Celebrated Canadian Filmmaker, Guy Maddin, to Guest Judge 8th Annual Toronto Urban Film Festival (TUFF)

TUFF is Expanding the Annual Showcase of One-Minute, Silent Films across Canada
Make your Mark! Make a Splash! Go Big or Go Home! TUFF Call for Submission is Now Open

Celebrated Canadian filmmaker, Guy Maddin will guest judge the 8th annual Toronto Urban Film Festival (TUFF), North America's largest commuter film festival. TUFF is returning to PATTISON Onestop subway screens across Toronto from September 5 - 15, 2014 and expanding its reach to include PATTISON Onestop screens in shopping malls across Canada, as well as the Calgary International Airport.

Guy Maddin, OM, CM is an installation artist, screen-writer and filmmaker, the director of ten feature-length movies, including: My Winnipeg (2007), The Saddest Music in the World (2003), and innumerable shorts. Twice he has won America's National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Experimental Film, with Archangel (1991) and The Heart of the World (2001). The Telluride Silver Medal for life achievement in 1995, the San Francisco International Film Festival's Persistence of Vision Award in 2006, and an Emmy for his ballet film Dracula - Pages from a Virgin's Diary (2002), are a few of the prestigious awards his work had garnered to date.

"I'm thrilled to fix my glimmers on all these exciting subway shorts! What a fantastic idea for a festival -- the perfect hybrid of digital blink-at-your-peril concision and the old analog experience of waiting on foot for that train. I love it!" said Guy Maddin.

TUFF screens the best silent, one-minute films from around the world at 10-minute intervals on over 290 station platform screens across the Toronto subway system. The audience for TUFF includes over one million daily commuters, and runs concurrent with the Toronto International Film Festival.

The Call for Submission to the 8th Annual TUFF is now open to Canadian and international filmmakers and accepts all genres of silent, one-minute film, video, and animation of interest to an urban audience. Submission deadline is July 15th. www.torontourbanfilmfestival.com

New this year, TUFF Local Stories programme will feature Canadian filmmakers that examine, explore, critique, or show love for their own hometowns on PATTISON Onestop's network of screens in their home province shopping malls. The programme will appear on screens in 40 malls across Canada from September 8-14, 2014 and garner the attention of more than 5 million mall visitors a week across the country. TUFF Travel Stories, a special selection of films about travel engaging more than 443,000 passengers over 10 days, will be featured on PATTISON Onestop screens at the Calgary International Airport.

Additionally, PATTISON Onestop has partnered with the Film and Video Arts Society of Alberta (FAVA) to present a new sister-festival to TUFF, the Gotta Minute Film Festival, an exhibition of independent film, video and media arts on screens in Edmonton LRT from September 15-21, 2014. http://www.fava.ca

Continuing TUFF traditions for 2014, TUFF Film Zones, uninterrupted play of Festival films on specially designated PATTISON Onestop subway screens in Toronto's downtown core, TUFF Above Ground on PATTISON's largest beacon board at Yonge and Edward, and Too TUFF for the TTC, the online-only program of great films not appropriate for screening in a public transit setting.

Named one of MovieMaker Magazines 'Coolest Film Festivals' in 2010, TUFF is North America's largest commuter film festival. Selected films are eligible for cash prizes and awards. Selections are made by our programming team and top prizes are awarded by the 2014 Guest Judge, Guy Maddin. Past guest judges include: Bruce McDonald, Jennifer Baichwal, Atom Egoyan, and Deepa Mehta.

Visit the TUFF website for festival information, submission details, and to upload films -- www.torontourbanfilmfestival.com

General TUFF Inquiries -- info@torontourbanfilmfestival.comm

Facebook -- http://www.facebook.com/torontourbanfilmfestival

Twitter -- http://www.twitter.com/tuffest

TUFF is co-produced by PATTISON Onestop and Art for Commuters, as part of Art in Transit, and is graciously supported by NBCUniversal.

About PATTISON Onestop - www.pattisononestop.com @onestopmedia
PATTISON Onestop, a division of PATTISON Outdoor Advertising Canada's largest Out-of-Home advertising company serving 200 markets coast-to-coast, is a world leader in the development and operation of Digital Out-of-Home Media (DOOH) for mass transit, mall, retail, hospitality, residential, office, and outdoor environments. Art in Transit represents PATTISON Onestop's ongoing arts and culture programme.

About Art for Commuters - www.art4commuters.com @art4commuters
Art for Commuters (A4C) was founded in 2007 by Sharon Switzer, and brings over 100 artworks per year to the Pattison Onestop TTC subway platform screens. Through these projects, Art for Commuters offers a wide range of contemporary artistic voices the opportunity to showcase their work in the public spaces frequented by urban travellers.