story. One theatre. One cohesive, collective cinematic experience at a time, in one of the most lovable cities on earth.

336 ones – each matters. Each got to give its all in front of some of the most well-informed, open-minded, and responsive audiences in the world, helped by some 2000 of the best volunteers anywhere. If you have something to say, someone in Toronto is listening.

That is the pleasure of attending TIFF, and that remains the pleasure of working for TIFF. This year, as a Programming Associate for Cameron Bailey, co-director of the festival, I screened submissions, wrote notes, introduced films, moderated Q&A sessions, hosted filmmakers and guests to ensure that they have the best experience possible during their time in Toronto.

I also slept very little and ate even less (not by choice), surviving on a diet of whatever was available at the venues I passed through, which usually meant undersized appetizers, overloaded cocktails, popcorn and caffeine. I lost my waistline and watched it all happen from the frontline – from the screener in my hand to the standing ovation on stage, to the look on the filmmaker’s face as he or she looks out into the roaring crowd – that moment is worth it all, for everyone.

Programming staff are not supposed to name favorites, and indeed it seems wrong. However, some films are so good that it seems wrong to not mention them. Beginning below, and continuing in future posts, are a few of TIFF 2011’s cinematic highlights and hidden gems that deeply moved me, and me alone, reflecting no opinion of others.

This selection is by no means exhaustive and is limited by what I saw, given that I simply didn’t have time to see everything I wanted to see and write about everything I wanted to write about. Listed in no particular order, these films share one thing in common: five months and hundreds of movies later, they stay with me still.

Wuthering Heights
Dir. Andrea Arnold

A timeless classic and a tragic love story of haunting proportions, Wuthering Heights has been criticized, analyzed, and adapted in many forms ever since its birth. Here, the incomparable Andrea Arnold bravely takes on the challenge and creates an effervescent take on the age-old tale of forbidden passion and doomed affair. Almost entirely devoid of a soundtrack, the film breathes with the damp, howling winds of Yorkshire moors and finds pockets of shimmering poetry in between the blows.

Shot on handheld cameras that sway and dart with the vague passions of youth, every look is captured; every touch felt, buried in wet black mud and carried on feathers of a bird in the wind. Emotions radiate instead of announce. Silences carry notes of tremendous repertoire. To say the cinematography by Arnold’s long-time DP Robbie Ryan is pure poetry is an understatement.

Following her gritty and uncompromising portrayal of fitful passions in Red Road and Fish Tank, Arnold goes even further here. Refusing the aid of sweeping score and elegant speech, she strips a classic tale down to its bones: where anguish floods, regret foams, love survives, but choices made in moments of youth cut eternal, and can never be undone.

Grace Wang writes the blog Etheriel Musings.

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