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Toronto International Film Festival 2009
September 21, 2009 | 11:21 am

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Don McKellar talks about lovelorn phone calls, TIFF’s good ol’ days, and inviting strange women to his hotel room

Don McKellar misses Bette Midler

Don McKellar misses Bette Midler (Photo by Karon Liu)

Don McKellar is out to find romance on a modern day cellphone—and if that means being shady in a hotel room, so be it. This is the basic concept of Imaginary Lovers, an art installation consisting of four monitors showing films that McKellar has directed as part of TIFF’s Future Projections series. McKellar also kicked off the festival as a governor for the Talent Lab, had a role in Leslie, My Name Is Evil (the trippy Christian murder film) and starred in Dilip Mehta’s gala premiere, Cooking With Stella. Really, Don, next year you need to step it up.

Considering McKellar’s schedule is so barren, we thought we’d sit down with him and discuss loneliness and love—the themes that intertwine in his voyeuristic videos, most of which feature women of the world professing their love via grainy cellphones.

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Toronto International Film Festival 2009
September 18, 2009 | 10:43 am

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Rickshaws and Lisa Ray at Cooking with Stella premiere

Don McKellar and Lisa ray arrive at the gala for Cooking with Stella

Don McKellar and Lisa Ray arrive at the gala for Cooking with Stella (Photos by Karon Liu)

Yesterday’s Cooking with Stella red carpet was much like the Chloe premiere: most of the fans lining up were actually waiting for the next premiere (in this case, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits starring Natalie Portman and Lisa Kudrow). Still, people’s celeb hunger was insatiable, and most lingerers wanted a glimpse of those on the red carpet, even though they had no idea who they were—or, as a heavily accented older woman cruelly put it, even though they were “not populars.”

Director Dilip Metha arrived first, not in the black Cadillacs to which we’ve grown accustomed, but in a rickshaw decorated with streamers. Next up was star Lisa Ray, in a sexy purple number, who arrived on rickshaw with co-star Don McKellar.

Toronto International Film Festival 2009
September 16, 2009 | 8:00 am

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Today at TIFF: September 16, 2009

Our daily roundup of the most buzz-worthy opening galas, parties and screenings.

• The Last Waltz free public screening, Yonge–Dundas Square, noon
• Tillie’s Punctured Romance free public screening, Yonge–Dundas Square, 3 p.m.
• Cooking with Stella premiere, Roy Thomson Hall, 6:30 p.m.
• From Venice to MaRs party in celebration of Italian filmmakers (guests include Tilda Swinton), MaRs Discovery District, 8:30 p.m.
• My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done premiere, Visa Screening Room, 9 p.m.
• Love and Other Impossible Pursuits premiere, Roy Thomson Hall, 9:30 p.m.
• Cooking with Stella party (guests include Lisa Ray, Don McKellar and Deepa Mehta), Mildred’s Temple Kitchen

Toronto International Film Festival 2009
September 10, 2009 | 11:57 am

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Me and you and nobody else we know: How to score 96 hours alone with Danny Boyle

tilda

Tilda offers her star power to the TIFF Talent Lab (Photo by Attit Patel)

What’s a film freak gotta do to get locked in a room with Danny Boyle for four days? Win a spot in TIFF’s Talent Lab, that’s what. The Lab is a six-year old festival program, wherein 25 aspiring filmmakers are hand-picked and then guided through four intensive days of workshops, networking and good, old-fashioned gabbing with as many hot-shit industry insiders as TIFF execs wrangle. Yesterday we attended the 2009 Talent Lab launch, where this year’s picks gathered to find out exactly who TIFF execs could lay their hands on.

The answer: pretty much anyone they want. Besides drop-in guests like Tilda Swinton and Jane Campion, Labbers will benefit from the tutelage of four main “governors,” who volunteer for the entire 96-hour stint: Mr. Slumdog himself, hipster jack-of-all-trades Miranda July, Blindness writer/star Don McKellar and John Collee, the Aussie screenwriter who penned Creation, this year’s opening film.

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Toronto International Film Festival 2009
August 31, 2009 | 4:37 pm

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Skyy’s the limit: three celeb-inspired cocktails for TIFF

Splashmakers: Ellen Page, Lisa Ray and Sandra Oh are all turned into beverages (Photo by Kenny)

Splashmakers: Ellen Page, Lisa Ray and Sandra Oh have all been turned into beverages (Photo by Kenny)

Oscar buzz and party chatter were not the only things served up at the Hazelton Hotel’s TIFF event last week. Official sponsor Skyy Vodka unveiled its annual trifecta of celebrity-inspired cocktails, each with an unsurprising dose of—what else?—Skyy Vodka (although our preliminary research indicates that any kind of vodka can be used). The full list, after the jump.

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Toronto International Film Festival 2009
August 12, 2009 | 5:01 pm

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Thank you, recession: this year’s free TIFF events are surprisingly wonderful

Young on Yonge: sideburned Canadian rockstar Neil Young appears for free during TIFF (Photo by Félix Antolín Hernández)

Rock star Neil Young gives a free performance (Photo by F.A. Hernández)

Synonymous with velvet ropes, lavish parties and celebrities whose annual income rivals the GDP of Palau, the Toronto International Film Festival has never been a particularly thrifty affair—until now. TIFF is getting recession friendly in ’09 by offering expanded free programming at Yonge-Dundas Square (the kind that so irked Rex Reed last year), not to mention some A-list celebrity appearances. “It’s been a tough year for everyone, so everyone deserves a bit of a break,” says festival managing director Michele Maheux. And judging by the press release, it’s good to see they’re not phoning it in with the freebies: planned events include appearances by Neil Young, George A. Romero, Joan Baez, Sapphire and many more. The full list, after the jump.

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Toronto International Film Festival 2009
August 5, 2009 | 4:20 pm

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CanCon at TIFF: Atom Egoyan’s latest and Heath Ledger’s final film among newly announced titles

Even though it’s just a press conference, the announcement of TIFF’s Canadian lineup is considered to be the unofficial pre-gala kickoff for locals. Homegrown filmmakers, actors and distributors packed into the Royal York’s Imperial Room yesterday to pose for the camera and decimate the open bar and buffet table in a manner befitting this country’s underfunded film industry. Since a British film—Creation—was chosen for opening night, a Canadian project was widely expected to close the festival. Organizers didn’t disappoint. The honour went to The Young Victoria, a look at titular queen’s early years on the throne directed by C.R.A.Z.Y. filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallée. Other notable announcements included:

• Atom Egoyan’s Chloe, about a wife (Julianne Moore) who hires a PYT (Amanda Seyfried) to catch her husband (Liam Neeson) in the act of cheating;
• Reginald Harkema’s follow-up to Monkey Warfare—Leslie, My Name Is Evil—will have its world premiere;
• Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, the tale of a travelling theatre show staring Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Heath Ledger in his last role. A Canada-U.K. co-production, this one just squeaked into the CanCon category.

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