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North America cinema wakes up to politics at Toronto fest
2007-09-06
The 32nd Toronto film festival opens Thursday offering a stirring menu of documentaries about worldwide political unrest, with a spotlight for the first time on North America. "The big news this year is North America," said festival co-director Noah Cowan. "Canada, the United States and Mexico seem to be producing the most interesting and provocative cinema in the world right now." The United States has finally "awakened," he said, with documentaries such as "Captain Mike across America," following its director Michael Moore's escapades during the 2004 US presidential campaign. A re-enactment of the anti-globalization riots that stopped a World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999 will also be splashed onto screens here in Stuart Townsend's "Battle in Seattle." Former US president Jimmy Carter is even slated to attend, taking part in the festival's first geo-political roundtable for filmmakers. He is the subject of a new documentary, "Man From Plains" by Jonathan Demme, the Oscar-winning director of "The Silence of the Lambs." "The United States is a kind of slumbering giant," said Cowan. "They seemed to have not connected to the international turmoil that had been happening politically worldwide, until now." "American cinema has since taken a 180 degree turn. So many films this year seem to confront issues of the day, whether it's soldiers returning from Iraq or civil liberties violations, or the culture clash in its cities and suburbs," he added. "Three years ago, you felt that (foreign) film makers were connecting to the big headlines of the day. Now it's America's turn." The film industries in Canada and Mexico, meanwhile, seem to have "come of age," he said. A talented new generation of filmmakers has emerged in Canada and Mexico, building on the works of Canadian icons Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg, whose hotly anticipated new film "Eastern Promises" debuts at the festival, and three amigos Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuaron. "Without their commitment, we have to wonder if the younger generation now coming up would have felt as emboldened to make such powerful and artistically meaningful movies," Cowan said. The film festival is the biggest in North America, with annual admissions of 340,000 people, and 349 films from 55 countries to be screened in the coming week. Most of the films are being screened for the first time, while some are looking to get some last minute buzz ahead of a fall theatrical release and the run-up to the next Academy Awards in February. Moviegoers seem very excited about films by two Canadian directors: Francois Girard's "Silk" and Guy Maddin's video essay "My Winnipeg," a portrait of the prairie city's history. "Unusually, most of the important new cinema is coming from English Canada this year," noted Cowan, saying that French-language films from Quebec previously shined brighter. Mexico's Gael Garcia Bernal, meanwhile, starred in, directed and produced three films at the festival this year. The tender "Cochochi," which he produced, will mark the emergence of "major new (behind the lens) talent from Mexico," predicted Cowan. It was directed by Israel Cardenas and Laura Amelia Guzman. Canadian Paul Haggis ("Crash" and "Million Dollar Baby"), dubbed by Cowan "the poster child of the festival this year," will showcase his hard-hitting "In the Valley of Elah." "Being Canadian, but working on an American subject, he seems to bridge American passion and anger about war with Canadian humanism," Cowan said. "He takes a measured, sad, and intellectually satisfying approach to the (Iraq) war that allows for reasoned debate." Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron star in the film, the tale of a father searching for his son returning from Iraq. Following his Academy Award win for "Brokeback Mountain" (2005), Ang Lee returns with an erotic espionage thriller set in World War Two-era Shanghai, starring Tony Leung as a powerful political figure. Bollywood's Amitabh Bachchan, one of the world's most worshipped movie stars, takes on his first-ever leading role in English in the world premiere of "The Last Year." Brad Pitt is likely to drop by, to promote his latest role as America's most notorious outlaw in Andrew Dominik's "The Assassination of Jesse James." So too are George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Juliette Binoche, and Sean Penn, who was chastised for contravening a Toronto smoking ban at a press conference last year. Authorities have publicly warned him to stub it out this year.
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