Toronto – The 34th Toronto International Film Festival adds 11 films to its Contemporary World Cinema (CWC) schedule and seven films to its Visions programme. CWC provides audiences with an annual snapshot of trends in global cinema.
Ticket packages for the Festival are now available for purchase by cash, debit or Visa†. Purchase online attiff.net/thefestival, by phone at 416-968-FILM or 1-877-968-FILM (10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday, closed weekends and holidays) or in person at the Festival Box Office at Nathan Phillips Square (10 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week), located at 100 Queen Street West, in the white tent, west of the square.The Festival runs from September 10 to 19, 2009.
CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA
Beyond the Circle
Golam Rabbany
Biplob, Bangladesh
World Premiere
In this political fable from Bangladesh’s leading filmmaker, a simple village musician gets swept up in the market economy of big city Dhaka.
Blessed
Ana Kokkinos
Australia
International Premiere
During the course of one day and night, seven children wander the streets in an urban odyssey. Blessed is a film about mothers and children, about love and beauty, about being lost and finding your way home.
Down for Life
Alan Jacobs
USA
World Premiere
Based on a New York Times article, this film depicts a single, fateful day in the life of a 15-year-old Latina gang leader. Leaving the gang, she discovers, is more difficult than joining. Shot in South-Central Los Angeles, the film stars local youths in the lead roles.
Giulia Doesn’t Date at Night
Giuseppe Piccioni
Italy
International Premiere
A young novelist is intrigued by his daughter’s swimming instructor. When he asks her out, he learns that she doesn’t date at night and discovers that she is serving a sentence for a crime of passion. Tentatively they start a relationship that leads both of them in unforeseen directions.
Heiran
Shalizeh Arefpour
Iran
World Premiere
A young Iranian girl falls in love with an immigrant student from Afghanistan, causing her family to react with anger.
The House of Branching Love
Mika Kaurismäki
Finland
International Premiere
Family therapist Juhani and business trainer Taula decide to divorce in a civilized manner. Despite these good intentions, things turn ugly and the Pandora’s Box of their marriage flies open, releasing plagues of love and hate.
Rabia
Sebastián Cordero
Spain/Colombia
World Premiere
Rabia is a romantic thriller about a construction worker on the run for killing his foreman who hides in the mansion where his girlfriend works as a housekeeper.
Sawasdee Bangkok Wisit Sasanatieng
Aditya Assarat, Kongdej Jaturanrasmee and Pen-ek Ratanaruang
Thailand
World Premiere
Directed by four distinctly talented Thai directors, this collection of tales about Bangkok is less a love letter than a funny, touching and surprising expression of the city’s reality.
Shameless
Jan Hrebejk
CzechRepublic
International Premiere
This film, freely inspired by stories form Michal Viewegh’s bestseller,Tales of Marriage and Sex, is a wry comedy about sex and marriage and a story about losing and finding love.
Slovenian Girl
Damjan Kozole
Slovenia/Germany/Serbia/Croatia
North American Premiere
A young university student solicits sex clients through newspaper ads, involving her in a hellish adventure.
Tanner Hall
Francesca Gregorini and Tatiana von Furstenberg
USA
World Premiere
Tanner Halla folkloric look into the private world of an all-girls boarding school. In a cozy but run-down New England town, the knot of adolescence is unravelled through the coming-of-age stories of four teenaged girls.
VISIONS
Between Two Worlds
Vimukthi Jayasundara
Sri Lanka
North American Premiere
Rajith, a young man, flees the city in which he lives and where violent confrontations are common. He goes to a village in a valley where the inhabitants seem to be still strongly influenced by an old legend.
Gaia
Jason Lehel
USA
World Premiere
A group of Native Americans discover a young woman, left for dead, in the Arizona desert and take her to their reservation. Through her relationship with American Natives she manages to re-connect with her own innocence, but is forced to make a choice between being reborn out of the chaos of her past and dying in the grips of
her darkness.
Hiroshima
Pablo Stoll
Uruguay `
World Premiere
Juan sings in a rock band, but he doesn’t talk much. He also works at a bakery during the night and sleeps most of the day. This is the story of one of his days and what happens when he wakes up.Hiroshima is a silent musical, based on real facts.
I Am Love
Luca Guadagnino
Italy
International Premiere
Academy Award-winner Tilda Swinton stars in this drama about the devastating effects of a forbidden passion between a woman who belongs to a rich northern-Italian family and her son’s best friend, a cook.
Lebanon
Samuel Maoz
Israel
North American Premiere
Set in June 1982 during the Israel-Lebanon War, the film follows a young and heroic tank crew that finds itself in a situation that cannot be contained. The crew copes with impossible conflicts, losing its way amid the chaos of war.
To the Sea
Pedro González-Rubio Mexico
World Premiere
Before their inevitable farewell, a young Mexican man and his half Italian son, Natan, embark on an epic journey to the second-largest coral reef on the planet.
Trash Humpers
Harmony Korine
USA/United Kingdom
World Premiere
Harmony Korine returns toGummoterritory in this handheld video of a loser-gang cult-freak collective who do antisocial things in a non-narrative way, except for the song-and-dance numbers.
