• 6 p.m. People’s Choice free screening at Ryerson Theatre

•  9:15 a.m. The Story of Film: An Odyssey free screening at TIFF Bell Lightbox

• 6 p.m. Page Eight gala presentation at Roy Thomson Hall

• 11:59 p.m. Kill List midnight madness at Ryerson Theatre

• 10 a.m. The Story of Film: An Odyssey at the AGO

• 6:30 p.m. The Awakening gala presentation at Roy Thomson Hall

• 9:30 p.m. Winnie gala presentation at Roy Thomson Hall

• 11:59 p.m. Smuggle midnight madness screening at Ryerson Theatre

• 10 a.m. The Story of Film: An Odyssey free screening at the AGO

• 6:30 p.m. A Happy Event gala presentation at Roy Thomson Hall

• 8 p.m. Hysteria official cast dinner with Maggie Gyllenhaal at the Roosevelt Room

• 9 p.m. The Day official cast party with Dominic Monaghan at FStop

• 9:30 p.m. Hysteria gala presentation at Roy Thomson Hall

• 11:59 p.m. The Day midnight madness presentation at Ryerson Theatre

He may have been conspicuously absent from the 50/50 press conference yesterday afternoon (apparently, he was stuck in traffic on the way from the airport), but Joseph Gordon-Levitt was all smiles and trademark squints at the film’s red carpet presentation at Ryerson Theatre later that evening. Director Jonathan Levine took his time in front of the cameras, instructing photographers to “make me look good, I need a good shot for my IMDB.” Writer Will Reiser brought his mom, and Bryce Dallas Howard wore a long, flowing blue and white number over a very pregnant belly (yes, she was glowing). Seth Rogen and fiancée Lauren Miller were adorable together, even kissing in front of the TIFF backdrop. And Anna Kendrick is just the tiniest most adorable little pixie of a thing. In a poofy turquoise frock and absurdly high heels, she tottered back and forth signing autographs for fans, charming the pants off of just about everyone. Finally, and inexplicably, came…Kathy Griffin? Perhaps she trying to bring her life on the D-list up to an A, or at least a B+. See our photo gallery, after the jump.

We learned something last night at the gala presentation for Ten Year at the Ryerson Theatre: ensemble cast movies about high school reunions deliver very crowded red carpets. Shining young face after shining young face glided by, stopping only briefly to do some intense posing. Seriously, these guys were posers. Cast member Beth Whitson came first. She’s modelled for Vogue, and in an elegant floor-length gown she looked like, well, a Vogue model. She was followed by Kelly Noonan (note: saucy neckline) and director Jamie Linden. Scott Porter dressed like he was coming straight from class, and Aaron Yoo spiced things up with a plaid shirt and vest combo. And oh, look at Oscar Isaac: that hair, those eyes, that…velour blazer? Ari Graynor went a tad overboard with the whole pouting for the camera thing. Then, finally, the (sort of) big guns: Jenna Dewan-Tatum, wife to Channing, strolled by in fuchsia, followed by Max Minghella in his second carpet appearance of the festival (he’s also in The Ides of March). We barely noticed Kate Mara, but only because Channing Tatum was hot on her heels, eliciting shrill shrieks from the audience. Last but not least came Justin Long, whom you may recognize as a Mac (not a PC). See our photo gallery, after the jump.

• 6 p.m. Like Crazy special presentation at Ryerson Theatre

• 6:30 p.m. Peace, Love and Misunderstanding gala presentation at Roy Thomson Hall

• 7 p.m. Festival Music House with Sam Roberts Band, The Sheepdogs at the Mod Club

• 7 p.m. Butter official cast party with Jennifer Garner and Olivia Wilde at Burroughes Building

• 8 p.m. Interview magazine and Joe Fresh party at the Spoke Club

• 9 p.m. ET Canada’s 6th birthday party at Spice Route

• 9:30 p.m. Butter gala presentation at Roy Thomson Hall

• 2:30 p.m. Intruders special presentation at Elgin Theatre

• 5:30 p.m. Ten Year official cast dinner at Grey Goose Soho House

• 6 p.m. 50/50 special presentation at Ryerson Theatre

• 6 p.m. Coriolanus special presentation at Elgin Theatre

• 6:30 p.m. W.E. gala presentation at Roy Thomson Hall

• 7 p.m. Neil Young Journeys at Princess of Wales Theatre

• 7 p.m. Festival Music House with K’naan at the Mod Club

• 8:30 p.m. Coriolanus official cast dinner at Grey Goose Soho House

• 9 p.m. Ten Year special presentation at Ryerson Theatre

• 9 p.m. Madonna and the Weinstein Company private dinner at Grey Goose Soho House

• 9:30 p.m. The Lady gala presentation at Roy Thomson Hall

• 10 p.m. Harvey Weinstein party at Grey Goose Soho House

• 11:30 p.m. The Lady official cast dinner with Michelle Yeoh and Bono

Kiefer Sutherland provided a little Can-Con at the Ryerson Theatre last night for the early evening premiere of Lars von Trier’s much-ballyhooed new film, Melancholia. Of course, the cheers for homegrown Sutherland were quickly drowned out when True Blood’s Alexander Skarsgård rolled in. He seemed to enjoy the attention, which we think is, you know, nice and all (also nice—all six feet, four inches of that vampire goodness). Not surprisingly, however, the movie’s star, Kirsten Dunst, ultimately stole the show, smiling profusely as she strolled along the carpet, looking retro-chic in a pleated white skirt and polka dot blouse. Fresh! But we have to wonder: where were the Charlottes (Rampling and Gainsbourg)? See the gallery, after the jump.

• 1:30 p.m Beloved gala presentation at Roy Thomson Hall

• 4:30 Eye of the Storm special presentation at Winter Garden Theatre

• 6 p.m. Your Sister’s Sister special presentation at Ryerson Theatre

• 6 p.m. Deep Blue Sea official cast dinner at Grey Goose Soho House

• 6 p.m. IFC Films Studio dinner at the Roosevelt Room

• 6:30 p.m. amfAR Cinema Against Aids Gala at the Carlu

• 6:30 p.m. Machine Gun Preacher gala presentation at Roy Thomson Hall

• 6:30 p.m. Albert Nobbs official cast dinner at Grey Goose Soho House

• 7:00 p.m. Shame special presentation at Princess of Wales Theatre

• 8:00 p.m. The Woman in the Fifth special presentation at Winter Garden Theatre

• 8:30 p.m. Your Sister’s Sister official cast dinner and cocktail at Grey Goose Soho House

• 9 p.m. Anonymous special presentation at the Elgin Theatre

• 9:15 p.m. The Deep Blue Sea special presentation at TIFF Bell Lightbox

• 9:30 p.m. Albert Nobbs gala presentation at Roy Thomson Hall

• 9:30 p.m. Killer Joe special presentation at Ryerson Theatre

• 10 p.m. The Skin I Live In special presentation at Princess of Wales Theatre

• 10 p.m. The Woman in the Fifth official cast dinner at the Roosevelt Room

Find this story on our Star Spotting Map, where we plot the locations of celebrities spotted around Toronto.

Breaking a killer fast, August 2003
“I had started a juice fast before I got to town. The cast and producers of This Is Our Youth—a play I was directing here—threw me a welcome party at Fresh. I thought I was just going to sit there, but I hadn’t eaten in 30-odd days. The smell was too much; I was onto those sweet potato fries before I knew it. God, those things are good. I’m kind of an extremist, so I’ll do the fast and then I’ll gorge. Same old bullshit.”

THEATRE
Bullet for Adolf
April 19 to May 7, Hart House Theatre

(Images: Yoga by George Pimentel/Wireimage; TIFF 2003 by Carlo Allegri/Getty; TIFF 2007 by Evan Agostini/Getty; Jane Goodall courtesy of Central Image Agency; Defendor courtesy of Darius Films; Bullet for Adolf by Ian Willms

1. Interactive Landscape Dune
Usually off-limits, Lower Bay Station has been the site of some of Nuit Blanche’s most eerie work. This year, Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde turns the subway station into a spooky interactive light sculpture that alters dramatically in shape according to the behaviour of the audience. Screaming encouraged. Lower Bay Station.

2. Monument to Smile
First displayed at the Rockefeller Center, Agnès Winter’s massive video projection finds a somewhat more prosaic home on the façade of Holts. At the Paris-based artist’s request, OCAD students took 250 photos of beaming Torontonians, and the results form a shifting mosaic, accompanied by the Charlie Chaplin song “Smile.” It puts even the most elaborate Christmas window display to shame. Holt Renfrew Centre.

(Top: Endgame By Max Streicher; bottom: Auto Lamp by Kim H. Adams)

3. Later That Night at the Drive-In
When Kiss sang “I wanna rock and roll all night,” they definitely didn’t have Daniel Lanois in mind. But that’s exactly what the art rocker is doing in this multimedia, multi-channel sound-and-light extravaganza. CanCon bonus: at midnight, Neil Young nuts get the chance to hear four new songs from his latest album, which Lanois is producing. Nathan Phillips Square.

4. Nuit Market Starring the Toronto Weston Flea Market
Mammalian Diving Reflex was behind one of the most beloved performances—an all-ages dance party in a gym full of rubber balls—at the inaugural Nuit Blanche in 2006. This time around, the avant-garde performance company (joined by vendors from the Toronto Weston Flea Market) transforms an alley near Ryerson into a bustling night market replete with bargains, services (on-the-spot teeth whitening) and cheap food. Victoria Street lane.

5. Reunion
In 1968, Ryerson and the Isaacs Gallery teamed up for a night of exceptional art and chess—games were played on a wired-up board that switched eight compositions on and off, depending on a participant’s move—starring John Cage and Marcel Duchamp, among others. Now, on the same stage, a dozen artists who knew or were influenced by those two titans (including original attendees Gordon Mumma and David Behr­man) gather for a redo. Ryerson Theatre.

6. Performance Café with Perforated Sides
For decades, conceptual artist Dan Graham has been building playful architectural environments composed of semi-reflective glass, stainless steel and mirrors. There are about 50 of his public pavilions around the world, and this newest one, with its two-way mirrored glass and moiré patterns, gives visitors to city hall’s green roof a trippy, vertiginous experience. City Hall.

7. Dance With Me
L.A. artist Kianga Ford encourages Toronto to shake its collective booty in a piece that both highlights the diversity of the city (a salsa can segue into a waltz into a reel into a tarantella, depending on the partner) and the ever-complicated jig between strangers. And you thought Step Up 3D was interactive. The Atrium on Bay.

8. Erik Satie’s Vexations
Experimental composer Martin Arnold takes Satie’s brief, notoriously difficult composition and performs it with an accompanist on two separate pianos 840 times. In turn, the compulsively prolific Micah Lexier transforms 840 copies of the score into paper sculptures. Brookfield Place.

9. Auto Lamp
Playfully deconstructed vehicles of all kinds feature prominently in Kim Adams’ work. In this rotating sculpture, a white Dodge Ram van is shot through with holes—a sort of vehicular doily—through which light pours out. Stare at it long enough and it becomes a lighthouse, a  mobile, and an oversized Christmas ornament. Yonge south of Queen Street.

10. Endgame (Coulrophobia)
You think one clown is scary? How about two enormous inflatable clown heads stuck between two buildings? This Max Streicher installation consists of vinyl recycled from billboards and transformed into balloon-like noggins whose expressions, thanks to varying air pressure, shift from the ghoulish to the (sort of) delightful. Alleyway between 67 and 69 Yonge Street.

• 6 p.m. Aftershock at Visa Screening Room (Elgin)
• 6:30 p.m. A Beginner’s Guide to Endings world premiere gala at Roy Thomson Hall
• 9 p.m. A Beginner’s Guide to Endings Post Screening Gala at UrbanAmish Interiors
• 9:30 p.m. Janie Jones world premiere gala at Roy Thomson Hall
• 10 p.m. At Ellen’s Age North American premiere at Bell Lightbox 3
• 11:59 p.m. Stake Land world premiere at Ryerson Theatre
• Frankie Knuckles at The Roosevelt Room Supper Club

From left to right: producer Alex Orlovsky, producer Lynette Howell, actor Faith Wladyka, actor Ryan Gosling, director Derek Cianfrance, and producer Jamie Patricof attend the Blue Valentine premiere at Ryerson Theatre on September 15, 2010 (Image: Jeff Vespa/WireImage)

Did you know Ryan Gosling had a brother? Neither did he. But the producers of Half-Nelson were on to something when they insisted Gosling meet “his brother,” Derek Cianfrance—the man who would eventually become the director of Gosling’s new flick Blue Valentine. Derek not only shares a passing physical resemblance to the Cornwall, Ontario, superstar (blue eyes, sandy hair), but they’re also the kind of guys who can spend nine-hour dinners talking about love. The film screened on Wednesday as part of TIFF, and we got to sit down with the director for a one-on-one.

In Blue Valentine, opening December 31, Gosling and Michelle Williams play a broken couple gasping the last breaths of their relationship, interlaced with touchingly romantic scenes from their courtship. Williams, who narrowly missed TIFF between wrapping the Toronto-shot, Sarah Polley-directed Take This Waltz and starting rehearsals in London for My Week With Marilyn (she plays Monroe), has been attached to this project for eight years, stretching back to when she was playing Jen Lindley on Dawson’s Creek.

By the time all the Hollywood awfulness was out of the way, 12 years after Cianfrance started writing the script, Williams was in the middle of a self-imposed break from acting following the death of Heath Ledger, her former partner and father of her daughter. Just when everything looked like it was coming together, she had to turn the role down.

“I’ve committed to my daughter to be home and take her to school every day,” she told Cianfrance. “I can’t break that promise to her.” The director understood. So well, in fact, that he became even more convinced that Williams was the only actress who could play the part of a young mom drowning under life’s obligations. He called her back and suggested shooting the film not on the ocean, as originally written, but close enough to her place in Brooklyn that she would be home in the morning to take her daughter to school. “That’s the most gracious thing that anyone’s ever offered to me,” she told him.

The complex relationship between the characters—he’s painting houses, a job he notes has the perk of being able to drink at 8 a.m.; she’s an overworked nurse who can barely make her daughter’s school assembly—has left audiences arguing long after Williams and Gosling’s final fight. “I’ve had many screenings where it kind of turns into the Jerry Springer Show,” Cianfrance says today.

The fact that such interpersonal complexity made it to the screen is something Cianfrance knew would shine through the second he started filming. “It felt like I was making a documentary of these two people falling in love,” he says. “I was just so relieved when I saw it. I realized I wasn’t going to have to resort to any cinematic tricks to create this chemistry between them. It was real. It was happening.”