News

Daniel Zolghadri is best known for his roles in independent films and television. He started gaining attention for his role in the movie ‘Eighth Grade’ (2018) and later starred in ‘Funny Pages’ (2022), where he played a quirky aspiring cartoonist.

For our readers, however, the actor is recognizable for his role in ‘American Horror Story,’ and Prime Video’s ‘Tales from the Loop.’

Now according to Deadline, the actor will star in a new horror movie with an interesting premise. Zolghadri is apparently negotiating for the lead role in The Temple, a sci-fi horror movie by Canadian writer-director team Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas.

Not much is known about the movie but the basic premise: In the indie gearing up for a shoot up north, an orphaned millionaire (Zolghadri) dedicates his life and considerable fortune to finding the ghosts of his parents with the help of a skeptical radiation scientist.

Katie Bird Nolan...

Actor Daniel Zolghadri, star of upcoming disaster comedy Y2K and American Horror Stories guest star, is currently negotiating for the lead role in sci-fi horror movie The Temple, Deadline reports today.

Temple hails from the Canadian writing and directing duo Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas.

The sci-fi horror film follows “an orphaned millionaire (Zolghadri) dedicates his life and considerable fortune to finding the ghosts of his parents with the help of a skeptical radiation scientist.”

There’s not much to go on here, but what little there is intrigues. A ghost-seeking millionaire? A radiation scientist? It sets up the potential for an interesting cross between science and the supernatural.

Zolghadri also recently appeared in Prime Video’s Tales from the Loop and A24’s Funny Pages.

Katie Bird Nolan and Lindsay Tapscott will produce for their Babe Nation Films, alongside the writer-director duo’s Lisa Pictures. Production is gearing up to begin soon,...

Exclusive: Daniel Zolghadri, star of A24’s Funny Pages and upcoming Y2K, is negotiating for the lead role in The Temple, a sci-fi horror film from the Canadian writing and directing duo of Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas.

In the indie gearing up for a shoot up north, an orphaned millionaire (Zolghadri) dedicates his life and considerable fortune to finding the ghosts of his parents with the help of a skeptical radiation scientist.

Katie Bird Nolan and Lindsay Tapscott will produce for their Babe Nation Films, alongside the writer-director duo’s Lisa Pictures.

An in-demand talent on the indie scene, Zolghadri garnered an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Breakthrough Performance for his work in Funny Pages, A24’s 2022 coming-of-age comedy written and directed by Owen Kline and produced by the Safdie brothers, which was named one of the Top 10 Independent Films of 2022 by the National Board of Review.

Crowdfunding campaigns are everywhere and while it's nice to know that generosity isn't dead, I sometimes wonder how many of those campaigns are exaggerated or just plain fake.

Writer/directors Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas have obviously been contemplating that thought as well and their sophomore effort White Lie, explores what happens to a young woman's life when her illness is outed as a fake.

Kacey Rohl is spectacular as Katie, a popular, likeable dance student who has convinced nearly everyone that she's bravely fighting cancer. With the help of her girlfriend, she's launched a crowdfunding campaign and is preparing for a benefit performance that is supposed to be raising funds to send her for special experimental treatment in Seattle.

Lewis and Thom...

If a certain trend has emerged within the past half-decade of indie films, it’s the cinema of the grifter; very small-scale titles like Joel Potrykus’ Buzzard or Adrian Murray’s Withdrawn charting millennial malaise manifesting into economic malpractice. These films seem like a true meeting of form and content, as the desperate measures that come from living in a late-capitalist hellhole and the emaciated filmic settings of many low budgets perfectly complement each other. And White Lie, a film predominantly taking place in septic waiting rooms and halls with life-changing decisions depending on convenience store Atm machines, convincingly depicts a world in which one would take drastic measures. If anything, it’s a film deserving of serious praise for capturing how truly depressing Ontario can be in the wintertime–Hamilton’s landscapes haven’t been so vividly rendered since Olivier Assayas’ Clean.

Occupying this dead setting is Katie (Kacey Rohl...

Katie Arneson (Kacey Rohl) is sick. But the variance between the illness she’s allowed everyone to realize and that which is actually true is almost too great to bear. Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas’ White Lie thrillingly weaves through every inch of Katie’s operation, dissecting her monstrous smile while simultaneously obliterating our capacity for and perception of belief.

Airlifted far beyond the ground floor of her sting, we’re introduced to Katie as a local celebrity. Walking around the campus of her Ontario-based university, fellow students stop her to pose for pictures, and fundraising efforts see her face, figure, and corresponding hashtags plastered all over. A strangely urgent phone call and a menacingly chaotic score – courtesy of frequent collaborator Lev Lewis – provide us our first inclinations of foul play, and the proceeding 90 minutes are all dedicated towards Katie’s straggling efforts to uphold the lie that she’s been diagnosed with cancer.

Directors Lulu Wang (“The Farewell”) and Patricia Rozema (“I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing”) and producer Cassian Elwes will serve as mentors at the Toronto International Film Festival’s 2019 Tiff Filmmaker Lab, Tiff organizers announced on Wednesday.

The festival also unveiled its lineup of Canadian films, which will include new work directed by Atom Egoyan, Louise Archambault, Ellen Page and Amy Jo Johnson, and starring Felicity Huffman, Imogen Poots and David Cronenberg, among others. And it announced participants in industry programs and the Canadian honorees in its annual Tiff Rising Stars showcase.

The films were spread across eight different sections of the Toronto Film Festival, some of which have yet to announce their non-Canadian programming.

Also Read: Mister Rogers, the Joker and Judy Garland Are All Headed to Toronto Film Festival

The Canadian galas, all previously announced, are the opening-night documentary “Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band,” Semi...

The Toronto International Film Festival​ has added another 26 new titles to its 2019 festival lineup, comprised entirely of features directed by Canadian filmmakers. Each year, Tiff highlights films that hail from its own shores in a standalone announcement, and this year it ​includes seven f​irst features, ​13 w​orks by returning Tiff alumni, and almost 50% films directed by women.

Tiff debuts include Aisling Chin-Yee’s “The Rest of Us,” Harry Cepka’s “Raf,” Matthew Rankin’s “The Twentieth Century,” Heather Young’s “Murmur,” and Nicole Dorsey’s “Black Conflux.” Plenty of returning filmmakers are also included in this batch of films, including Atom Egoyan, Sophie Deraspe, Joey Klein, Albert Shin, Calvin Thomas and Yonah Lewis, Louise Archambault, Kire Paputts, and Amy Jo Johnson.

“We are deeply impressed by the high quality of the work done by Canadian directors this year — particularly from filmmakers who were making their first and second features,...

Festival also announces four Canadian Rising Stars and the annual Filmmaker Lab participants.

Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff) brass announced on Wednesday (July 31) the launch of a talent incubator for female content creators and unveiled the line-up of Canadian features, nearly half of which are directed by women.

Five features from indigenous filmmakers are among the selection of 26 Canadian features. Tiff also announced four Canadian Rising Stars, the annual Tiff Filmmaker Lab participants, finallists for Telefilm Canada’s Pitch This! competition, and the roster of Canadian short films.

The Canadian feature selections include seven first features and 13 works by returning Tiff alumni,...

Kacey Rohl, Mikhaïl Ahooja, Nahéma Ricci, Shamier Anderson are Tiff Rising Stars.

Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff) brass announced on Wednesday (July 31) the launch of a talent incubator for female content creators and unveiled the line-up of Canadian features, nearly half of which are directed by women.

Five features from indigenous filmmakers are among the selection of 26 Canadian features. Tiff also announced four Canadian Rising Stars, the annual Tiff Filmmaker Lab participants, finallists for Telefilm Canada’s Pitch This! competition, and the roster of Canadian short films.

The Canadian feature selections include seven first features and 13 works by returning Tiff alumni,...

Sofia Bohdanowciz's Maison du Bonheur (2017) is exclusively showing August 30 – September 29, 2018 on Mubi in most countries in the world as part of the series Canada's Next Generation.The film of tomorrow, appears to me then, to be more personal than a novel; it will be individual and autobiographical, like a confession, or an intimate diary. [....] The film of tomorrow, will not be directed by professionals, but by artists for whom shooting a film is a challenging — and thrilling — adventure. The film of tomorrow will resemble the person who shot it — and the number of spectators will be proportional to the number of friends the director has. The film of tomorrow will be an act of love. —François Truffaut, Arts magazine, May 15, 1957In the summer of 2005, I read Truffaut’s biography and devoured it. I had just turned 20 and was just discovering films from the French New Wave. After having survived the...

Reese Witherspoon and Jean-Marc Vallée making Wild

Jean-Marc Vallée’s eighth feature film Wild is just about to begin its theatrical release in North America. The film stars Reese Witherspoon, who plays Cheryl Strayed as she goes on an incredible, though unprepared, hike across the Pacific Crest Trail to morn the death of her mother. This new release provides a great opportunity to reflect on the director’s career and survey the literature surrounding him.

Even though I’m sympathetic to Barry Hertz’s article in Maclean’s, "Jean-Marc Vallée: Film’s redemption man" (Sept. 15, 2014), for acknowledging the director’s talent and growing international reputation, it still doesn’t do Vallée justice as it concludes with vague generalizations that, instead of enlightening, overlook his actual merits. Hertz overemphasizes Vallée’s work with actors and argues that he ‘lacks’ a unique style of directing, criticizes him for his modesty, and...

Part of our continuing partnership with the online film journal, cléo. Every month, cléo will be presenting a great film to watch on our video on demand platform. In conjunction, we'll be hosting an exclusive article by one of their contributors. This month Eleni Deacon writes on Calvin Thomas & Yonah Lewis' breakthrough feature debut Amy George, which is available to watch starting August 31st in the Us, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands, Italy—and will be playing in Turkey, Mexico, and Germany later in September.

In the early minutes of Amy George (2011), Jesse gets a challenge. "It's called the Fearless Project," his teacher says, "And what I want you to do is take a self-portrait without it being a literal photo of yourselves." This is a heavy task for a classroom of 13-year-olds: it demands self-conscious self-definition at age when most kids have only begun testing the waters of self-discovery.

From a technical standpoint, Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas' The Oxbow Cure is brilliant; a gorgeous and hypnotic movie that relies almost exclusively on the breathtaking scenery, the music and the wordless performance of lead actress Claudia Dey to push it along. What I can't quite figure out is what the bloody point of it is.

As the film opens, Lena is packing up her home in the city and saying goodbye to her friends. She's leaving behind her busy life to hide and suffer alone in a cabin at the edge of a lake and for most of the movie's running time, that's exactly what she does. She exercises, she looks our the window, she takes photos of her surroundings and she simply sits and waits for the illness to take over. It sounds dull and for the most part it is. As beautiful as [Continued ...]...

News.

Every cinephile's favourite producer/distributor is at it again: Harvey Weinstein plans to axe 20 minutes from Bong Joon-Ho's Snowpiercer. Critic and programmer Tony Rayns had this to say:

"The Weinstein Company people have told Bong that their aim is to make sure the film 'will be understood by audiences in Iowa ... and Oklahoma.' Effectively, the notorious Hollywood executive believes the American mid-west is too stupid for Snowpiercer, a movie which essentially chronicles the journey of a few people at the back of a train who stage a revolt and proceed, in a straight line, towards the front. Leaving aside the issue of what Weinstein thinks of its audience, it seems to say the least anomalous that the rest of the English-speaking world has to be dragged down to the presumed level of American mid-west hicks."

According to the "acting" page on Vincent Gallo's website, it appears the...

Canadian directing duo Calvin Thomas and Yonah Lewis generating a good bit of buzz with their 2011 debut Amy George at the Toronto International Film Festival and the duo return this year with their sophomore effort, The Oxbow Cure, about to open in limited theatrical release here in Canada.A young woman retreats to a lonely cabin in the woods in order to wrestle with her demons and the debilitating ailment that plagues her, in this riveting, atmospheric and gorgeously photographed portrait of isolation by Toronto filmmakers Calvin Thomas and Yonah Lewis.This promises good things for fans of those films that blur the line between arthouse, experimental and genre cinema with the freshly released trailer showcasing gorgeous cinematography and carefully closed shots while favoring mood and...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Thanks to your votes, the science fiction romance "Condition of the Heart" won this weekend’s Project of the Week contest! Congratulations to “Condition of the Heart" directors Yonah Lewis & Calvin Thomas. The filmmakers will receive a digital distribution consultation from SnagFilms and the film is now officially a candidate for Project of the Month. That winner will be awarded with a consultation from the Sundance Institute. Here's what the project's about: "Condition of the Heart" is a winter tale of Lena, a middle-aged woman who has recently been diagnosed with a life-altering disease. In an attempt to come to terms with her transforming body, she leaves her home in the city and begins a new life at a remote cottage, where she falls in love with a creature from the lake. Four more Projects of the Day coming this week. Want your project to be considered? Tell us all about it.

Here's your daily dose of an indie film in progress; at the end of the week, you'll have the chance to vote for your favorite. In the meantime: Is this a movie you’d want to see? Tell us in the comments. Condition of the Heart Tweetable Logline: Diagnosed with a life-altering disease, a middle-aged woman moves to a remote cottage and falls in love with a creature from the lake. Elevator Pitch: "Condition of the Heart" is a winter tale of Lena, a middle-aged woman who has recently been diagnosed with a life-altering disease. In an attempt to come to terms with her transforming body, she leaves her home in the city and begins a new life at a remote cottage, where she falls in love with a creature from the lake. Production Team: Directors: Yonah Lewis & Calvin Thomas (Amy George, Tiff 2011) Producers: Karen Harnisch (We Ate The Children Last,...

Today, Montreal's Festival du nouveau cinéma (Fnc), which will take place between October 12 to 23. Here's the complete line-up of feature films according to the press release we received.

Opening and closing

The 40th edition of the Fnc kicks off on Wednesday, October 12, with Declaration of War by Valérie Donzelli (France) at Cinéma Impérial (Centre Sandra & Leo Kolber, Salle Lucie & André Chagnon). This critically-acclaimed second feature by Valérie Donzelli (The Queen of Hearts) tells the love story of Roméo and Juliette who are battling to save their sick child. The director and her producer Edouard Weil will be in attendance.

Ten days later, on Saturday, October 22, Monsieur Lazhar (Quebec/Canada) by Philippe Falardeau will close the Festival. Selected to represent Canada at the Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film, Monsieur Lahzar shows the efforts of an Algerian schoolteacher to help his Grade 6 students come to terms with their teacher’s death.

I will soon post a list of films I have already seen that I highly recommend as well as a list of my most anticipated films screening at this year’s Festival du Nouveau Cinema. For now here is the press release from the festival. Make sure you read carefully because there are a ton of great films to check out.

Montreal, Tuesday September 27, 2011– Montreal’s Festival du nouveau cinéma will be celebrating its 40th edition from October 12 to 23. For the past 40 years, Canada’s oldest film festival has offered film buffs a selection of the year’s most exciting new films — a bold lineup with plenty of whimsical and surprising elements, but one that also turns its lens on social realities and the evolution of film and new technologies. Over the course of this year’s 11-day Festival, audiences of all ages can take in features and shorts, fiction films and documentaries,...

Toronto recently added a Day Eleven, but I didn't book my flight accordingly, so this is my final festival report. I caught up with a number of Toronto premieres in my last two days, my favorite of which was a hometown item, Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas's low-budget Amy George. Leading with a few showy missteps that made me fear the worst, the film quickly settles into a interesting groove as it observes the foibles of a hippie Toronto family and their 13-year-old son, an articulate and thoughtful boy who nonetheless makes some very awkward moves as he struggles with the blooming of sexual desire. Driven by a wonderful lead performance by young Gabriel del Castillo Mullally, the film remains true to a specific social environment, and its events, however large in the mind of its protagonist, are no more than ripples on the surface of its undemonstrative observational style.

Montreal's Festival du nouveau cinéma (Fnc), which will be held from October 12 to 23, revealed to day its line-up of Canadian films. These films will be part of the Focus Québec/Canada category. The latter will be opened by the documentary Surviving Progress, by Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks, on October 13.

This documentary is based on the bestselling book A Short History of Progress, by Ronald Wright. It questions the bright side and the perils of progress through interviews with people such as David Suzuki, Margaret Atwood or even Stephen Hawking.

The film will also be accompanied by another documentary called Fortunate Son, which was directed by Montreal-based documentarist Tony Asimakopoulos. This documentary is an auto-biography about how a drug-addict almost destroyed his family.

As for feature films, the Fnc will screen some films that were at the Toronto International Film Festival. Among them is Amy George, a teen drama by Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas.

The 2011 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival kicks off tomorrow and will run until September 18th. Now you’re going to hear a lot about the celebrities in town, the parties going down and the massive queues, but at the end of the day Tiff is about the movies. And with over 330 movies playing this year, there’s definitely no shortage of films to choose from.

After much deliberation and careful calculation we’ve made our picks. Between the five of us covering the fest, we’re likely going to see close to 125 of the films playing Tiff this year. Yeah, it’s a lot of movies. Certainly more than can be listed here. So we’ve asked our writers to narrow it down to their top three picks.

You can find the full film line-up here, but here is what Shelagh Rowan-Legg, Zack Kotzer and Will Perkins think...

With the Toronto International Film Festival just around the corner, many of us are busy trying to plan our schedules and prepare ourselves mentally for the onslaught. blogTO writer Julian Carrington is one of the lucky folks out there with full press credentials, and he asked if we would be interested in publishing some of his capsule reviews from the festival. How could we say no to more Tiff coverage? Julian got things started early by catching advance screenings for a handful of this year's films. After the jump, check out his thoughts on some noteworthy flicks including Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive, Lars von Trier's Melancholia, and Sarah Polley's Take This Waltz. Stay tuned for plenty more updates starting next week! Take This Waltz A Tiff sensation in 2000, it's fitting that Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love seems to have served as potent inspiration for two wunderkinds of Canadian filmmaking.

By Sean O’Connell

Hollywoodnews.com: Brad Pitt, Keira Knightley, George Clooney, Carey Mulligan, Rachel Weisz, Gerard Butler and Ryan Gosling are heading to Toronto for the 36tht international film festival, which kicks off on Thursday, Sept. 8.

The fest today confirmed the hundreds of celebrities that will be attending the can’t-miss event, promoting films and making the rounds as the annual awards season starts to take shape.

Davis Guggenheim, Francis Ford Coppola, Alexander Payne, Luc Besson, Oren Moverman, Malgoska Szumowska, Bennett Miller, Sarah Polley, Jessica Yu, Michael Winterbottom and Werner Herzog are just a few of the filmmakers who have confirmed their attendance.

Celebrities making the trek include Catherine Deneuve, Charlotte Rampling, Clive Owen, Jon Hamm, Shahid Kapoor, Michael Fassbender, Michelle Yeoh, Freida Pinto, Glenn Close, Matthew Goode, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Salma Hayek, Viggo Mortensen and Woody Harrelson. Musicians U2, Pearl Jam and Neil Young also are expected to...

Toronto - The 36th Toronto International Film Festival® welcomes hundreds of guests this year. Filmmakers expected to present their world premieres in Toronto include: Davis Guggenheim, Francis Ford Coppola, Alexander Payne, Agnieszka Holland, Guy Maddin, Luc Besson, Bill Duke, Oren Moverman, Malgoska Szumowska, Bennett Miller, Darrell Roodt, Sarah Polley, Jessica Yu, Michael Winterbottom and Werner Herzog.

Actors expected to attend include Catherine Deneuve, Charlotte Rampling, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Clive Owen, Gerard Butler, Jeon Do-Yeon, Jon Hamm, Shahid Kapoor, Michael Fassbender, Michelle Yeoh, Freida Pinto, Glenn Close, Matthew Goode, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rachel Weisz, Ryan Gosling, Salma Hayek, Viggo Mortensen and Woody Harrelson. Musicians include: U2, Pearl Jam and Neil Young.

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

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

Adam Shaheen, Adam Wingard, Adolfo Borinaga Alix Jr., Agnieszka Holland, Akin Omotoso,...

Yesterday, the Toronto International Film Festival, which will take place between September 8 and 18, unveiled the list of Canadian films that will be screened.

Galas

A Dangerous Method Director: David Cronenberg Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley and Sarah Gadon

Starbuck

Director: Ken Scott

Cast: Patrick Huard, Antoine Bertrand and Patrick Labbé

Take This Waltz Director: Sarah Polley Cast: Seth Rogen, Michelle Williams and Sarah Silverman

Canada First

Marécages Director: Guy Édoin Cast: Pascale Bussières, Luc Picard, Gabriel Maillé and François Papineau

Amy George Directors: Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas Cast: Gabriel del Castillo Mullally, Claudia Dey, Don Kerr and Natasha Allan

Nuit #1 Director: Anne Émond Cast: Catherine de Léan and Dimitri Storoge

The Odds Directors: Simon Davidson Cast: Tyler Johnston, Calum Worthy and Julia Maxwell

The Patron Saints Directors: Melanie Shatzky and Brian M. Cassidy

Roméo Onze Director: Ivan Grbovic Cast: Ali Ammar, Joseph Bou Nassar, Eleonore Millier, May Hilal...

There are a lot of Canadian films screening at the Toronto International Film Festival to be excited about, including works from our favourite filmmakers Guy Maddin, Bruce McDonald,Vincenzo Natali and Jean Marc Vallee. Below is the list of films in the Canada First selections as well as other CanCon movies scattered through the main programs.

Toronto – The Toronto International Film Festival® boasts a strong lineup of Canadian features including new works by acclaimed Canadian filmmakers Carl Bessai, Mike Clattenburg, Michael Dowse, Philippe Falardeau, Guy Maddin, Bruce McDonald, Léa Pool, Jean-Marc Vallée and Ingrid Veninger, and onscreen appearances by Jay Baruchel, Camilla Belle, Anupam Kher, Akshay Kumar, Mia Kirshner, Rob Lowe, Vanessa Paradis, Jason Patric, Alison Pill, Russell Peters, Isabella Rossellini, Liev Schreiber, Sean William Scott, Scott Speedman and Nick Stahl.

“This year saw many Canadian filmmakers address a wide range of pressing social issues including the dangers of progress...