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Shhh. It’s the Toronto Silent Film Festival
Wednesday April 20th 2016Cinema’s first decades were as adventurous and innovative as any of the eras that followed the advent of synchronized sound. Alas, many of the period’s greatest films are already lost to the ages and others risk being forgotten or entirely ignored by viewers who mistake today’s blockbusters for anything new.
Back for its seventh edition, the Toronto Silent Film Festival is a valuable bulwark against such a sad fate. Several major restorations are part of the program, including Epic of Everest, the official filmed record of an attempt to reach the top of the world’s famous mountain by George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, two British mountaineers who disappeared during their expedition. Archivists at the British Film Institute recently crafted a restoration using the two surviving prints. Along with the magnificent mountain scenery, the footage includes some of the earliest known images of Tibetan culture. Toronto’s own Ensemble Polaris provides an original score for the presentation at the Revue on April 8.
Other weekend events include a program of vintage comedy shorts at the Revue on April 9 and Douglas Fairbanks in The Mark of Zorro at the Fox on April 10. The TSFF also returns to Casa Loma for a rare screening of the original 1925 version of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, a landmark cinematic extravaganza that famously included six sequences in Technicolor.
The TSFF wraps up with Romance of Fur Country, a 1920 documentary that was originally commissioned by the Hudson’s Bay Company to commemorate its 250th anniversary. A two-man camera crew spent six months crossing the nation to collect rare footage of trappers at work, remote trading outposts and even a potlatch ceremony. Though a big hit in 1920, it swiftly slipped into oblivion. A team in Winnipeg spent several years restoring and digitizing the film and the results screen for the first time in Toronto on April 12 at Innis Town Hall with live accompaniment by the indispensable Bill O’Meara.
The Phantom of the Opera
In another of this week’s bounty for lovers of not-very-silent silent cinema, Innis Town Hall and CINSSU cap off the winter term’s Free Friday Film program with a specially enhanced screening. Students from the Faculty of Music accompany the 1925 version of The Phantom of the Opera with a live performance of an original score by Andrian Ling.
Images Festival
Stimulating visual synapses since 1987, the Images Festival has grown into North America’s premier festival of experimental and independent film, video and other examples of moving image culture. The festivities officially get underway on April 14 with an art crawl at the 401 Richmond Street Building and an artist walk-through at Gallery 44 for Sarah Anne Johnson’s performance-based video installation The Kitchen. A recent award-winner at the 2015 Venice Biennale, Factory Complex by Korean artist Heung-Soon Im is the opening screening for the festival on April 15 – more picks from Images in next week’s Projections.
Takashi Miike’s Lion Standing in the Wind
Though the folks at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre are busy preparing for another edition of the Toronto Japanese Film Festival in June, they spare some time to host the Canadian premiere for a recent effort by ridiculously prolific Japanese auteur Takashi Miike. His 12th feature since 2010, The Lion Standing in the Wind is about a Japanese doctor who’s so moved by an encounter with an injured child soldier that he opens a mobile clinic in war-torn Kenya. A dramatic vehicle for veteran actor Takao Osawa, the film bears little resemblance to wilder Miike efforts like Yakuza Apocalypse but the director’s devotees will be intrigued all the same when it screens at the JCCC’s Kobayashi Hall on April 9.
Mouton
The first-feature prizewinner at Locarno last year, Mouton is an unusual French drama about a 17-year-old misfit living in a little town on the Normandy coast. Or at least that’s what appears to be until events knock the story off course. Variety critic Jay Weissberg praised this debut by the team of Marianne Pistone and Gilles Deroo as “a prose poem on the randomness of life itself,” which should be recommendation enough to attract discerning cinephiles to MDFF’s presentation of Mouton’s Toronto premiere at the Royal on April 12.
Source: Toronto Star
Front Page, Headline, Industry News
Shhh. It’s the Toronto Silent Film Festival
Wednesday April 20th 2016Cinema’s first decades were as adventurous and innovative as any of the eras that followed the advent of synchronized sound. Alas, many of the period’s greatest films are already lost to the ages and others risk being forgotten or entirely ignored by viewers who mistake today’s blockbusters for anything new.
Back for its seventh edition, the Toronto Silent Film Festival is a valuable bulwark against such a sad fate. Several major restorations are part of the program, including Epic of Everest, the official filmed record of an attempt to reach the top of the world’s famous mountain by George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, two British mountaineers who disappeared during their expedition. Archivists at the British Film Institute recently crafted a restoration using the two surviving prints. Along with the magnificent mountain scenery, the footage includes some of the earliest known images of Tibetan culture. Toronto’s own Ensemble Polaris provides an original score for the presentation at the Revue on April 8.
Other weekend events include a program of vintage comedy shorts at the Revue on April 9 and Douglas Fairbanks in The Mark of Zorro at the Fox on April 10. The TSFF also returns to Casa Loma for a rare screening of the original 1925 version of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, a landmark cinematic extravaganza that famously included six sequences in Technicolor.
The TSFF wraps up with Romance of Fur Country, a 1920 documentary that was originally commissioned by the Hudson’s Bay Company to commemorate its 250th anniversary. A two-man camera crew spent six months crossing the nation to collect rare footage of trappers at work, remote trading outposts and even a potlatch ceremony. Though a big hit in 1920, it swiftly slipped into oblivion. A team in Winnipeg spent several years restoring and digitizing the film and the results screen for the first time in Toronto on April 12 at Innis Town Hall with live accompaniment by the indispensable Bill O’Meara.
The Phantom of the Opera
In another of this week’s bounty for lovers of not-very-silent silent cinema, Innis Town Hall and CINSSU cap off the winter term’s Free Friday Film program with a specially enhanced screening. Students from the Faculty of Music accompany the 1925 version of The Phantom of the Opera with a live performance of an original score by Andrian Ling.
Images Festival
Stimulating visual synapses since 1987, the Images Festival has grown into North America’s premier festival of experimental and independent film, video and other examples of moving image culture. The festivities officially get underway on April 14 with an art crawl at the 401 Richmond Street Building and an artist walk-through at Gallery 44 for Sarah Anne Johnson’s performance-based video installation The Kitchen. A recent award-winner at the 2015 Venice Biennale, Factory Complex by Korean artist Heung-Soon Im is the opening screening for the festival on April 15 – more picks from Images in next week’s Projections.
Takashi Miike’s Lion Standing in the Wind
Though the folks at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre are busy preparing for another edition of the Toronto Japanese Film Festival in June, they spare some time to host the Canadian premiere for a recent effort by ridiculously prolific Japanese auteur Takashi Miike. His 12th feature since 2010, The Lion Standing in the Wind is about a Japanese doctor who’s so moved by an encounter with an injured child soldier that he opens a mobile clinic in war-torn Kenya. A dramatic vehicle for veteran actor Takao Osawa, the film bears little resemblance to wilder Miike efforts like Yakuza Apocalypse but the director’s devotees will be intrigued all the same when it screens at the JCCC’s Kobayashi Hall on April 9.
Mouton
The first-feature prizewinner at Locarno last year, Mouton is an unusual French drama about a 17-year-old misfit living in a little town on the Normandy coast. Or at least that’s what appears to be until events knock the story off course. Variety critic Jay Weissberg praised this debut by the team of Marianne Pistone and Gilles Deroo as “a prose poem on the randomness of life itself,” which should be recommendation enough to attract discerning cinephiles to MDFF’s presentation of Mouton’s Toronto premiere at the Royal on April 12.
Source: Toronto Star
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Front Page, Headline, Industry News
Shhh. It’s the Toronto Silent Film Festival
Wednesday April 20th 2016Cinema’s first decades were as adventurous and innovative as any of the eras that followed the advent of synchronized sound. Alas, many of the period’s greatest films are already lost to the ages and others risk being forgotten or entirely ignored by viewers who mistake today’s blockbusters for anything new.
Back for its seventh edition, the Toronto Silent Film Festival is a valuable bulwark against such a sad fate. Several major restorations are part of the program, including Epic of Everest, the official filmed record of an attempt to reach the top of the world’s famous mountain by George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, two British mountaineers who disappeared during their expedition. Archivists at the British Film Institute recently crafted a restoration using the two surviving prints. Along with the magnificent mountain scenery, the footage includes some of the earliest known images of Tibetan culture. Toronto’s own Ensemble Polaris provides an original score for the presentation at the Revue on April 8.
Other weekend events include a program of vintage comedy shorts at the Revue on April 9 and Douglas Fairbanks in The Mark of Zorro at the Fox on April 10. The TSFF also returns to Casa Loma for a rare screening of the original 1925 version of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, a landmark cinematic extravaganza that famously included six sequences in Technicolor.
The TSFF wraps up with Romance of Fur Country, a 1920 documentary that was originally commissioned by the Hudson’s Bay Company to commemorate its 250th anniversary. A two-man camera crew spent six months crossing the nation to collect rare footage of trappers at work, remote trading outposts and even a potlatch ceremony. Though a big hit in 1920, it swiftly slipped into oblivion. A team in Winnipeg spent several years restoring and digitizing the film and the results screen for the first time in Toronto on April 12 at Innis Town Hall with live accompaniment by the indispensable Bill O’Meara.
The Phantom of the Opera
In another of this week’s bounty for lovers of not-very-silent silent cinema, Innis Town Hall and CINSSU cap off the winter term’s Free Friday Film program with a specially enhanced screening. Students from the Faculty of Music accompany the 1925 version of The Phantom of the Opera with a live performance of an original score by Andrian Ling.
Images Festival
Stimulating visual synapses since 1987, the Images Festival has grown into North America’s premier festival of experimental and independent film, video and other examples of moving image culture. The festivities officially get underway on April 14 with an art crawl at the 401 Richmond Street Building and an artist walk-through at Gallery 44 for Sarah Anne Johnson’s performance-based video installation The Kitchen. A recent award-winner at the 2015 Venice Biennale, Factory Complex by Korean artist Heung-Soon Im is the opening screening for the festival on April 15 – more picks from Images in next week’s Projections.
Takashi Miike’s Lion Standing in the Wind
Though the folks at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre are busy preparing for another edition of the Toronto Japanese Film Festival in June, they spare some time to host the Canadian premiere for a recent effort by ridiculously prolific Japanese auteur Takashi Miike. His 12th feature since 2010, The Lion Standing in the Wind is about a Japanese doctor who’s so moved by an encounter with an injured child soldier that he opens a mobile clinic in war-torn Kenya. A dramatic vehicle for veteran actor Takao Osawa, the film bears little resemblance to wilder Miike efforts like Yakuza Apocalypse but the director’s devotees will be intrigued all the same when it screens at the JCCC’s Kobayashi Hall on April 9.
Mouton
The first-feature prizewinner at Locarno last year, Mouton is an unusual French drama about a 17-year-old misfit living in a little town on the Normandy coast. Or at least that’s what appears to be until events knock the story off course. Variety critic Jay Weissberg praised this debut by the team of Marianne Pistone and Gilles Deroo as “a prose poem on the randomness of life itself,” which should be recommendation enough to attract discerning cinephiles to MDFF’s presentation of Mouton’s Toronto premiere at the Royal on April 12.
Source: Toronto Star
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