MEN & CHICKEN: Anders Thomas Jensen Director Profile

Did you know that Anders Thomas Jensen is one of the filmmaking community's most prolific screenwriters? It's true!

Go check out his IMDB profile. We'll wait.

See what we mean? Since 1996 he's written 50 screenplays. That's like, a LOT of screenplays.

Some of these scripts have been for hugely successful and/or critically acclaimed films: Mifune's Last Song, In China They Eat Dogs, Open Hearts, Stealing Rembrandt, and Brothers. Several of these films have been directed by Danish dynamo Susanne Bier. More recently Jensen wrote A Second Chance (with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and Kristian Levring's epic Western The Salvation (with Mads Mikkelsen, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Eva Green).

Although Jensen has only directed four of his own screenplays, that doesn't mean that those four movies are any less wonderful.

All right boys, we're gonna swim the HELL out of this lake!

Flickering Lights sets the stage for Jensen's ability to elicit empathy towards the most screwed up, unlikable characters you can imagine. It's also terrifically funny and touching, but not maudlin or cliché.

Mads Mikkelsen's very bald forehead just needs a few minutes to collect itself.

The Green Butchers was Jensen's next directorial effort and like Flickering Lights, itincludes Mads Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Ole Thestrup, and Nicolas Bro. And nothing on the menu is vegetarian.

Hannibal Lecter is amused by your cannibal references.

Did you eat the last cookie?

Adam's Apples, again starring Mikkelsen, Thestrup, Bro, and Kaas, is another movie about severely dysfunctional people led by a dysfunctional pastor whose dysfunction is literally the only thing keeping them all from complete mental breakdowns. It's a whole lot funnier than it probably sounds and again, is surprisingly poignant.

The cheese will never stand alone if these three have anything to say about it.

Men & Chicken takes the same Jensen trademarks and amps them up to become even crazier and more hilarious and perhaps most shocking of all, genuinely heartwarming.

Don't miss Men & Chicken's final screening. It's a movie you won't soon forget. Trust us. We know these things.

MEN & CHICKEN Final Screening!
Sun. Sept 20, 3:30 PM SCOTIABANK 1

HELLIONS: Bruce McDonald Director Profile

Canadian cult film fans are familiar with Toronto director Bruce McDonald. If you attended the Toronto International Film Festival in 2008, you might recall Pontypool, which mutates the zombie genre in the most fascinating and frightening ways.

McDonald is back at the Festival with Hellions, described as a "deliciously creepy tale about a pregnant teen whose home is besieged by a ghastly crew of trick-or-treaters." Sort of like À l'intérieur but set on Halloween instead of Christmas. Maybe. (You'll have to see it to find out, mwahahaha!)

Roadkill: Hand over the cowboy hat and no one gets hurt.

With more than 60 directorial credits to his name, McDonald defines "eclectic." He first appeared in the consciousness of both film and music fans with his 1989 movie Roadkill. It started as a tour documentary, but due to the increasingly unhinged environment surrounding the band A Neon Rome, it soon transformed into a fictionalized portrait of the madness of rock and roll. With a cast including Nash the Slash, Joey Ramone, and Don McKellar (another Canadian film icon), Roadkill is a bona fide cult classic. (And yes, McDonald admits that he did spend that $25,000 prize money on a big chunk of hash.)

Hard Core Logo: Hugh Dillon, rocking a cowboy hat.

But that wasn't it for Bruce McDonald. In 1996 he directed another music movie, this one about the dissolution of a fictional punk band called Hard Core Logo, hence the title of the film. With unforgettable characters like Joe Dick (Hugh Dillon) and Billy Tallent (Callum Keith Rennie), Hard Core Logo would inspire more than band names. It is considered one of the greatest Canadian movies ever made, not to mention one of the greatest movies about punk rock.

McDonald on the set of Pontypool wearing his trademark hat.

Not content to just direct fiction films, McDonald has also worked on several documentaries and many different TV series, including Twitch City (with Don McKellar and Callum Keith Rennie), Lexx, Queer As Folk, and the forever-beloved Degrassi: The Next Generation. And of course, 2008's Pontypool (did we mention we love this movie yet?).

Although Hellions is only McDonald's second horror film at TIFF, he did direct the blacker than black comedy The Husband, which screened at the Festival back in 2013. If that name doesn't ring a bell, it's the one about the man who's forced to care for his infant son alone when his wife is sent to prison for cheating on him with a minor. Yep, THAT movie.

McDonald has long praised Roman Polanski's The Tenant and Stanley Kubrick's The Shining as his favorite horror movies, saying that "people losing their minds" is "what I'm afraid of rather than monsters."

If that also terrifies you, you'll likely go mad for Hellions.

Of course, McDonald has also mentioned another thing that scares him:

"At the festival there's a certain kind of character that's around. It's this desperate, wide-eyed, glassy, I've had a script for 12 years that I've been working on kind of crazy. To me that's a bit scary and disturbing. You're not sure what's going on there."

HELLIONS Screening Times:
Thu. Sept 17, 9:30PM ELGIN/WINTER GARDEN
Fri. Sept 18 4:00PM, SCOTIABANK 4

LACE CRATER: Director Profile + 5 Questions With Harrison Atkins

Lace Crater is director Harrison Atkins's feature film debut, and it's playing as part of this year's Vanguard programme.

An awkward twentysomething begins to undergo some strange physical changes after a weekend tryst - with a ghost - in this charmingly lo-fi, supernaturally-tinged comedy-drama.

Not content to do just one thing, Atkins is a director, producer, writer, cinematographer, editor, and musician. Whew! That's a lot of talent for one guy.

We've already discussed a few of his short films on the blog, and if you haven't already, you should definitely check them out. They are weird, witty, and wonderful.

After watching the short films and the Lace Crater teaser trailer, our curiosity was piqued so we chatted with Atkins about his influences and his obsession with cats. There may have been some mention of the Official Vanguard Mascot Competition, too. Hrmmm...

"Hello, this is the Committee To Re-Elect Joe Swanberg as Official Vanguard Mascot calling..."

 You've got Bandcamp pages for three different bands (all of which you are involved with) listed on your website. In "Blissful Banquet" you actually have music performed live. Would you ever be interested in scoring films?

I'd love to score films. I was able to compose for films a little bit in college and found it very stimulating. In the past few years, I've toyed with the possibility of scoring a film of my own, but have always ended up collaborating with other artists. Maybe some day!

Please expand upon your fascination with cats. They feature prominently in two of your short films. Do you have cats of your own?

No, I'm actually allergic to cats so in my real life I have to keep them at a distance. I think cinema is the only lens through which I can explore my desire to pet them and hold them. Honestly, I'm not sure why they keep popping up. I guess I just think they're funny? But I'm not ruling out the possibility of some subconscious or repressed trauma.

Last year, It Follows, a movie about a girl who contracts a ghost from sex, played at the Festival. In Lace Crater, your character has sex with a ghost. Do you think that sex and ghosts are part of the current cultural zeitgeist and if so, why?

It's pretty strange! I mean, I think technology has the capability to fracture identity in a way is sort of unprecedented. There's definitely something kind of spectral to me about the personas people adopt online. Not to mention this whole uniquely modern experience of having a friend or acquaintance who tragically dies, but then you can still visit all of their social media accounts? That's a very ghostly thing, really, this Internet proxy self that haunts cyberspace after death. So I suppose this all could be a corollary of culture's increasingly immediate and intimate relationship with technology.

Your short films have playful, sarcastic, almost surreal qualities. Are there any filmmakers who have inspired you to strive for those qualities because of their own films?

So many. But Stephen Chow instantly springs to mind; he's one of my favorites. And along the same lines, Katsuhito Ishii - especially Funky Forest, which was huge for me. And I'm a pretty big Apichatpong Weerasethakul guy; a lot of his films have a kind of goofy formal language that really resonates with me. Andrzej Zulawski is in there somewhere, too. And David Lynch, when he's being funny.

Did you know that Joe Swanberg was the Official Vanguard Mascot of 2013? Now that you have this information, do you feel compelled to toss your hat into the ring for Official Vanguard Mascot of 2015? (Also, how is Mr. Swanberg handling things post-Vanguard Mascot? He never returns our texts.)

I'm tempted to gun for the crown this year, but what's the point of replacing one giant novelty pencil with another? What I mean to say is, I have a lot of respect for the current Mascot. It seems like a really tough job. And I know Joe just hasn't been the same since he lost the title last year. I think the transition from Mascot back to civilian can be really rough. (It's a complex social issue that I don't think gets enough publicity.)

LACE CRATER Screening Times:
Tue. Sept 15, 9:30PM SCOTIABANK 10
Thu. Sept 17, 9:30PM SCOTIABANK 14
Sun. Sept 20, 3:15PM SCOTIABANK 9

THE MISSING GIRL: Director Profile + 5 Questions With A.D. Calvo

Those who write, direct, and produce movies are sometimes referred to as a "triple threat," and one such threat is A.D. Calvo, whose The Missing Girl screens at the Festival this year in the Vanguard programme.

Calvo has written, directed, and produced several features, including The Other Side of the Tracks, The Melancholy Fantastic, House of Dust, and The Midnight Game, based on that infamous Creepypasta entry.

(Seriously, have you read about The Midnight Game? I don't know if it's real or not, but I'm sure as hell not turning off all the lights in my house and wandering around with candles to look at myself in the mirror in the middle of the night. No thanks.)

The Missing Girl might seem like a horror film from the title, but it's a step in a different direction for Calvo.

A schlubby, disillusioned comic-book store owner revisits an adolescent trauma when his beautiful young employee suddenly goes missing, in this combination of quirky comedy and bittersweet, late-in-life coming-of-age story from writer-director A.D. Calvo.

The film features character actor Robert Longstreet (who we profiled on the blog) and Alexia Rasmussen, who was so terrific in Proxy (which screened at Vanguard in 2013).

We wanted to find out more about A.D. Calvo and his new film so we tossed a few questions his way.

You're more known for your horror films, but The Missing Girl seems to be a shift from horror to a more introspective drama. What prompted this change?

I'm a big fan of arthouse films, including older classic stuff. I found the ones I connect with the most are character-driven and those also end up being the most timeless. I felt my horror efforts were mainly plot-driven and the work wasn't fully fulfilling me creatively so I needed a reboot. This will hopefully allow me to return to horror with a more character-driven approach to storytelling.

The cast of this film is great, including Alexia Rasmussen, Robert Longstreet, and Shirley Knight. Were there any specific roles made you fans of the work of these actors? What was it about them that made them best for your film?

Working with our producer, Mike Ryan, and our casting director, Nina Day, we were able to put together a talented cast. The cast fell in around Robert Longstreet, really. I loved so many of the characters he inhabited in the films I'd seen him in, e.g., The Catechism Cataclysm, Septien, Take Shelter. He connected with the material and we both hit it off. Alexia was a great partner for "Mort" and I loved her in Mike's other films, i.e., The Comedy, Last Weekend, Losers Take All.

Shirley Knight has been a longtime supporter and collaborator. I'm quite honored to have made three films with her. I mean, she's worked with Sidney Lumet and all.

The whole cast was great and supportive. I loved Eric Ladin in The Killing and Sonja Sohn's work in The Wire is great - that's become one of my favorite binge-watching shows, actually. Lastly, Kevin Corrigan and Thomas Jay Ryan, all such amazing talents. I'm humbled to have worked with them all.

You produce, write, and direct. How do you manage to do all three without going crazy? What are the positives to juggling all of these roles?

Ha, yeah, I do feel a bit crazy at times. I feel my writing has improved because of Mike. He edits me as a creative producer, someone who really understands character beats and emotional modulations. That's what I was missing, I was focusing too much on trying create a clever story around plot. On the directing front, having someone like him on set helps can help triangulate performances, if that makes any sense. If I'm on the fence on something, I can use him as a reliable compass.

With regards to juggling the workload, I've never been a micro-manager (no one likes being micro-managed) so I give lots of freedom to those who work for me (with me). It's more about the team, so my job becomes more about listening to various opinions in an effort to find the best possible solution. Because the best thing to know is that no one knows everything.

Was the plot of this film inspired by anything specific? Did you know anyone who went missing or did you ever work in a comic shop?

The story grew organically from the opening scene with no specific plot in mind; although certain films were in the back of my mind, serving as inspirations - films like Vertigo, Blue Velvet, and maybe even a little of Twin Peaks. And, yes, I've always loved the feel of comic book shops, so, naturally, films like American Splendor and Ghost World were catalysts as well.

You've worked with composer Joe Carrano on almost all of your films. What is it about his music that keeps you two collaborating?

Actually, Joe and I go way back. We've been close friends since high school. His music and sound talents are very broad and diverse. In addition to scoring and sound design, he's also a very capable sound mixer, dialog editor, and Foley artist, which really helps on a modest budget. And when it comes to music, Joe can work in any style, really. There's very few people like him.

Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions, A.D. Calvo. Now it's time to catch a screening of The Missing Girl.

THE MISSING GIRL Screening Times:
Sun. Sept 13, 10:00PM SCOTIABANK 13
Tue. Sept 15, 4:15PM, SCOTIABANK 14
Sun. Sept 20, 2:30PM SCOTIABANK 4

FEBRUARY: Director Profile: 5 Questions for Oz Perkins

Premiering at TIFF tonight, February tells the story of three young girls who are intertwined by a dark, malevolent spirit that is plaguing them. Kat (Kiernan Shipka) is a quiet young girl who has been left at her prep school because her parents mysteriously never showed up, but she makes due by trying to befriend the elusive (and good-smellin') Rose (Lucy Boynton). Far away is Joan (Emma Roberts) who commences a blood soaked voyage to the school, with her motives unclear to the audience until the very end.

February is the debut feature for writer-director Oz Perkins, who although has never sat in the director's chair before, is no stranger to the film industry, working as a writer, actor and editor on several different pieces. I got the chance to chat with him about horror, movies and writing horror movies. (It's really all that I ever concern myself with.)

Richelle Charkot: What attracts you to horror? 

Oz Perkins: The dark glamour; the raw emotion. The fact that horror is all about that which is hidden from us which is far more interesting to me than all that we can see and know and understand. 

RC: What were some of the challenges with shooting February?

OP: It was extremely cold, with a two week prep. 

RC: Who are some of your favourite creepy girls in horror movies? 

OP: Sissy Spacek in Carrie, Eli from Let the Right One In and Catherine Deneuve in Repulsion.

RC: If you were in charge of a late night double-feature at a theatre, what two movies would you play?

OP: Eraserhead and Don't Look Now. 

RC: Can you name some films that first attracted you to the idea of writing and directing a horror film?

OP: The Shining, Let the Right One In, Don't Look Now, Rosemary's Baby, The Strangers, Psycho, Repulsion.

FEBRUARY screening times:

Monday, Sept. 14th, 6:45 PM SCOTIABANK 9
Friday, Sept. 18th, 6:45 PM THE BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA

VETERAN: Profile of Director Ryoo Seung-wan

Director Ryoo Seung-wan is nicknamed, "Action Kid" or "Chungmuro's Action Kid" and we can expect a lot of action in his latest film, Veteran. We can also expect some humor and satire and analysis of Korean society--just with fights. Which is one of my favorite forms of exegesis, if I'm honest. Ryoo was part of the explosion of South Korean cinema onto the world film scene in the early 2000s. Ryoo discussed a little bit about being a part of this generation of filmmakers in an interview with Hangul Celluloid:

At the time I made my debut film in 2000, it was a very special time for me. I made my debut in the same year as director Bong Joon-ho and 2000 was also the year director Park Chan-wook made a very successful film [Joint Security Area] and Kim Jee-woon released The Foul King. For me, working at the same time as such competent directors who make very good films is very helpful in creating “face-makers” in the film industry. As I watched their films, I would learn and it would also give me the motivation to make better films, but it also caused me some suffering that I was living at the same time as such talented directors. At the end of the day, each of us has our own past and it’s an interesting journey. I don’t ever particularly have thoughts about leading the industry but we do, as directors, get together from time to time and talk about each other’s films.

Besides directing, Ryoo does a lot of screenwriting, particularly for his own films. Ryoo Seung-wan acts in some his own films. And in a few other films, like Park Chan-wook's Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005). Ryoo's brother, Ryoo Seung-bum appears in good chunk of Ryoo Seung-wan's films. In fact you can see Ryoo Seung-bum in this little taste of Ryoo Seung-wan's very guerilla first feature, Die Bad (2000).

No Blood No Tears (2002) is heist film billed as "a new type of film noir." Cab driver and former safecracker Kyeong-seon (Lee Hye-yeong) is sick and tired of being harassed by jerks in her cab. Su-ji (Jeon Do-yeon) is tired of her gangster boyfriend. Together the two women decide to make some quick cash and get some revenge. I'm down with all of it.

In Arahan (2004), a young cop, played by Ryoo Seung-bum discovers that he has some powerful chi and a heroic destiny. Also, there is a restaurant fight, because every martial arts movie should have a restaurant fight. The action choreography owes a lot to Hong Kong cinema, even while maintaining a lot of the realism of Ryoo's other films. I guess what I mean is: it's not as brutal as a lot of realistically violent Korean films.

Crying Fist (2005) is Ryoo's boxing melodrama, starring Choi Min-sik (Oldboy; I Saw The Devil; Lucy) as an Olympic boxer down on his luck. (Because this is a Korean film, Choi's Tae-shik is a silver medalist, not a gold medalist). Tae-sik is making money through streetfighting, and not the cool kind. Ryoo Seung-bum plays a kid in juvenile detention who needs to get his life straight and sees boxing as a way out. Also, there is cancer. Because this is a boxing melodrama. (Though it could have a widow or an orphaned kid or both and Wallace Beery).

In City of Violence (2006) two men decide to go after the men who killed their friend. One, a policeman, is investigating the murder. The other, played by Ryoo Seung-wan himself, wants to kill every member of the gang. But because this is a Ryoo Seung-wan movies, it's more complicated than that. Much more complicated. Also, there's another sweet restaurant fight.

Ryoo Seung-wan turns his attention to corruptio in the justice system with the aptly named, The Unjust (2010). When five girls are raped and murdered, the president demands the police resolve the case. The police make political decisions. There are dirty prosecutors. Blackmail. Murder. And innocent people are framed.

No one tell Vampire Prosecutor.

Vampire Prosecutor is handsomely disappointed in the criminal justice system.

North and South Korean spies play a game in Ryoo's most John Le Carre thriller, The Berlin File (2013). When North Korean spy Pyo Jong-seong (Ha Jung-woo) becomes convinced he's been set up by his own government, he and his wife, Ryun Jung-hee (Jun Ji-hyun) who's a translator at the North Korean embassy, go on the run. Look at the black leather trenchcoats!  Berlin! Surveillance vans! Roof top battles!

And Ryoo has a short in the Mad Sad Bad 3D horror anthology film. Ryoo's segment is called, "Ghost."

So basically Ryoo Seung-wan has done every kind of film. Except for a romantic costume drama, but if he's done a boxing melodrama, a romantic costume drama's got to be coming soon.



VETERAN screening times:
Sep. 13, Sunday, 9:00 pm, SCOTIABANK 4
Sep. 15, Tuesday, 4:00 pm, SCOTIABANK 13
Sep. 19, Saturday, 6:15 pm, SCOTIABANK 4

DER NACHTMAHR Director Profile + 5 Questions With AKIZ

Der Nachtmahr, playing at the Toronto International Film Festival's Vanguard programme this year, was directed by German multidisciplinary artist AKIZ.

AKIZ studied at The Film Academy Baden-Wuerttemberg; two of his student films were nominated for Oscars. Later, he received a scholarship to attend grad school at the famed University of Southern California, which counts John Carpenter, Gregg Araki, Scott Derrickson, David Goyer, and some dude named George Lucas among its alumni.

AZIZ directed his acclaimed debut film Die Nacht der Nächte - School's Out in 1997. In 2008, he helmed Eight Miles High (Das wilde Leben), which gives a "lusty, German twist" to the mythologizing of the 1960s and the life of groupie, model, and leftist icon, Uschi Obermaier.

Painting Reality, one of AKIZ's short films, was featured in The Antic's Road Show, a film about street art from none other than Banksy. It shows what happened when 500 liters of (non-toxic, environmentally friendly) paint were dumped on the streets of Berlin and spread around by cars. Meanwhile, as if all that weren't enough, AKIZ was also working on paintings and sculptures, such as The Curious Case of Pikachu, in which 333 handcrafted "Pikachu fetuses" in jars of formaldehyde were placed in alcoves throughout a large hallway.

With all of this bizarre and beautiful art that AKIZ has created, we just had to find out more.

Your short film Evokation shows a creature that looks similar to the one in Der Nachtmahr. Can you explain if these two films are related thematically?

Well, first of all Evokation was some kind of test shooting. It's the same creature. We were testing different ways of lightning and movements of the creature. I won a competition at the Soho House in Berlin. They gave me a little budget and the opportunity to shoot a little film about the topic "obsession." At this point I had just finished the first model of the creature and was ready to do the first test.

Thematically, well I don't really see a connection, besides the fact that at this point I seemed to be intrigued by the idea of women having an encounter with their daemons. In both films there is this female who has some kind of secret--something that seems to be very personal and obsessive at the same time. But in Evokation her relationship towards this daemon seems to be way more grown up or mature, more than in Der Nachtmahr.

For me, in Evokation it looks like there is some kind of sexual obsession, which is happening on a regular basis. The undertone here is way more erotic than in Der Nachtmahr. In both cases, the woman is feeding the creature at some point. The big difference is HOW she is doing that.

This is one of various elements that somehow must have been triggered in my brain when I saw E.T. as a kid. In this case I am referring to the scene in E.T. when Elliott is feeding E.T. with peanuts to set up a connection between them. For me the funny thing is that I became aware of all the references in this film (like E.T.) AFTER the film was finished. I was not aware of all of that at all while I was working on this film.

William Blake, The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun

What filmmakers or other visual artists inspired the creature design in Der Nachtmahr? Are there any specific "body horror" movies that influenced you?

Not at all. First of all, I am not a fan of horror films. Actually, I haven't even seen a lot of horror films in my life. And I haven't even seen a single "body horror" film. I don't even know what that exactly means. I was told Cronenberg is the master of "body horror," but I don't see this element in my favorite films of his like Crash, or eXistenZ, or Cosmopolis. I am a sculptor and painter and in the beginning, I had no intention to do a film but to just make a sculpture. My vision was a creature--like a mixture between a fetus and an extremely old man. Later on I thought it would be a great idea to use the creature in a film.

I don't think Der Nachtmahr fits into the genre of horror films simply because a horror films require certain elements, most of all the fact that the audience should be afraid or should be uncertain if the main character will survive, for example. In Der Nachtmahr there is no single moment where I expect the audience to be "afraid." It is pretty obvious that this daemon causes a lot of trouble in Tina's life but at no point the audience is asking itself, "Will the creature eat her up?" For me the thrill is rather to see her wandering through this surreal inner landscape as well as watching her coming to terms with her self.

Anyway, I guess I was and still am heavily influenced by filmmakers like Tarkovsky, David Lynch, Gaspar Noe, Chris Cunningham, Jodorowsky, Luis Bunuel, The Brothers Quay (I still keep a signed VHS cassette as one of my most valuable treasures. The twins gave me a tape with their films in the early 1980s when I approached them at a film festival in Germany as a 15-year-old kid). And of course the grandmaster of film, Stanley Kubrick.

Speaking of role models and sources of inspiration from visual artists, there is Yves Klein, Max Ernst, and most of all, the greatest visionary of all time, William Blake. Also I was and most probably always will be a great fan of the great German expressionists of the 1920s in poetry like Trakl and Benn.

Music seems to be a large part of your cinematic endeavors. Do you look for musicians to complement the images or does the music help to inspire you to create certain kinds of images?

Both. I did the editing by myself and I put temp tracks in the timeline in a very early stage to get an idea about the structure and rhythm of the film. Some of these temp tracks ended up in the final mix. I edited the film at the same time as I edited the music. While we where shooting, we played different music to get the actors in the mood.

But to be honest, the music on location was not always as harsh and loud as it was in the film, simply because after several hours of shooting under strobe light conditions, hardcore electronic music can be kind of dangerous to people. One of my actresses was pregnant so I really felt responsible to not push the envelope too far.

To get back to your question: The music and score is a mash up of a lot of elements. Some parts have been composed by Steffen Kahles and Christoph Blaser according to my temp tracks. They also came up with music I was not expecting or music that was totally different from my temp tracks. I have composed other parts in the score and then there are tracks and songs that already existed before we even started to shoot the film.

Sketch for the Daemonische Trilogie from AKIZ

You've said that Der Nachtmahr is the first part of a "demonic trilogy." What can we expect from the next two installments?

I call it the Daemonische Trilogie. All of my upcoming projects more or less deal with the same issue: An encounter with a daemon and its impact on society. This triptych deals with BIRTH, LOVE, and DEATH. Der Natchtmahr is the first part, Birth. Here the daemon appears for the first time, like a fetus, a speechless creature.

In the next one this daemon turns into a human being. It experiences love and hate. It feels what it is like to be human... and eventually becomes addicted to being human. This middle part of the triptych is more romantic than frightening, but at the same time its going to be a feverish, wild, hypnotic ride like Der Nachtmahr.

The third and last part deals with death. Now the daemon looks, behaves, and acts like a real human, but at the same time he impersonates some daemonic remnants, which turn society upside down. Basically this story is a modern version of the old Bible story about Cain and Abel, their jealousy, and the death of one of the two. This story takes place in the world of the high-class restaurant kitchen. This film deals with the hierarchy between the chefs - Jealousy, Ecstasy, and Decadence - but most of all this last film is about the death of the genius daemon.

Daemonic Triptych sketch from AKIZ

Daemonic Triptych sketch from AKIZ

 Do you have any creepy recurring nightmares that you'd like to share with your fans?

Actually I don't have bad dreams. I dream a lot but these dreams are always wild, exiting and most of the time pleasant and joyful. Some of them even feel enlightening to me. The most frightening moment of my life was in my early twenties when I had a severe life and death experience. For almost 45 seconds I was flat lining. I think this experience had a huge impact on the story and the structure of Der Nachtmahr.

DER NACHTMAHR Screening Times:
Thu. Sept 17, 9:00PM BLOOR HOT DOCS
Fri. Sept 18, 12:00PM SCOTIABANK 3
Sun. Sept. 20, 6:00PM SCOTIABANK 14

MY GREAT NIGHT: Profile of Director Álex de la Iglesia

"Who, me? 'Super-talented?'"

Spanish director Álex de la Iglesia's My Great Night (aka, My Big Night, aka, Mi Gran Noche) premieres tonight, but it's not Iglesia's first appearance at TIFF. Iglesia's scary clown movie / meditation on the Spanish Civil War, The Last Circus premiered at TIFF. Since 1993, four of his films have played Midnight Madness: Accion Mutante (1993); The Day Of The Beast (1995); Perdita Durango (1998); and Witching & Bitching (2013). And Iglesia produced last year's harrowing Vanguard film, Shrew's Nest (2014), directed by Esteban Roel & Juanfer Andrés. Iglesia's films have won multiple Goya awards, Spain's national film award presented by the Academia de las Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas de España.

The first film Iglesia directed was his own short, "Mirandas Asesinas" in 1991. And then, Pedro Almodóvar produced Iglesia's Accion Mutante, giving Iglesia his first big break while simultaneously hurting the brains of at least forty cinephiles. (Hopefull,y they have recovered by now).

But while Iglesia's films have a unifying darkly comedic sensibility and a similar aesthetic, Iglesia has worked in a wide variety of genres from horror to an homage to Spaghetti Westerns, 800 Bullets, to a comparatively restrained thriller, The Oxford Murders (2008). Also, again, terrifying clowns. 

 

"Never mention the terrifying clowns, Elijah. Never mention Sammy Petrillo, either."

And before he had even written My Great Night, he had released Dying of Laughter (1999), a dark satire about comedy duo, Nino and Bruno. They were very successful in the 1970s, but boy do they hate each other now. (If this seems familiar to you, maybe you're thinking of Martin & Lewis or maybe you saw it during the Iglesia retrospective at TIFF Bell Lightbox last winter. God help you if you're thinking of Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo). And their envy and hate comes to a head at... a big live television extravaganza! 

Jazz Hands!

Iglesia himself worked in television, early on as a production designer, and now as director, screenwriter and producer. He's done several shorts, including, "The Tragedy of Francisco Franco." And he even had his own television series,  Plutón B.R.B. Nero (2008-9), in which having turfed the Earth, humanity seeks another habitable planet. 

Let's take a look!

So enjoy tonight's screening of My Great Night, and ponder how much of the film, which Iglesia both wrote and directed, comes from Iglesia's personal experience. I don't expect bumbling spacemen,  mutants, Perdida Durango or even terrifying clowns. Well, maybe terrifying clowns. But there will be hilarity, amazing hair and the famous Spanish singer, Raphael.

These ladies are ready. Are you?

MY GREAT NIGHT screening times:
Sep. 11, Friday, 7:15 pm, SCOTIABANK 2
Sep. 13, Sunday, 4:30 pm, SCOTIABANK 2
Sep. 20, Sunday, 9:00 pm, SCOTIABANK 14

LUNA: Who is Dave McKean?

Director Dave McKean is best known for his collaborations with comic world superstar Neil Gaiman. The two met in 1986 after hearing about a publisher interested in publishing an anthology created by unknowns. While the anthology never came to be, they later met with Paul Gravett, co-editor of Escape Magazine, who offered to print a short graphic novel about childhood perception and disturbing memories called Violent Cases.

Violent Cases

After Violent Cases, the pair attended a meeting with DC Comics representatives who were visiting England on a talent scouting expedition. Though McKean said “[they] don’t really want us to do stuff for them, they were probably just being polite”, DC Comics offered them the Black Orchid miniseries, kick starting their long relationship with DC Comics.

Black Orchid

From there, McKean provided the artwork for Grant Morrison’s Batman graphic novel Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, which quickly became one of the best-selling American superhero comics.

Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth

McKean is best known for creating the covers for Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. Using a variety of techniques such as painting, sculpture, photography, drawing and computer manipulation, McKean was able to convince DC editor Karen Berger that the protagonist did not need to appear on every cover.

Creating the cover for The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes

Sandman #10: The Wake

Sandman #11: Vertigo

Luna is not Dave McKean’s first foray into film. His feature film debut was 2005’s MirrorMask, written by Neil Gaiman and produced by Jim Henson Studios. Dave McKean also provided the illustrations for Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, which was later adapted into a stop motion film by Henry Selick and Laika Studios.

Coraline's The Other Mother

With Luna, McKean’s disturbingly gorgeous illustrations will come to life in a blend of live action and animation that is sure to be memorable.

Further information about Luna can be found on the Festival website, as well as on the film's official website, Facebook page and Twitter account.

LUNA Screening Times:

Sat., Sept. 6, The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema 6:30 PM
Mon., Sept. 8, AGO Jackman Hall 9:00 AM
Sun., Sept. 14, Scotiabank 9 8:45 PM

THE VOICES: Director Profile: Marjane Satrapi

This one time Marjane Satrapi wore army pants and flip flops so we bought army pants and flip flops. 

Marjane Satrapi is probably one of the coolest people we know. She's a prolific director and author, having put her own life to ink and paper in the award winning Persepolis graphic novel series, which was later turned into an equally award winning animated film. She's strong, opinionated, and tells it like it is. Basically, she's a bona fide bad ass (BFBA for short). Her animated films have an incredible vision and voice and those qualities are just as present in her first solo-directed, all live action film, The Voices.

If you aren't familiar with Persepolis at all, stop everything and go fix that. Seriously. Why are you still reading this blog?! You have an entire series of graphic novels and a film to watch. YOU DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS NONSENSE. 

Persepolis chronicles Marjane's life in Iran during and after the Islamic Revolution, first as a young girl in Iran, and then as a teenager living in Vienna and returning to Iran. In France, the book was published in four parts but the English translation ran as two books. And a few years later, Satrapi and her co-director Vincent Paronnaud were debuting the film adaption at the little nothing film festival you probably haven't heart of: Cannes. (No big, no big.)

Both the comics and the film adaption have been heralded as one of the best coming-of-age stories and not only gave readers/viewers a candid glimpse into her fascinating, rebellious life, but also a similarly honest look at life in Iran and what it was to be young, Iranian woman both in Iran and abroad. This ain't your average, manufactured "young girl finding herself" film, guys; this is the real deal. The stark, mostly black and white illustrations are beautiful and unforgettable, completely drawing you into Satrapi's story.  

After Persepolis, Satrapi went on to write another graphic novel that was also adapted into an animated film: Chicken with Plums. This is the story of her great-uncle, an Iranian musician, and Satrapi weaves together a tale of love, music, heartache, and what makes life worth living. The film adaption is equally poetic and moving, with elements of stylish, theatrical live action and animation. You can read more about her inspiration for this story and the film through an awesome interview she gave with Mother Jones a couple years back.

Satrapi fans are eager to see how she takes her amazing vision and voice once again to the live action screen. And, because when you're Marjane Satrapi you don't just "make a movie" you MAKE A MOVIE so it might as well be completely bonkers. Strangely endearing sociopath? Sure. Talking cat and dog? Even better. Below, listen to Satrapi discuss making The Voices (warning: kind-of spoilers regarding the end sequence starting at 9:19): 

Are you even more in love with her than you were ten minutes ago? (If you want to fall even mooorreeee in love, listen to her Sundance Q&A where she talks about how Ryan Reynolds has kind of creepy eyes, how she's good at jokes, and other such fun tidbits.) And her thoughts on working with the animals so on point it hurts: "The dog was very easy. And the cat was a cat...to the cat you say 'sit' and he says 'fuck you'..."

Yup, sounds about right. Stop being so damn cool, Marjane Satrapi! But not actually. We need more filmmakers like her in the world. And we need more absolutely bananas films like The Voices.

The Voices is screening at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival as part of the Vanguard Programme. Check out more Vanguard films on the official Festival website.

THE VOICES screening times:

Thursday, Sept 11th 9:00 PM RYERSON
Friday, Sept 12th 6:00 PM THE BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA