TIFF 2009 Films

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has posted its entire film list. Here it is, at Darren's TIFF blog, 1st Thursday. As in previous years, I expect to spend a week at the festival, driving back in between to teach my classes.

The avant-garde program, Wavelengths, looks very strong, with new films by Ben Russell, Michael Snow, Jean-Luc Godard, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Jean-Marie Straub, Ernie Gehr, Lisandro Alonso, Harun Farocki, Heinz Emigholz, Jim Jennings, and others.

In addition, I'm targeting the following films:

White Material (Claire Denis), Les Herbes Folles (Alain Resnais), Face (Tsai Ming-liang), Police, Adjective (Corneliu Porumboiu), Independencia (Raya Martin), Irene (Alain Cavalier), La Danse: Le Ballet de l’Opera de Paris (Frederick Wiseman), Women Without Men (Shirin Neshat), The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke), Hadewijch (Bruno Dumont), Like You Know It All (Hong Sang-soo), Lourdes (Jessica Hausner), The Time that Remains (Elia Suleiman), Between Two Worlds (Vimukthi Jayasundara), A Prophet (Jacques Audiard), Air Doll (Hirokazu Kore-eda), Antichrist (Lars von Trier), Bright Star (Jane Campion), The Window (Buddhadeb Dasgupta), Broken Embraces (Pedro Almodóvar), Enter the Void (Gaspar Noé), Mother (Bong Joon-ho), Melody for a Street Organ (Kira Muratova), Le Père de mes Enfants (Mia Hansen-Løve), La Donation (Bernard Émond), Hotel Atlântico (Suzana Amaral), Vincere (Marco Bellocchio), L'Enfer de Henri-Georges Clouzot (Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea), Capitalism: A Love Story (Michael Moore), The Hole (Joe Dante), Vengeance (Johnnie To), Nymph (Pen-Ek Ratanaruang), To Die Like a Man (Joao Pedro Rodrigues), and A History of Israeli Cinema (Raphael Nadjari).

Any thoughts, suggestions or recommendations of films or filmmakers on the TIFF film-list? I'd be most eager to hear them. Thank you!

A Few Links

-- Jonathan Rosenbaum's "A la recherche de Luc Moullet: 25 Propositions" is a 1977 piece that will appear in his upcoming book Goodbye Cinema, Hello Cinephilia, out from University of Chicago Press next year. Also: there are several interesting entries in his Notes section.

-- Two recent blog discoveries: Jeffrey Sconce's Ludic Despair; and Damon Smith's The Hands of Bresson.

-- Dennis Cozzalio has a lengthy interview with Joe Dante.

-- The New York Film Festival has announced its lineup; it includes new films by Resnais, Denis, Rivette, Breillat, Costa, Almodovar, von Trier, Oliveira, Haneke, etc.

-- Lots of new reading at The Auteurs, including Ignatiy Vishnevetsky on D.W. Griffith (who is "always modern"); David Cairns on Nicholas Ray's You Can't Go Home Again; and a roundtable on Alejandro Adams' Canary with Ignatiy, Michael Sicinski, Craig Keller and Dave Macdougall.

-- Dave Kehr on the 1986 film Combat Shock ("one uncompromising picture, a movie so eccentric and so relentless that no mere profit motive could possibly explain it.")

-- Doug Cummings provides illuminating excerpts from Hayao Miyazaki's Starting Point: 1979-1996, a compendium of Miyazaki’s writings and conversations.

-- Dana Polan at Moving Image Source on "The generous pedagogy of Julia Child and The French Chef."

-- I've been reading, with great pleasure, the new collection Vincente Minnelli: The Art of Entertainment, edited by Joe McElhaney.

Any other web reading you'd like to recommend? Please feel free to suggest in the comments.

pic: Alain Resnais' latest, Les Herbes Folles, is playing at the New York and Toronto film festivals, and just got picked up by Sony for US distribution.