Fan Fare

Mai tais? This isn’t an Eastwood film shoot

Some films are made on a $6 million budget, others with $60 million. It’s the difference between long hours on set and sipping mai tais on the patio. Just ask “The Bang Bang Club” director, Steven Silver.

“The Bang Bang Club,” was 10 years in the making, shot last year over the course of 30 days and produced on a budget of 5 million euros. It’s still waiting to be picked up by a U.S. distributor.

When casting, Director Steven Silver told Reuters during the Toronto film festival that he had turned down other more high profile actors for the roles. He was looking for people who were able to immerse themselves into the culture, adding: “I needed actors who were prepared to deal with the difficulties and hardships of a low budget independent film.”

The film was shot in South Africa around the same time as Clint Eastwood’s ” Invictus”, which reportedly had a  budget of about $60 million.

“If you know anything about how Eastwood shoots, he shoots these 8 hour days,” said Silver, chuckling. “The grips from Eastwood’s film would be sipping Mai Tais on the patio while we were still slugging away.”

(Caption: A scene from the film “The Bang Bang Club”, starring Ryan Phillippe. REUTERS/TIFF)

Toronto festival stays grounded with pancakes and bacon

Forget about best actor awards or controversies about favoritism.

The Toronto International Film Festival closing ceremony has a refreshingly ego-free feel to it.

Unlike the glitzy, red carpet theater affairs of the Cannes or Venice film festivals, TIFF is non-competitive, so the stars don’t stick around after a gala world premiere screening of their film for splashy awards to be handed out.

Rather than declare a festival “winner”, much of the last day is all about supporting the Canadian up-and-comers over a friendly Sunday brunch of, yes, scrambled eggs, bacon and pancakes.

The winners are ecstatic at the honor and joke about how the cash awards can finally help pay off some overdue back taxes (Denis Villeneuve’s “Incendies” for best Canadian feature film) and keep them from having to work at Starbucks (Deborah Chow for her directorial debut in “The High Cost of Living”).

Organizers also give recognition for festival favorites, as voted by the public. Toronto audiences apparently have pretty good taste, if past winners of the People’s Choice Award are anything to go by: “Slumdog Millionaire”, Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire”,  “American Beauty”, just to name a few.

Pride or insecurity at the Toronto festival? “I don’t know, you tell me”

If there’s one thing the (mostly local) media seems to do well at the Toronto International Film Festival,  it’s pestering filmmakers and stars with questions about Canada, Toronto, and the festival.

Call it the Sally Field complex.

There have been some lovely and flattering comments, of course — this is a film festival, after all. But what happens when the media doesn’t get the answer they want? They’re nothing if not persistent. Undaunted. Like a dog with a bone.

But if we’re squirming in our seats a bit by the third question, knowing they really have nothing especially enlightening to say, it’s really time to move on, no?

One local reporter clearly tested Robert De Niro’s patience during the press conference for “Stone”. De Niro offered some nice, polite words about the festival (“it’s a big festival, and a very good one obviously”), but admitted he hadn’t attended in over a decade and was only in town for just the day. The reporter doggedly pressed him no less than three times for his thoughts on TIFF. De Niro — not exactly known for his loquaciousness — seemed to search for words. Finally, he just said to the reporter: ”I don’t know, you tell me.”

At the press conference for “Henry’s Crime”, which stars Keanu Reeves (introduced as “Toronto’s own”), reporters almost seemed a tad bit more interested in Keanu himself and his thoughts on the city (he grew up in Toronto with his mother and sisters — but he left roughly 25 years ago) than in the movie, for which he was also producer.

The first question out of the block was: what are your coming and going rituals whenever you visit the city? (He has none.) Any favorite haunts? (Not really.)

For Michael Moore and Ken Loach revolution begins at film festival

By Jeffrey Hodgson

No one can accuse left-wing filmmakers Michael Moore and Ken Loach of abandoning their ideals as they joined the glitz and glamour of the Toronto International Film Festival, where Loach was promoting his Iraq war drama “Route Irish”.

Moore was briefly in town to interview Loach before an audience of fans. But even before the interview started,  the “Fahrenheit 9/11″ director  lamented the amount of corporate sponsorship at the festival. His event, sponsored by BlackBerry, took place in the festival’s snazzy new headquarters, which is sponsored by Canadian phone company Bell.

He said Loach asked him beforehand: ”Is there anything left that hasn’t been branded?”

The conversation quickly turned to war and the two directors backed the idea of Canada offering asylum to U.S. soldiers who have fled there to avoid service in Iraq or Afghanistan. They compared today’s situation with the Vietnam war, when thousands of draft dodgers fled to Canada.

“This country was so generous to those of my generation who did not want to kill Vietnamese,” Moore said. “It is absolutely shameful how Canada has behaved toward those who have resisted this war. It’s not the Canada that we used to know.”

It’s Midnight Madness at Toronto film festival when the fat lady raps

Forget the weighty films about serious subjects in gorgeous settings by award-winning directors that incorporate a healthy dash of subtitles. The Toronto International Film Festival is near-bursting with those.

What some festival goers live for every year are over-the-top films that celebrate the ridiculous, the shocking and the thrilling. Films like “The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman”.

And the best time to soak up something like that? During the witching hour.

The director of “The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman“, Wu Ershan — who was on hand for the world premiere — is the first from mainland China to have a film screened at Midnight Madness, a programming event that has become an honored tradition at TIFF for the last 23 years.

This year’s slogan — a spin on the festival’s slogan — sums it up: “10 wild nights, 11 freaky films, tons of tickets.”

Zombie porn movie finds limited life at Toronto film festival

Let’s get this out of the way: if a film that combines full-on horror with necrophilia and gay porn  is not your thing, then avoid “L.A. Zombie.”

“L.A. Zombie”, which last month made headlines when an Australian film board banned the Canadian movie featuring “gay zombie porn” from screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival, provides a look into the world of zombie-on-zombie action, perhaps a world’s first.

After hitting the festival circuit in Germany and Switzerland earlier in the year, the film has landed on the home soil of the Canadian director Bruce La Bruce at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Festival organizers described it like so in the program book: “L.A. Zombie is a hardcore gay porn film. There are numerous scenes of men having graphic sex shot in the manner of pornography, not art film erotica… But L.A. Zombie is very much an art film, too.”

Aaron Eckhart, Nicole Kidman in “Rabbit Hole” grief

How much is too much when actors research their roles?

Actor Aaron Eckhart, who plays Howie Corbett in John Cameron Mitchell’s “Rabbit Hole,” said he may have gone too far to research his character.

“I did attend one bereavement class and that was probably unethical, I would have to say, because you really feel like you’re taking advantage of people who are laying it all out … you just feel like you’re a liar so I didn’t do that again,” he told reporters at a press conference during the Toronto International Film Festival.

“Rabbit Hole,” based on the Pulitzer winner play by David Lindsay-Abaire, is an intimate story that focuses on a couple grieving the loss of their young son.

Eckhart, known for his slick roles in “The Dark Knight” and “Thank You For Not Smoking,” said Internet video blogs work well for such raw emotions.

And a lot is left to imagination.

At 35, TIFF finally moves out of mom’s basement

After 35 years, the Toronto film festival is has finally got a permanent home — a C$200 million five-story complex with five posh theaters, two galleries, a bistro, and a restaurant.

The “Bell Lightbox” — which threw open its doors to the public for the first time on Sunday — will help consolidate the festival’s sprawling operations that typically move around Toronto’s downtown from year to year, forcing returning guests and journalists to scramble to get their bearings.

In the last decade, festival press conference have occupied at least three different hotels, while the main box office has jumped around various venues, including a large tent on the front lawn of city hall last year.

The festival will continue to screen most of its 300-odd roster of films at public theaters, but having its own screens will allow it to hold exhibitions, screenings, and film lectures year-round.

The project — celebrated on Sunday with a street party –  has been ten years in the making, and sits on land donated by the family of Canadian-raised director Ivan Reitman.

Rainn Wilson reigns in Ebert’s Toronto twitter showdown

Who knew Dwight Kurt Schrute III could sell paper and tweet with Internet wit and humor, too?

At the Toronto International Film Festival’s Filmmaker’s Lounge on Saturday, Rainn Wilson (Dwight Schrute of “The Office”) out-tweeted four other film industry panelists — hard-core tweeters all — in a “Twitter Showdown” hosted by MTV’s Dan Levy.

Each panelist had 60 seconds to “tweet” something witty and original about Roger Ebert’s statements about the film industry. In 140 characters or less.

Wilson was up against David Poland (@DavidPoland), a critic with Movie City News, Eric Kohn, a critic with indieWIRE and Screenrush, Grace Wang (@etherielmusings), TIFF social media coordinator, and Scott Tobias, a critic with The Onion’s AV Club.

Wilson won 4 of the 10 rounds, followed by Eric Kohn, who won 3 of the rounds.

Audiences were able to follow along, but without Ebert tweeting as well the “conversation” would’ve been difficult to follow without being in present in the room. (And for those who don’t tweet, don’t understand online “language”, or don’t know what Twitter is, this was likely even more difficult to follow.)

“Griff the Invisible”: unconventional superhero

Aussie native Ryan Kwanten is a long way away from his “True Blood” character, Jason Stackhouse, in the new Australian film, “Griff the Invisible”, which had its world premiere on Friday at the Toronto International Film Festival.

“Griff”, directed by Leon Ford (most recently seen in the miniseries, “The Pacific”, as 1st Lt. Edward ‘Hillbilly’ Jones), is not exactly your typical caped-crusader movie. Set in Australia, Griff (played by Kwanten) is a socially awkward and bullied office worker — a la Clark Kent. At night, he assumes his alter-ego to protect his neighborhood in Melbourne.

He is able to juggle this double life, until he meets Melody (played by Maeve Dermody), a young woman who is just as socially awkward, but as the film describes it, “shares his passion for the impossible.”

If there is one similarity between Kwanten’s rather dim Stackhouse character and Griff, it is that they both exude a certain kind of vulnerability and innocence.

There are overtones of Superman, and other popular superheroes in “Griff”, but it’s not all that it seems. Halfway through the film, viewers begin to realize their assumptions about the film have been utterly wrong. Ford, Kwanten and other cast members were on hand for the screening and answered questions from the audience, who seemed charmed by the offbeat tale.  Will a broader audience appreciate this quirky, unconventional take on the genre?

(Caption: (Top) Actor Ryan Kwanten makes a surprise appearance outside the Scotiabank Theatre ahead of the premiere of “Griff the Invisible” during the Toronto International Film Festival. September 10, 2010. REUTERS/Solarina Ho (Bottom) The cast and crew of “Griff the Invisible” speaks with audience members after the world premiere screening of the film during the Toronto International Film Festival. September 10, 2010. REUTERS/Solarina Ho)