This is the tenth year that Brooke and I have attended the Toronto International Film Festival, though only the seventh together. We had a much easier time of it this year. Since we’re going to BC and Washington on the 18th (the last day of this year’s festival), we decided only to see ten films each, so we split a 30-coupon book with Brent. We got lucky in that the first box drawn last Friday was box 10, and our order form was in box 19 (out of a total of 40-odd boxes), so we were pretty confident we’d get most of our picks. We never dreamed we’d get all of them, but we did, so we were only in line for a little over an hour. We met up with our friends Philip and Ian and were able to go for breakfast before 11:00.
So, here are my ten films for this year. Reviews will follow:
- Thursday September 9 — 9:00pm — Letters to Ali (Australia, Director: Clara Law)
- Friday September 10 — 6:00pm — Drum (South Africa, Director: Zola Maseko)
- Saturday September 11 — 12:30pm — Ferpect Crime (Spain, Director: Álex de la Iglesia)
- Saturday September 11 — 3:30pm — Salvador Allende (Chile/France/Belgium/Germany/Spain/Mexico, Director: Patricio Guzman)
- Saturday September 11 — 7:15pm — The Alzheimer Case (Belgium, Director: Erik Van Looy)
- Sunday September 12 — 12:30pm — Les Choristes (France/Switzerland, Director: Christophe Barratier)
- Sunday September 12 — 6:00pm — Mondovino (USA/France, Director: Jonathan Nossiter)
- Tuesday September 14 — 9:30pm — Bad Education (Spain, Director: Pedro Almodóvar)
- Thursday September 16 — 5:00pm — Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (USA, Director: Ken Burns)
- Friday September 17 — 9:00pm — Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (USA, Director: Xan Cassavetes)