TIFF

Tonight the internationally renowned TIFF drew to a close. Lasting for eleven days this year, between 300-400 films were screened at approximately 37 screens in downtown Toronto venues. The highlights apparently were Made in Dagenham, Black Swan and The Kings Speech. Apparently. With both financial and time constants upon me, I sadly made it to none of these. I did however, courtesy of my flatmate get tickets to the Ken Loach, Micheal Moore talk. The conversation quickly turned to war with the two directors backing 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"

Word on the street is, a Canadian film festival just isn't a festival without a contentious debate between two left wing film makers.

When Herzog rescued Phoenix

This low tech animation piece matches perfectly the manner in which Herzog tells this yarn.

Stupidity

Stupid is being on time for your meeting with a creative director only to realise you're in the wrong agency.

True story folks.

Music to use Google Maps by

One of the things Toronto is best known for is its vibrant music scene. Great music such as Lights, Broken Social Scene and Cowboy Junkies, to name but a few all originated here, and over the past few weeks I've been getting my music on. And speaking of music, there's been some nice stuff happening of recent in digital land on the music front. Like this music video from Lissie, which demonstrates nicely how an artist can use a music video to really capture the imagination of the audience. Basically using Google maps to determine your current location, the weather in the video changes, so if it is raining outside your window then it will be raining in the music video.

Have a listen here

Chris Milk's latest interactive, data-driven film using HTML5 video, audio and Google maps is something I'd been meaning to check out for a while. The film itself is a wonderful canvas for Arcade Fire's "We used to Wait" Stunning, emotive and beautiful, The Wilderness Downtown is great example of an engaging viral campaign.

Oh and incidentally if you're abroad in a foreign country where you barely know anyone, it's like self harm.

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

I eventually went to see Scott Pilgrim vs The World last night. It was one of those things that was kinda mandatory considering that it was completely set right here in Toronto. It was, I have to say, in Canadian speak, awesome ay. I awarded it super, special bonus points for showing so many of our new hood's haunts such as Lee's Palace, Honest Ed's, not to mention the ubiquitous Pizza Pizza opposite it

Best of all my friend Noel Donnellon's Dublin based company Voodoo Dog did some of the animation for Scott Pilgrim.

Check out the bits they did here.

http://www.voodoodog.com/work/film/title-sequences