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Shoring up artistic director Orwa Nyrabia’s commitment to showcasing more women’s stories and platforming more women’s voices, Idfa has announced that this year’s festival features the highest percentage of female filmmakers in the event’s 31-year history: 64% of competition titles and 47% of the total program.

“Reaching a fairer representation was much easier than it seemed to be,” noted Nyrabia. “We only had to keep our goal in mind. The outstanding films that found their way to us this year was a humble reminder that we are in the presence of exceptional female filmmakers.”

The festival opens with the world premiere of Mehrdad Oskouei’s “Sunless Shadows,” which depicts five young Iranian women complicit in the murders of abusive husbands, fathers, or brothers-in-law. Oskouei’s film competes in the Feature-Length Documentary Competition alongside Jørgen Leth’s “I Walk”; Heidi Hassan and Patricia Pérez Fernández’s “In a...

The 38th Toronto International Film Festival has released an incredible guest list of celebrated talent from around the globe. Filmmakers expected to present their world premieres in Toronto include: Catherine Breillat, Nicole Garcia, Pawel Pawlikowski, Bertrand Tavernier, Steve McQueen, Godfrey Reggio, Denis Villeneuve, Bill Condon, Jean-Marc Vallée, John Wells, Ralph Fiennes, Richard Ayoade, Atom Egoyan, Matthew Weiner, John Carney, Jason Reitman, Jason Bateman, Yorgos Servetas, Liza Johnson, Megan Griffiths, Fernando Eimbcke, Alexey Uchitel, Johnny Ma, Biyi Bandele, Rashid Masharawi, Paul Haggis, Ron Howard, Eli Roth, Álex de la Iglesia, Bruce McDonald, Jennifer Baichwal, John Ridley, and Justin Chadwick.

The Festival also welcomes thousands of producers and other industry professionals bringing films to us.

The following filmmakers and artists are expected to attend the Toronto International Film Festival:

Ahmad Abdalla, Hany Abu-Assad, Yuval Adler, Akosua Adoma Owusu, Alexandre Aja, Bruce Alcock, Gianni Amelio, Thanos Anastopoulos, Madeline Anderson, Nimród Antal, Louise Archambault,...

This afternoon, with poutine and local wine to mark the occasion, the Toronto International Film Festival announced their Canadian film selections. Programmers Steve Gravestock and Agata Smoluch Del Sorbo proudly pronounced that this year both new and seasoned filmmakers had the “curiosity and courage to show troubling issues occurring in our country in new and exciting ways.” Past festival favorite (and one of my personal own as well) Xavier Dolan, the always controversial Bruce Labruce and Jennifer Baichwal’s films garnered applause from the crowd at the majestic Royal York ballroom. Titles sure to draw headlines and attention in the Canadian slate are Denis Villeneuve’s locally filmed ‘Enemy‘ which has Jake Gyllenhall playing a man with two identities, torn between a mistress and a wife. Villeneuve’s other recent feature ‘Prisoners‘ was previously announced as a festival title. It’s worth mentioning that two feature films being presented at...

Back in 2001, The Toronto International Film Festival created Canada's Top Ten, an annual event created to celebrate Canadian cinema. We've talked about it in the past, as it's featured big names like Sarah Polley, David Cronenberg, and Don McKellar. And now, as 2009 comes so quickly to a close, this year's best have been picked.

I've usually seen at least a few of the feature choices, but this year I'm woefully behind on some pretty cool-sounding flicks. The 2009 films include Defendor -- the Woody Harrelson superhero indie by Peter Stebbings, Cairo Time -- the Ruba Nadda romance starring Patricia Clarkson and Alexander Siddig, and The Trotsky -- a film starring Jay Baruchel as a teen who believes he's the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky. On the shorts side of things, I've already alerted you to three in the Tiff Shorts Roundup: Bruce Alcock's Vive la Rose, Chris Landreth's The Spine,...

Every year around this time the Toronto International Film Festival announces their picks for Canada's Top Ten: A selection of what they consider to be the best ten Canadian produced shorts and features from the previous year.  And, true to form, last night was announcement time.  No big surprises, really, and no late additions either.  Without further ado, here are the lists:

The top ten Canadian feature films of 2009 are (in alphabetical order, including future release dates where applicable):

Cairo Time - Ruba Nadda (Mongrel Media)

Carcasses - Denis Côté (FunFilm Distribution)

Crackie - Sherry White (Kickham East)

Defendor - Peter Stebbings (Alliance Films, early 2010)

La Donation - Bernard Émond (E1 Entertainment, January 2010)

J'ai tué ma mère - Xavier Dolan (K-Films Amérique, February 2010)

Passenger Side - Matthew Bissonnette (KinoSmith, March 2010)

Polytechnique - Denis Villeneuve (Alliance Films)

The Trotsky - Jacob Tierney (Alliance Films, May 2010)

The Wild Hunt - Alexandre Franchi (Tva Films,...

Canada's National Film Board of Canada (Nfb) returns to the upcoming Sundance Film Festival, January 21 to 31 with three selected animated film shorts.

The films screening are Cordell Baker’s "Runaway", Bruce Alcock’s "Vive la Rose" and David Coquard-Dassault’s "Rains".

"Runaway" is Barker's third short film with the Nfb. His previous films "The Cat Came Back" (1988) and "Strange Invaders" (2001) won 30 international awards and Academy Award nominations. "Runaway" was produced in Winnipeg by Derek Mazur for the Nfb.

Bruce Alcock’s "Vive la Rose", puts into images the words of a plaintive song about lost love. Co-produced by the Nfb and Global Mechanic, Alcock’s film is based on an 18th-century song by Newfoundland musician Émile Benoit, in a film that pays homage to the land, sea and the harsh lives of local fishermen, produced by Global Mechanic’s Tina Ouellette and the Nfb’s Annette Clarke and Michael Fukushima.

The 28th annual Vancouver International Film Festival (Viff) will be held October 1-16, 2009. Founded in 1982, Viff's mandate is "...to encourage the understanding of other nations through the art of cinema, to foster the art of cinema, to facilitate the meeting in British Columbia of cinema professionals from around the world and to stimulate the motion picture industry in British Columbia and Canada..." Over 150,000 people are expected to attend 640 screenings of 360 films from 80 countries. Here is an up-to-date list of directors, confirmed to attend Viff 2009, along with their films : "1428" Du Haibin "1999" Lenin Sivam "65_RedRoses" Philip Lyall & Nimisha Mukerji "Adelaide" Liliana Greenfield-Sanders "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector" Vikram Jayanti "Ana & Arthur" Larry Young "The Anchorage" Anders Edström & Curtis Winter "Antoine" Laura Bari "Argippo Resurrected" Dan Krames "The Art of Drowning" Diego Maclean "At Home By Myself... With You" Kris Booth "At The Edge Of The World" Dan Stone...

Ah, the rub of Hollywood v. truly independent works. One can come together in what seems like a blink, and just moments after we learn the casting, we've got the trailer, and then the big-screen wide release. In the independent world, however, especially where shorts are concerned, time does not move that quickly. One day you might see something like Al Purdy's recitation of "At the Quinte Hotel" turned into a short film, but it'll be years before you can see it again.

Now (huzzah!) you can see this great short film online after the jump or over at director Bruce Alcock's website, Global Mechanic. For most, Mr. Purdy's poem will bring to mind a certain Charles Bukowski. (The pair even kept up a correspondence during their lives.) It's beauty juxtaposed with unpleasantness, "horse piss" and "yellow flowers" coming together in an "exquisite analogy" wrought with humor.

The short...