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I'm writing this the day after first posting this entry. I now regret it. The point I make about artists is perfectly valid but I realize I wasn't prepared with enough facts about the events leading up to the Festival's decision to showcase Tel Aviv in the City-to-City section. I thought of it as an innocent goodwill gesture, but now realize it was part of a deliberate plan to "re-brand" Israel in Toronto, as a pilot for a larger such program. The Festival should never have agreed to be used like this. It was naive for the plan's supporters to believe it would have the effect they hoped for. The original entry remains below. The first 50 or so comments were posted before these regrets.

¶ The tumult continues here about the decision to spotlight Tel Aviv in the City-to-City sidebar program of the Toronto Film Festival. The protesters say the festival...

Toronto -- First a single filmmaker withdrew his short film from the Toronto International Film Festival over its spotlight on Tel Aviv. Now the artists are piling on.

Toronto is set to open next week with a widening artist protest and possible boycott over its spotlight on Israel and its filmmakers.

British director Ken Loach, Jane Fonda, Wallace Shawn, musician David Byrne and actor Danny Glover are among 50 directors, writers and activists who have signed an open letter to the Toronto festival that went online Thursday.

The document, titled "The Toronto Declaration: No Celebration of Occupation," alleges that Toronto, "whether intentionally or not, has become complicit in the Israeli propaganda machine."

  The list of international filmmakers signing on to the declaration includes U.S. producer Joslyn Barnes, distributor Cornelius Moore, screenwriter Jeremy Pikser and Canadian documentary maker Mark Achbar, whose films have screened in Toronto.

Middle Eastern filmmakers joining the protest include Egypt's Ahmad Abdalla,...

• Following my top ten Tiff list of titles available piece that I published a couples of hours back, Tiff released the lengthy list of titles that are looking for deals. Among those that I didn't mention in my top ten but could have easily have been there is the omission of Micmacs à tire-larigot (I wasn't sure if Warner Bros. only had domestic rights for France and not world rights), and titles such as Neil Jordan's Ondine, Atom Egoyan's Chloe, Oliver Parker's Dorian Gray, Aaron Schneider's Get Low, Derrick Borte's The Joneses and Michael J. Bassett's Solomon Kane should be generating key interest from the buyers as well. Without further ado, here is the list. L’Affaire Farewell Christian Carion, France Ahead of Time Bob Richman, USA The Angel Margreth Olin, Norway/Sweden/Finland The Art of the Steal Don Argott, USA Baaria Giuseppe Tornatore,

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Toronto -- The Toronto International Film Festival is to mix up moving image platforms in September as it presents an Isabella Rossellini installation, a cell phone-inspired movie from Don McKellar and multichannel video works from Candice Breitz as part of its Future Projections sidebar.

Toronto said Tuesday that it booked Rossellini to present "Green Porno: Scandalous Sea," which transforms Sundance Channel-produced shorts about ocean-borne sexual high-jinks into a sculptural installation, while Breitz will screen "The Origins of Factum," a video portrait of identical twins.

Thai filmmaker and visual artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul will be in Toronto with "Phantoms of Nabua, an installation that recalls recurring themes in his earlier feature films, which include "Blissfully Yours" and "Tropical Malady."

Also festival-bound is "Picture Start," from director of photography veteran Christopher Doyle ("Happy Together"), which explores how movie images evolve from when a director yells "action" on set to postproduction.

And...