Including films by Pedro Costa, Sergei Loznitsa, Lav Diaz, Soon-Mi Yoo, Manoel de Oliveira, Matías Piñeiro, Josh and Benny Safdie, Ken Jacobs, Johann Lurf, Alexandre Larose, Mary Helena Clark, Shinya Tsukamoto, Rebecca Baron, René Frölke, Basma Alsharif, Lisandro Alonso, Gabriel Abrantes, Yuri Ancarani, KwieKulik, Mich’ael Zupraner and more…
For cinephiles, art lovers and daring Festival-goers who refuse to be categorized, the Toronto International Film Festival®’s Wavelengths programme offers 46 films which challenge conventional approaches to cinema and propose daring new forms of filmic expression. Overseen by film curator Andréa Picard, with contributions from members of TIFF’s international programming team, Wavelengths is committed to showcasing a wide range of film art, including artist-made film and video, hybrid and essayistic documentaries, and feature-length films employing daring approaches to style and storytelling. This year’s dynamic selection includes the latest gem by the world’s oldest living working filmmaker, Manoel de Oliveira (105), alongside new films by radical auteurs Sergei Loznitsa, Tsai Ming-liang and Lav Diaz, emerging Canadian talents Alexandre Larose, Malena Szlam, Blake Williams and Jean-Paul Kelly, and internationally acclaimed artist-filmmakers Soon-Mi Yoo, Eric Baudelaire, KwieKulik, Ken Jacobs, and Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren de Haan.
“This edition of Wavelengths is marked by a certain youthfulness, by deep, personal engagement, and the recurring themes of nationhood and language — two key notions related to culture, and ones being challenged in many areas of the world today,” said Picard. “From exciting new voices in the art world to some of the most significant filmmakers of today, the programme underscores the creative diversity in cinema and celebrates the moving image for its singular aesthetic, personal and political means of expression.”
Additional highlights of this year’s programme include highly anticipated new features from Pedro Costa, Matías Piñeiro, Eugène Green, Shinya Tsukamoto and the Safdie brothers, a special 70mm presentation of Los Angeles-based artist Margaret Honda’s first film Spectrum Reverse Spectrum, and a refreshing array of young new talent alongside seminal work from the Polish avant-garde of the seventies.
SHORT FILM PROGRAMMES
Wavelengths 1: Open Forms
Inspired by the radical, uncompromising and vital work of KwieKulik — a Polish art collective active in the seventies and eighties led by and named after Zofia Kulik and Przemysław Kwiek – and occasioned by a special loan from Warsaw’s Filmoteka Muzeum, Wavelengths 2014 launches with a programme that highlights performativity in both the landscape and the social sphere.
brouillard – passage #14 Alexandre Larose, Canada
Against Landscape Josh Gen Solondz, USA
Open Form – Game on an Actress’s Face KwieKulik Group, Poland
The Dragon is the Frame Mary Helena Clark, USA
Open Form – Street and Tribune in Front of PKiN KwieKulik Group, Poland
Poetry for Sale Friedl vom Gröller, Austria
Under a Changing Sky Jean-Claude Rousseau, France
Panchrome I, II, III T. Marie, USA
Wavelengths 2: Something in the Atmosphere
There’s something in the atmosphere, slightly amiss, uncomfortable, and, in some cases, surprisingly alluring.
The pimp and his trophies Antoinette Zwirchmayr, Austria
The Innocents Jean-Paul Kelly, Canada
Catalogue Dana Berman Duff, USA
Relief Calum Walter, USA
Red Capriccio Blake Williams, Canada
Under the Atmosphere Mike Stolz, USA
Beep Kim Kyung-man, South Korea
Wavelengths 3: Tales Told
A programme of tales told, but also delayed, reconfigured, substituted, perhaps even falsified ones, which arouse the imagination and speak to the present.
Twelve Tales Told Johann Lurf, Austria
San Siro Yuri Ancarani, Italy
Intransit Jakrawal Nilthamrong, Thailand
Canopy Ken Jacobs, USA
Detour de Force Rebecca Baron, Austria/USA
Wavelengths 4: Night Noon
With guiding lunar intensity, this programme draws from the dichotomous, exploring bi-location, interstitial states and an array of personal, geographic and mental shuttles.
Lunar Almanac Malena Szlam, Canada/Chile
Deep Sleep Basma Alsharif, Malta/Greece/France/Palestine
Orizzonti Orizzonti! Anna Marziano, Italy
The Policeman’s House Mich’ael Zupraner, Israel/Palestine
Night Noon Shambhavi Kaul, USA/Mexico
Sea of Vapors Sylvia Schedelbauer, Germany
MEDIUM-LENGTH GROUPINGS
The Figures Carved into the Knife by the Sap of the Banana Trees Joana Pimenta, USA/Portugal International Premiere
The rapid turning of a light draws a circle. In the space bound by its line unravels an archive of postcards sent between the island of Madeira and the former Portuguese colony of Mozambique. The Figures Carved into the Knife by the Sap of the Banana Trees circulates between a fictional colonial memory and science fiction.
The Old Man of Belem Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal/France North American Premiere
Glory is often met with opposition, and whether we’re victorious or defeated, we always hold fate responsible. Don Quixote came along 16 years after the defeat of the Invincible Fleet and has erred the Earth ever since. Today, he will attend a meeting between old friends in the Garden of Eternity.
Taprobana Gabriel Abrantes, Portugal/Sri Lanka/Denmark North American Premiere
Shot on Super 16mm, Taprobana is a stunningly inventive comedic send-up of Portuguese poet-turned-national hero Luís Vaz de Camõe’s tortured inspiration for his literary masterwork The Lusiads.
Journey to the West (Xi You) Tsai Ming-liang, France/Taiwan Canadian Premiere
Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-liang returns with this entrancing latest entry in his Walker series, in which his slowly locomoting, carmine-robed monk acquires an unexpected acolyte in the form of Denis Lavant (Holy Motors) as he makes his way through the streets of a sun-dappled Marseille.
Spectrum Reverse Spectrum Margaret Honda, USA North American Premiere
A film made by exposing 70mm print stock to precisely calibrated coloured light in a continuous printer, resulting in a uniform field of colour with no frame lines. The colour moves gradually through the visible light spectrum from violet to red, then back to violet. The film can be presented solely by means of a 70mm film projector.
FEATURES
A Single Word (Une Simple Parole) Mariama Sylla, Khady Sylla, Senegal/Qatar World Premiere
In societies where written archival records are scant, the word becomes capital — passed down orally from teller to teller, it transcends the extinction of death. At once elegiac and explorative, A Single Word explores what is at stake for contemporary society with the loss of the word, synonymous with memory — a question all the more pressing and painful given that Khady Sylla passed away on October 8, 2013, while working on editing the film with her sister Mariama and Rodolphe Respaud.
Horse Money (Cavalo Dinheiro) Pedro Costa, Portugal North American Premiere
The highly anticipated new film by Portuguese auteur Pedro Costa, Cavalo Dinheiro is the follow-up to Costa’s landmark Fontainhas trilogy (Ossos, In Vanda’s Room, Colossal Youth), reuniting with Colossal Youth’s Ventura, lost in heart rending indeterminacy as revolution breaks out.
Episode of the Sea Lonnie van Brummelen, Siebren de Haan, the inhabitants of Urk, Netherlands World Premiere
Episode of the Sea is the result of a two-year collaboration with the fishing community of a former island in the Netherlands. Rendered in black and white to echo neorealist drama and early documentary styles, the film evokes fishing and filmmaking as practices that have been passed on by ancestors.
Fires on the Plain (Nobi) Shinya Tsukamoto, Japan North American Premiere
Tetsuo director Shinya Tsukamoto creates a gritty and graphic version of the classic war novel about a dazed, wounded soldier who wanders through the surreal carnage of the Pacific War.
From What is Before (Mula sa Kung Ano ang Noon) Lav Diaz, Philippines North American Premiere
On the eve of Ferdinand Marcos’ proclamation of martial law, a small village is visited by a series of strange, perhaps supernatural occurrences, in the new film from Filipino master auteur Lav Diaz (Norte, the End of History).
Heaven Knows What Joshua Safdie and Benny Safdie, USA/France North American Premiere
While you sleep soundly in your bed, the night lepers lord the streets of New York City, lusting after the highest high. Harley “homeless” Holmes is their patron saint, caught in the throes of perpetual extremes. On one corner, her malevolent lover demands a bloodletting. On another, a kindly dope dealer offers her free transfusions. How much ebb and flow can a young heart take before bursting into oblivion? Based on the real-life stories of Arielle Holmes, documented in her forthcoming memoir Mad Love In New York City, the film co-stars Caleb Landry Jones (X-Men: First Class, Byzantium, The Last Exorcist), street legend Buddy Duress, and gore-rap phenomenon Necro.
Jauja Lisandro Alonso, Denmark/USA/Argentina/Mexico/Netherlands/Germany/France North American Premiere
In the dazzlingly ambitious new film from Argentinian auteur Lisandro Alonso (Los Muertos, Liverpool) a 19th-century Danish general (Viggo Mortensen) undertakes a grueling physical and metaphysical journey when he pursues his runaway daughter into the rugged wilderness of Patagonia.
La Sapience (La Sapienza) Eugène Green, France/Italy North American Premiere
In the long-awaited new film from French auteur Eugène Green, a brilliant architect seeks spiritual and artistic renewal during a life-changing voyage to Italy to study the work of the great 17th century architect Francesco Borromini.
Le beau danger René Frölke, Germany North American Premiere
Taking its title from a short text by Michel Foucault, this singular portrait of internationally acclaimed Romanian author Norman Manea provocatively explores the interplay and interstices between public persona, the act of creation, lived experience and representation.
Letters to Max Eric Baudelaire, France International Premiere
A record of the epistolary encounter between French artist and filmmaker Eric Baudelaire and Maxim Gvinjia, former Foreign Minister of the breakaway Caucasian state of Abkhazia, Letters to Max is both a chronicle of a developing friendship and an ingenious, unusual essay film about the inherently speculative nature of nationhood.
Maidan (Maïdan) Sergei Loznitsa, Ukraine/Netherlands North American Premiere
Celebrated Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa (In the Fog) creates one of the essential cinematic experiences of our time with this epic, formally audacious documentary chronicle of the historic protests in Kiev’s Maïdan square.
The Princess of France (La Princesa de Francia) Matías Piñeiro, Argentina North American Premiere
Young Argentine auteur Matías Piñeiro follows up his international sensation Viola with the latest of his revisionist takes on the Shakespearean canon, deliciously detailing how life begins to imitate art when a Buenos Aires theatre company mounts a radio version of Love’s Labour’s Lost.
Songs From the North Soon-Mi Yoo, USA/South Korea/Portugal North American Premiere
Multi-disciplinary artist and filmmaker Soon-Mi Yoo (Far from Afghanistan) makes her solo feature film debut with this sharp and sensitive essay film about everyday life and ideological distortion in North Korea.
The 39th Toronto International Film Festival runs September 4 to 14, 2014.
The Wavelengths Package is now on sale and includes 7 screenings (4 shorts programmes and 3 features) for $95, or $80 for students and seniors. Purchase Festival ticket packages online 24 hours a day at tiff.net/festival, by phone from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. ET daily at416.599.TIFF or 1.888.599.8433, or visit the Gupta Box Office at TIFF Bell Lightbox in person from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. ET daily at TIFF Bell Lightbox, Reitman Square, 350 King Street West, until August 20 while quantities last.
FESTIVAL UNVEILS NEW COMMISSIONS AND ROSTER OF INTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED ARTISTS FOR 2014 FUTURE PROJECTIONS PROGRAMME
Free admission to installations that include TIFF-commissioned work by celebrated Canadian artist Lynne Marsh and renowned artist duo from Seoul, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries
The Toronto International Film Festival’s 2014 Future Projections programme continues to explore the boundaries between cinema and the visual arts with city-wide installations by today’s leading moving-image artists. This selection of five major works features the diverse range and innovative breadth of contemporary moving-image culture, presenting installations by internationally renowned and established artists — many exhibiting in Toronto for the first time. The programme showcases the premieres of two TIFF-commissioned works, Lynne Marsh’s multi-channel video installation and the evocative work by Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries; artist Laurent Montaron’s single-channel installation created at the French Academy in Rome; Shaun Gladwell‘s street culture influenced single-channel works; and Amie Siegel’s award-winning film that is currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Free and open to the public for the duration of the Festival, the Future Projections programme will showcase installations at various venues throughout downtown Toronto, including TIFF Bell Lightbox.
Anna and the Tower, 2014 (previously announced) World Premiere
Co-commissioned by TIFF and the Goethe-Institut Toronto, internationally renowned Canadian artist Lynne Marsh’s three-channel video installation conflates documentary and performance, siting a staged narrative in a very real and unsettled location. The work creates a sense of haunting isolation and latent expectation as it observes a young air traffic controller, Anna, rehearsing the language and gestures of her profession in an under-used airport outside Berlin. Presented in collaboration with Scrap Metal Gallery, 11 Dublin Street, Unit E. Exhibited daily, September 4 to 14. Exhibition continues to September 20.
SOME GRAPHIC SEX, HEAVY DRINKING, BLOODY VIOLENCE, AND DIRTY LANGUAGE:
SEVEN ONE-MINUTE FEATURE-LIKE FILMS ABOUT SEOUL, 2014 World Premiere
Seoul-based art collaborative Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries — composed of Young-hae Chang (Korea) and Marc Voge (USA) — is known for its innovative and anarchic video works that exist at the nexus of visual art and digital literature; their iconic stylerecognizable on the Internet and in museums around the world. Commissioned by TIFF to create an installation inspired by the Festival’s City to City spotlight on Seoul, this intervention-like, seven-part installation will maximize TIFF Bell Lightbox’s state-of-the-art technology as it is intermittently exhibited on monitors in the atrium and projected onto the wall above the box office, with its bilingual prologue running along the ticker tape on the building’s façade. Spanning the dark and pulpy to the factual yet outlandish, this septet of feature-like, one-minute films will test the viewer’s knowledge of the Korean capital, and of Korean cinema itself. Presented at TIFF Bell Lightbox, Reitman Square, 350 King Street West. Exhibited daily, September 4 to 14.
Nature of the Self, 2014 North American Premiere
French artist Laurent Montaron’s film, Nature of the Self, considers the changeable nature of representations of the self, both physical and psychological. A woman’s voice narrates, without emotion, an experience of seeing her reflection in a mirror and not recognizing it, setting off a series of metaphysical questions about the formation of the self, the mechanics of seeing and the origins of memory and conscious thought. Under this hypnotic voice, images flow one after another in dream-like sequence, and the act of looking, reflection and self-reflection are echoed again in the artist’s single-channel installation that is to be viewed through a two-way mirror. Presented in collaboration with Mercer Union, 1286 Bloor Street West. Exhibited daily, September 4 to 14. Exhibition continues to October 25.
BMX Channel and Midnight Traceur, 2013 and 2011 Canadian Premiere
Australian contemporary artist Shaun Gladwell’s work is linked to his interest in street and subculture, and his early participation in extreme sports. In BMX Channel, a BMX rider practices — or performs — his skilful moves by a seaside pavilion in Sussex, England. As his solitary choreography stops and starts, the viewer’s attention is caught between the rider’s movement and his incongruous setting. Midnight Traceur follows a renowned practitioner of the urban art of Parkour as he propels himself through the urban landscape of Sydney at night. Alternating between a steadicam and wide shots, the film captures the agility and skill of the artist and highlights the uncanny beauty of his art. BMX Channel is presented in collaboration with The Drake Hotel, 1150 Queen Street West. Midnight Traceur is presented at TIFF Bell Lightbox. Several earlier related works will screen nightly at Drake One Fifty, 150 York Street. Exhibited daily, September 4 to 14.
Provenance, 2013 Canadian Premiere
Amie Siegel is an American artist who works between film, installation, photography and performance, often employing and subverting formal cinematic tropes as a way to question cultural memory and economic divides. The keystone of a triumvirate of works, Siegel’s latest film, Provenance, traces a network of movements (physical, cultural and financial) as it follows in reverse the passage of iconic modernist furniture designed by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret from its current lodging in wealthy private homes to its site of origin in the Le Corbusier-designed, utopian-modernist Indian city of Chandigarh. Presented in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, 952 Queen Street West. Exhibited daily, September 4 to 14.
The 39th Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 4 to 14, 2014.
Future Projections is a free city-wide programme. Purchase Festival ticket packages online 24 hours a day at tiff.net/festival, by phone from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. ET daily at 416.599.TIFF or 1.888.599.8433, or visit the Gupta Box Office at TIFF Bell Lightbox in person from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. ET daily at TIFF Bell Lightbox, Reitman Square, 350 King Street West, until August 20 while quantities last.
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About TIFF
TIFF is a charitable cultural organization whose mission is to transform the way people see the world through film. An international leader in film culture, TIFF projects include the annual Toronto International Film Festival in September; TIFF Bell Lightbox, which features five cinemas, major exhibitions, and learning and entertainment facilities; and innovative national distribution program Film Circuit. The organization generates an annual economic impact of $189 million CAD. TIFF Bell Lightbox is generously supported by contributors including Founding Sponsor Bell, the Government of Canada, the Government of Ontario, the City of Toronto, the Reitman family (Ivan Reitman, Agi Mandel and Susan Michaels), The Daniels Corporation and RBC. For more information, visit tiff.net.
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