Farewell for Now, Beloved Vanguard Blog Readers...

Welp, we thought if we just pretended like TIFF never ended we could keep living the Vanguard dream forever. Except it did. Two weeks ago. Wait, or is it three? You’re telling us it’s OCTOBER tomorrow?

Well, dang.

In any case, this was one of our best Vanguard years ever but we have a tendency to say that every year so it would be best to just start mentally preparing yourself for 2015 right now. We know we are.

All of our beautiful Vanguard babies have gone off in the world to other festivals and/or acquiring distribution and we could be more proud. Spring will be delighting even more audiences thanks to Drafthouse and Raven Banner. Shrew's Nest, Waste Land and Over Your Dead Body also played The Fantastic Fest. The Voices won two well deserved awards at l'Etrange Festival. Hyena will be distributed in North America by Tribeca Films. IFC Films scooped up Duke of Burgundy. Third World will be releasing The World of Kanako in 2015. Radius/The Weinstein Company will be bringing the terrifying children of Goodnight, Mommy to North America. Music Box picked up Alleluia for distribution and Media Luna will be distributing Luna (no relation).

So if you didn’t see these amazing films at TIFF (ugh, what a jabroni) you have a chance to redeem yourself during their theatrical releases. Just don’t mess it up this time, alright?

Until next year, beloved Vanguard Blog readers. Now, if you'll excuse us, we have something in our eyes. 

OVER YOUR DEAD BODY: TIFF Twitter Buzz!

You may regret skipping this movie. Just sayin'. 

For the past few days, acclaimed director Takashi Miike has been giving moviegoers a ride of their lives at screenings of Over Your Dead Body. Part play, part revenge story, all sorts of WTF, this is one film that'll have people talking after. If you want to join in the conversation, you have one last chance to catch this film on Saturday evening. Oh, how perfect. You were looking to something to do together with you date. What could be more perfect than this movie?! RIGHT?! Aha. Check out the Twitter buzz and screening time below.

OVER YOUR DEAD BODY screening time:
Sat., Sept. 13th, 6:30 PM, TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 2

WASTE LAND and OVER YOUR DEAD BODY Final Screenings!

If this detective starts walking now, he can just make it to the TIFF Bell Lightbox.

This evening is the last chance to see Pieter Van Hees' Waste Land and Takashi Miike's Over Your Dead Body. Both deal with the incursion of the fantastic into the real. In one a cop's being drawn into a surreal world. The other the boundaries between a play and reality bleed.

"Choose me."

Unfortunately, they both play at 6:30. If you like cops on the edge, see Waste Land. If you like ghost stories and Japanese theater, see Over Your Dead Body.

WASTE LAND Final Screening: Sat., Sept. 13th, 6:30 PM, SCOTIABANK 13

OVER YOUR DEAD BODY Final Screeing: Sat., Sept. 13, TIFF Bell Lightbox 2 6:30 PM

THE WORLD OF KANAKO: Japanese Crime Novels

Man, I really wish I had thought to bring a book...

Tetsuya Nakashima adapted his screenplay for The World Of Kanako from Hateshinaki Kawaki, a bestselling novel by Akio Fukamachi. And people were surprised he did because the novel is hardcore. In Mark Schiller's review of The World Of Kanako at The Japan Times, he writes:

Akio Fukamachi’s 2004 mystery novel Hateshinaki Kawaki has sold more than 360,000 copies, but was initially considered too lurid for a mainstream film adaptation, Tetsuya Nakashima read it and began writing his own screen treatment, which became the script for Kawaki [or The World of Kanako].

There are a lot of dark, disturbing Japanese crime novels and if you found The World Of Kanako compelling, you might be interested in some of these books available in English translation. (And I'm using the publication dates of the English translations).

"Me? Kanae Minato? A criminal mastermind?"

Confessions (2014) by Kanae Minato

While Akio Fukamachi's Hateshinaki Kawaki isn't available in English translation (that I can find), the novel Nakashima adapted for his previous film, Confessions, is. (You can read more about the film from Vangaurder Darryl). After the death of her toddler, a single school teacher decides she has had enough. On the last day of school, she tells her class that she is resigning and begins her plot for revenge against two students in her class who she believes murdered her daughter. The story is told in multiple first person narratives, beginning with the teacher's. First person always creates an intimacy and in this case, it's easy enough to sympathize with a woman seeking revenge for the death of a toddler, but it also creates an uncomfortable sympathy as she choose to destroy two other children. Confessions ultimately reveals the devastating and uncontrollable consequences of revenge. Incidentally, Kanae Minato had been a home economics teacher herself before the success of Confessions, so there's that.

Natsuo Kirino is 5X winner of World's Best Author Photo.

Out (2005) by Natsuo Kirino

In the Edgar Award-winning novel Out, four women work the graveyard shift at a factory that produces ready-made box lunches, mostly staffed by married women who need extra income for their families and Brazilian immigrants. One of women is driven over the edge by her husband's inattentiveness, unfaithfulness and recklessness at a nearby casino run by the yakuza. Her friends at the factory help her dispose of the body for reasons of their own, but they end up disposing of bodies for a gangster who has the occasional body to dispose of. Meanwhile, the casino owner has been blamed for the husband's murder and he is looking to find the real killers. Worse yet, he's looking to relive a terrifying sexual fantasy. Out is a detailed portrait of four women and the pressures of contemporary Japan. It's tightly plotted, well-written, fascinating, sympathetic, and, in the end, harrowing read.

Ryu Murakami is thinking amazing things right now. Man, so amazing.

Audition (2009) by Ryu Murakami

Murakami's most famous book in the English-speaking world is probably Almost Transparent Blue. But he also wrote Audition, which Takashi Miike adapted into a film. A widower decides to marry  again at the urging of his son and his best friend. He doesn't want to date and has very specific ideas of who he wants to marry--in particular, a woman who is accomplished in some art, regardless of the level of her success. His best friend sells him on the idea of pretending to make a film and holding auditions. He even has an explanation all ready for why the film would never be made. And this plan seems to work when he meets the perfect woman and all she asks is that he only love her. But his friend thinks there's something off about her and there was that guy in the wheelchair that seemed to recognize her and, worse, be afraid of her. Another well-written, slow-burn with a sudden burst of violence at the end.

Keigo Hagashino's brain is filled with very precise and detailed plots, even now.

The Devotion of Suspect X (2011) by Keigo Hagashino

There is another unfortunate body disposal situation when a divorced mother is confronted by her angry ex-husband demanding money (again). Fortunately, her next door neighbor is a sympathetic high school math teacher who is bored by his job and also highly analytical. He develops a plan to cover up the whole incident that is seemingly perfect. But there is, of course, a detective who just has a bad feeling about the whole thing. Less intense than the other books, but just as psychological and more caught up in the game between the math teacher and the detective trying to catch him.

Rampo is busy reshaping fiction.

The Edogawa Rampo Reader (2008) by Edogawa Rampo

Rampo shaped so much of modern and contemporary Japanese fiction, and defined crime fiction in particular that it's worth taking a look at any of his collections. His novella, Black Lizard was adapted twice. Kinji Fukasaku's 1968 adaptation stars Akihiro Miwa and Yukio Mishima, but I'm very partial to Umetsugu Inoue's 1962 version starring Machiko Kyo (Rashomon; Ugetsu). Both are based on a stage adaptation by Yukio Mishima. I chose this book because it includes a collection of his short stories, but also some of his essays on film. Besides Black Lizard, Rampo has 44 other screenwriting credits.

THE WORLD OF KANAKO Final Screening:
Saturday, Sept 13 9:00 PM THE BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA

And because I mentioned Takashi Miike, here are the OVER YOUR DEAD BODY screening times:
Fri., Sept. 12, The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema 9:00 PM
Sat., Sept. 13, TIFF Bell Lightbox 2 6:30 PM

OVER YOUR DEAD BODY: Woodblock Prints of Oiwa

Oiwa, the main character of Yotsuya Kaidan, the play-within-a-film in Takashi Miike's Over Your Dead Body, is a common subject in Japanese art. Peruse at some ukiyo-e woodblock prints before Over Your Dead Body premieres tonight.

Here is a detail from an Utagawa Kuniyoshi print of Oiwa confronting her husband Iemon. Oiwa's spirit--and the spirit of their dead child--is manifesting from a paper lantern.

Two lantern images of Oiwa by Katsushika Hokusai.

 A scene from a performance of Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan rendered by Utagawa Kunikazu. (A lot of woodblock prints are kind of like lobby cards or trading cards, allowing theater audiences to remember their favorite moments or favorite actors).

And one by  Utagawa Toyokuni III.

 

An Utagawa Kuniyoshi, this time with a poem by Ōnakatomi no Yoshinobu.

And two more by Utagawa Kuniyoshi. One a portrait of a particular performer as Oiwa.

And one with pretty much all the wtf in the world.

OVER YOUR DEAD BODY screening times:

Thurs., Sept. 11, Ryerson 6:00 PM
Fri., Sept. 12, The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema 9:00 PM
Sat., Sept. 13, TIFF Bell Lightbox 2 6:30 PM

OVER YOUR DEAD BODY Premieres Tonight!

Try not to pick at it, Oiwa...

Don't wrong your loved ones, try to keep life from imitating art and don't pick at any injuries, because Over Your Dead Body premieres tonight!

See the poster and trailer here. Read a retrospective of some of Takashi Miike's other films here. Learn more about the play performed within the movie. And then purchase your tickets...

• ONLINE: TIFF.net's Ticket Product List Page
• BY PHONE: 416.599.TIFF or 1.888.599.8433 (Toll-free) 
• IN PERSON
• Festival Box Office; 225 King St. West
• Scotiabank Theatre, 259 Richmond Street West

OVER YOUR DEAD BODY screening times:

Thurs., Sept. 11, Ryerson 6:00 PM
Fri., Sept. 12, The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema 9:00 PM
Sat., Sept. 13, TIFF Bell Lightbox 2 6:30 PM

OVER YOUR DEAD BODY: The Many Adaptations of Yotsuya Kaidan

Takashi Miike could not have chosen a more respectable Japanese play to adapt than Yotsuya Kaidan, aka, Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan. It is a story originated for the Kabuki stage and told many times before--the story of Oiwa, her faithless and cruel husband Iemon and supernatural revenge. Iemon has been hateful and appalling since 1825. And in almost every adaptation I see, he remains just as appalling a person as the first time I saw him in Keisuke Kinoshita's 1949 film. Miike's adaptation gets a special kick from having famed Kabuki performer Ebizo Ichikawa as actor Kousuke Hasegawa who performs Iemon in the film's troubled production of the play. In Over Your Dead Body, Takashi Miike offers his version of Yotsuya Kaidan in the form of a play within a film.

Nakamura Kankuro as the afflicted Oiwa. (via Japan.org)

 Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan was written by playwright Tsuruya Namboku IV (1755-1839) and first produced for the Kabuki stage in 1825. It's typically performed with Kanadehon Chushingura, or The 47 Loyal Ronin. Ghost stories are respectable in Kabuki and Noh and so there are many tales of love, bitterness and vengeful ghosts, but like a certain Scottish play, Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan is relatively unique in having a curse associated with it and cast and crew of any production of the story visit Oiwa's grave to stave off accidents and death. I could explain, but Namboku himself does it so much better in this sweet video with animation and museum artifacts...



The Legend of Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan - Lady... by MstrMacabre

Since 1912, the play has been adapted to film many, many times. I would love to see the silent versions, but I thought I'd mention some of the more recent adaptations that I have seen so you can compare and contrast, after, or even before for maximum appreciation, seeing Over Your Dead Body.

Yotsuya Kaidan, Pt. I and Part II (1949)

In two feature-length parts, director Keisuke Kinoshita intimately details the life of Oiwa and a more sympathetic than usual Iemon, making Iemon's betrayal, and the dread of his inevitable betrayal for those familiar with the story, that much more painful. Kinoshita presents the story in almost psychoanalytic terms with the ghost of Oiwa being an expression of Iemon's guilt. But while it is tragic, it is still plenty spooky, with some startling images.




Yotsuya Kaidan (1956)

Masaki Mori's adaptation stars Tomisaburo Wakayama as Iemon. You might know Wakayama better as Ogami Itto, the hunted samurai of the Lone Wolf And Cub / Babycart Assassin series. Wakayama played Iemon again, inYasushi Kato's The Ghost Of Oiwa (1961). Mori's film is lovely and a fairly straightforward story of impoverished samurai meets beautiful and sweet samurai woman, man marries woman, man meets a wealthier woman, man throws wife's body into the river and marries his new sweetie, terrifying ghost of ex haunts man.

Ceiling ghost sees everything you do.

Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan (1959)

Nabuo Nakagawa's Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan adaptation seems to be the biggest influence on Over Your Dead Body. With surreal, gorgeously composed and colored films like Jigoku, Nakagawa himself seems to be an influence on Miike. This version was the first in widescreen and in color and, holy cats, is it in color. It is lurid in the best way and far more familiar as contemporary horror. And Iemon is just a terrible, terrible person in this version. Far more terrible than usual.

"I, Kazuo Hasegawa, am certainly very evil. Just look at me!"

Yotsuya Kaidan / Thou Shalt Not Be Jealous (1959)

Kenji Misumi directed another version the same year, and I feel bad for him because his was not a color spectacle and it's hard to compete with Nakagawa's--especially when Kazuo Hasegawa plays Iemon and it's just hard for Hasegawa to be a terrible person. Of course Misumi works with that by having Iemon not directly responsible for Oiwa's death and decide to avenge her. Doesn't save him, though. Not at all. And I'm sure it's totally a coincidence that there's a character named "Kousuke Hasegawa" in Over Your Dead Body, and that actor plays Iemon in the play within the film.

All this blood? Just illusion...

Yotsuya Kaidan / Illusion of Blood (1965)

Tatsuya Nakadai plays Iemon and Mariko Okada plays Oiwa in Shiro Toyoda's version. He is a morally conflicted scoundrel who at first saves his sister-in-law from his father-in-law, but then finds his wife is in the way, again, of his moving up in life. (Spoiler: she's in his way by being married to him when he could marry someone with better family connections). This adaptation is plenty gory and Tetsuya Nakadai is always a pleasure to watch, but if you can only watch one lurid, bloody, stylized version of Yotsuya Kaidan, go with Nakagawa's.

Oh, there's so much more Yotsuya Kaidan out there, but this seems like a good place to stop.

(I used Japan.org, Kabuki 21, Wild Realm Reviews, IMDb and wikipedia in writing this post).

OVER YOUR DEAD BODY screening times:

Thurs., Sept. 11, Ryerson 6:00 PM
Fri., Sept. 12, The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema 9:00 PM
Sat., Sept. 13, TIFF Bell Lightbox 2 6:30 PM

OVER YOUR DEAD BODY: Takashi Miike TIFF Retrospective

Over Your Dead Body is Miike's first movie to play the Vanguard program, but Miike's films have been screened at TIFF before--in the Midnight Madness program. And Miike has met Vanguard/ Midnight Madness programmer Colin Geddes' parents. True fact.

Takashi Miike is insanely prolific director with 94 credits at IMDb since he first began directing in 1991. A good part of Miike's career has focused on genre-bending, weird, funny and extremely violent films. Miike plays successfully with generic conventions and blows them way past camp into The Miike Zone. But recently he's been making art house films strongly influenced by classic Japanese cinema.

Fudoh: The New Generation (1997) was the first film Miike screened at TIFF and Midnight Madness. Son of a powerful and violent Yakuza boss, Riki Fudoh (Shosuke Tanihara) makes his high school his turf and takes revenge for his brother's death. He begins assassinating yakuza members with the help of his fellow students, including his female assassin/bodyguards, one of whom shoots darts from an unexpected place--but not all that unexpected because this is Miike.

Say what you will about yakuza bosses, they do love to laugh.

Miike returned to Midnight Madness with City of Lost Souls , aka, The Hazard City (2000).  Brazilian-Japanese gangster Mario (Teah) and illegal Chinese immigrant Kei (Michelle Reis) are on the run from Triad boss Ko (Mitsuhiro Oikawa) and on their way to Australia. But there are complications including a little girl and a suitcase full of cocaine. City Of Lost Souls also captures some of the experience of being marginal and other in Japan.

Do not confuse City of Lost Souls with City of Lost Souls
even though there is star-crossed love in both. Thank you.

In 2001 Miike returned to Midnight Madness with his harrowing, brutal, gorgeous and darkly comic film, Ichi The Killer. Ichi (Nao Ōmori) is a hitman and a sadist who dreams of a willing victim while taking contracts from Jijii (MM Alumnus Shinya Tsukamoto, director of Tetsuo (1989) and Nightmare Detective (2006)). Meanwhile, the flamboyant and extremely masochistic yakuza lieutenant Kakihara (Tadanobu Asano) searches for the man who killed his boss. Also, really, really brutal, but somehow Miike successfully subverts the homoeroticism of so many yakuza and crime movies.

Oh, Tadanobu Asano, you're so dreamy... Wait, what did you do to your face?!

I remember Colin warning the Midnight Madness audience that Gozu (2003) was a departure from Miike's previous yakuza movies. He told us it was weird. He told us that there was lactation involved. And he was right. Gozu--or my preferred title, Yakuza Horror Theater: Cow's Head--is deeply weird and almost feverish. In Gozu, yakuza soldier Minami (Yuta Sone / Hideki Sone) is supposed to drive his yakuza brother and friend Ozaki (Shō Aikawa) to Ozaki's execution. On the trip, Ozaki disappears. Minami begins searching for Ozaki in what might be a descent into insanity or a series of almost mythical phantasmagoric labors.

The Minotaur was not expecting company.

Then there are three films I'm quite fond of, but fans who were looking for dependable wtf yakuza films often do not enjoy so much.

Zebraman (2004) took Midnight Madness by surprise with its story of Shinichi Ichikawa (Shō Aikawa) a school teacher who dreams of being Zebraman, a television masked superhero whose show was canceled after only a few episodes. Then, one day, aliens invade and Japan needs Zebraman. Striping Evil! Zebraman is a children's film, but it is a Miike children's film.

What am I doing? Why do you ask?

The Great Yokai War (2005) is a children's film and a homage to Daiei Studio's fantasy/horror trilogy: Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare (1968); Yokai Monsters: One Hundred Monsters (1968); and, Yokai Monsters: Along With Ghosts (1969). In The Great Yokai War, Lord Yasunori Kato (Etsushi Toyokawa) uses all the power of his misanthropy and harnesses the resentment of discarded objects to create an angry demon. Only Tadashi (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a little boy chosen to be the Kirin Rider at a local shrine festival, can stop him--with help from yokai spirits and creatures like a kappa, the River Princess, a tengu and the Azuki Bean Counter. I have a sensitivity to storylines about chosen boys, but I didn't mind this at all. And yokai just make me happy.

Yokai always make up for Chosen Ones.

Sukiyaki Western Django (2007) is Miike's first sort of chanbara (Japanese swordfighting/samurai) film as well as his first Western. Plus, an adaptation of Django (1966). And his first adaptation of Shakespeare. And his first English language Japanese movie. As Miike told the audience in a specially filmed message shown before Sukiyaki Western Django: "Of all the English language Japanese Westerns in the festival this year, I hope this will be one of your favorites."

Oh it is.

Yoshitsune and the Genji Clan are casually homicidal

13 Assassins (2010) was Miike's first film to screen outside of Midnight Madness at TIFF. It's Miike's remake of Eiichi Kudo's classic 1963 film, Thirteen Assassins. Set during the late Tokugawa Shogunate, thirteen samurai are assigned to assassinate a vile lord who abuses his authority and is, unfortunately, the Shogun's nephew. Miike follows Kudo's original fairly closely--sometimes almost shot for shot--but adds some Miike touches including some digital effects and some elaboration of the lord's villainy. Once you've seen both versions, you might be interested in this comparison of the movies at Wildgrounds.

Seriously, this is a Miike film.

And Miike remade another chanbara classic, Masaki Kobayashi's Harakiri (1962) with Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (2011). Kabuki star Ebizo Ichikawa takes on the role Tatsuya Nakadai played in the original. A poor samurai (Ichikawa) approaches a wealthy lord for permission to commit suicide at the lord's estate. He is told the story of a samurai who had done the same, and, having pawned his sword, was forced to disembowel himself with a bamboo practice sword. Miike focuses more on melodrama, violence and gore, but not nearly as much as many of his other films. In a very Miike touch, Hara-Kiri played Cannes in 3D. And it's scored by Ryuichi Sakamoto.

As bad a situation as it looks.

Ebizo Ichikawa returns in Over Your Dead Body as Kousuke Hasegawa, the actor who portrays Tamiya Iemon in the play-with-a-film production of Yotsuya Kaidan. Miike's blurs the line between reality and fantasy, theater and mundane life as a theater company rehearse an adaptation of Yotsuya Kaidan, a story of betrayal, murder and supernatural revenge. While fans of Miike's extreme cinema might find it too restrained, it is a stunningly gorgeous film.

Ebizo Ichikawa as Iemon wearing Tatsuya Nakadai's 'do.

OVER YOUR DEAD BODY screening times:

Thurs., Sept. 11, Ryerson 6:00 PM
Fri., Sept. 12, The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema 9:00 PM
Sat., Sept. 13, TIFF Bell Lightbox 2 6:30 PM

OVER YOUR DEAD BODY First Look: Poster and Trailer

Prolific horror auteur Takashi Miike (Audition, Ichi the Killer, Thirteen Assassins) returns to the festival with Over Your Dead Body, his latest in his massive body of work to screen at the Toronto International Film Festival. A theatre troupe staging one of Japan's most famous ghost stories, Yotsuya Kaidan, find life imitating art as the ghost story's themes of murder, betrayal and revenge play out off the stage. As you can see from the trailers and teaser photos, Over Your Dead Body follows in Miike's very bloody footsteps.

Below is the poster, short English subtitled trailer and longer non-subtitled trailer for Over Your Dead Body, which plays this year's Toronto International Film Festival within the Vanguard programme.

Further information about Over Your Dead Body can be found on the Festival website, as well as on the film's website (Japanese) and Twitter account (Japanese).

OVER YOUR DEAD BODY screening times:

Thurs., Sept. 11, Ryerson 6:00 PM
Fri., Sept. 12, The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema 9:00 PM
Sat., Sept. 13, TIFF Bell Lightbox 2 6:30 PM

TIFF Asian Film Rundown

Kanako is working out which movies she wants to see at TIFF

Kaiju Shakedown's Grady Hendrix has the skinny on the Asian movies playing TIFF this year. The rundown is just after an excellent look at the influence of Hong Kong filmmaker and star Patrick Lung Kong, which we really recommend reading.

Hendrix covers 38 films from South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, China, India, the Philippines, Pakistan, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan. Fancy directors include: Ann Hui, Zhang Yimou, Johnnie To, Peter Chan, Sion Sono, Takashi Miike, Tetsuya Nakashima, Andrew Lau, Shinya Tsukamoto, Im Kwon-taek, and Tsai Ming-liang. And there are two Studio Ghibli films this year.

"Did you say two Studio Ghibli films?" Oiwa asks.

Hendrix talks about this year's City To City sidebar:

Toronto’s focus on another city, this eight-film sidebar of movies set in or around Seoul has some of the most interesting films in the line-up. There’s Cart a sort of retail Silkwood by Boo Ji-Young, one of Korea’s few female directors. A Hard Day about a cop who tries to cover up a hit-and-run accident, became a word-of-mouth hit at Cannes, where Film Comment called it a “rollicking thriller . . . carefully orchestrated, beat for beat” and Variety called it “…taut…elaborate…near-faultless…” You can see the trailer and make up your own mind.

He recommends The World Of Kanako--and director Tetsuya Nakashima:

The World of Kanako (Tetsuya Nakashima, Japan) The first film in four years from Tetsuya Nakashima, probably Japan’s smartest director (Kamikaze Girls, Memories of Matsuko, Confessions). Who cares what it’s about? Just go see it.

And he recommends Sion Sono's Tokyo Tribe, which opens this year's Midnight Madness program:

Tokyo Tribe (Sion Sono, Japan) The director continues to validate his existence by making some of the world’s most exciting movies. The only Asian movie in the Midnight Madness line-up—just look at the trailer and try to resist its anarchic pull.

Click through for the whole rundown. And, seriously, take a few minutes to read about Patrick Lung Kong.

TOKYO TRIBE screening times:
Thu. Sept. 4th, 11:59 PM, RYERSON
Fri. Sept. 5th, 10:00 PM, SCOTIABANK 8
Sun. Sept. 14th, 3:30 PM, LIGHTBOX 3

WORLD OF KANAKO screening times:
Sunday, Sept. 7th, 9:15 PM ISABELLA BADER THEATRE
Tuesday, Sept. 9th, 11:30 AM THE BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA
Saturday, Sept. 13th, 9:00 PM THE BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA

OVER YOUR DEAD BODY screening times:

Thursday, Sept. 11th, 6pm RYERSON

Friday, Sept. 12th, 9pm THE BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA

Saturday, Sept. 13th, 6:30 TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 2

Vanguard's 2014 Programme Seduces and Thrills

Vanguarders and Vanguardians, the time is here at last--Vanguard has returned!

The Toronto International Film Festival's Vanguard programme seduces audiences with a sensory experience full of mystery and boundary--busting madness, with bold international films that walk the razor’s edge. International programmer Colin Geddes brings together the work of some of the most audacious auteurs in the world to present a cinematic adventure that takes audiences to the dark, dangerous places that both unnerve yet intrigue them.

“The Vanguard programme presents the intersection between genre and arthouse to showcase intrepid works that fearlessly defy convention,” said Geddes. “Daring audiences who have grown to love the extreme cinema of Midnight Madness will definitely be seduced by the subversive sophistication of Vanguard.”

The 2014 roster includes master of extreme cinema Takashi Miike (Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai, 13 Assassins), fantastical image manipulator Dave McKean (MirrorMask) , French fear jockey Fabrice Du Welz (Calvaire, Vinyan), the cleverly unsettling Peter Strickland (Berberian Sound Studio), and the wickedly charming duo of Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala (Kern).

Alleluia
Fabrice Du Welz, France/Belgium. North American Premiere

When Gloria and Michel meet on a dating site, nothing suggests the destructiv and murderous passion that will be born of their crazy love. Alleluia is inspired by a 1947 article about nurse Martha Beck and swindler Raymond Fernandez, who became involved in a deadly, tragic affair.

The Duke of Burgundy
Peter Strickland, United Kingdom. World Premiere.

Peter Strickland’s eagerly anticipated follow up to Berberian Sound Studio, screened in the 2012 Vanguard programme, and Katalin Varga is a gorgeously dark melodrama following two women who test the limits of their unsettlingly intense relationship. Starring Sidse Babett Knudsen (Borgen) and Chiara d’Anna.

Goodnight Mommy (Ich seh, Ich seh) 
Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, Austria. North American Premiere

 In the heat of the summer in an isolated house in the countryside between woods and corn fields, 10-year-old twins wait for their mother. When she returns with her head wrapped in bandages after surgery, nothing is as it was before. Stern and distant now, she shuts the family off from the outside world. Starting to doubt that this woman is actually their mother, the boys are determined to find the truth by any means.

Hyena
Gerard Johnson, United Kingdom. International Premiere

Michael Logan is an anti-hero for our times: a natural predator, a high-functioning addict , and corrupt police officer. But his dark world is evolving : a recent influx of ruthless Albanian gangsters is threatening to change London’s criminal landscape. Michael’s razor sharp instincts have always kept him one step ahead, but now his increasingly self-destructive behavior and the sheer brutality of the new gang lords send Michael spiraling into a descent of fear and self-doubt.

Luna
Dave McKean, United Kingdom. World Premiere

Renowned artist and filmmaker Dave McKean (MirrorMask) brings his distinctive blend of live action and gorgeously wrought animation to this dreamlike reverie about four people--Grant, Christine, Dean and Freya--whose long weekend in an isolated house by the sea brings up old resentments and the life of a dead child is revisited in a series of strange dreams.

Over Your Dead Body
Takashi Miike, Japan. International Premiere

A star, Miyuki Goto (Ko Shibasaki) plays Oiwa, the protagonist in a new play based on the ghost story, Yotsuya Kaidan. She pulls some strings to get her lover, Kosuke Hasegawa (Ebizo Ichikawa) cast in the play , even though he 's a relatively unknown actor. Other performers Rio Asahina (Miho Nakanishi) and Jun Suzuki (Hideaki Ito) lust after Miyuki. Off stage the cast's possessive love and obsessions exist as reality. Trapped between the play and reality, the cast's feelings for each other are amplified. When it becomes clear that love is not meant to be both on and off stage, love turns in to a grudge and crosses the blurred line between reality and fantasy.

Shrew’s Nest (Musarañas)
Juanfer Andrés and Esteban Roel, Spain. World Premiere

Spain, 1950s. Monste’s agoraphobia keeps her locked in a sinister apartment in Madrid and her only link to reality is the lit tle sister she sacrificed her youth to raise . But one day, a reckless young neighbour, Carlos, falls down the stairwell and drags himself to their door. Someone has entered the shrew’s nest... and perhaps he’ll never leave.

Spring 
Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, USA. World Premiere

A young man in a personal tailspin flees the US to Italy, where he sparks up a romance with a girl harbouring a dark, primordial secret in this edgy, romantic drama with a supernatural twist.

They Have Escaped 
JP Valkeapää, Finland. North American Premiere

A boy and a girl meet at a custody center for youth with difficulties . The boy has come to serve his obligatory civil service. The girl is one of the youths in custody, and she is constantly in trouble, with a fire inside her and a lust for life t hat can't be quashed or controlled. The boy becomes infatuated with the girl. He is a quiet one; a stutterer. But there is a fire inside him as well. Rules, laws, punishment; the shackles of the hostile environment with no understanding around them can be broken. They steal a car a nd flee together. Thus begins a journey with endless escapes.

Waste Land
Pieter Van Hees, Belgium. World Premiere

Leo Woeste is a homicide investigator living with his girlfriend Kathleen and her five-year-old son, Jack. Kathleen gets pregnant unexpectedly just as Leo must solve his most bizarre case to date: the ritual murder of a young Congolese man, which may or may not involve Leo’s hedonistic new colleague, Johnny Rimbaud. As the case’s complexity mounts by the minute, Leo is pulled away from Kathleen and his role as a father, and heads deeper and deeper into the Waste Land.

The World of Kanako (Kawaki)
Tetsuya Nakashima, Japan International Premiere

When beautiful straight-A high school student Kanako goes missing, her mother asks ex-husband Akikazu—a drifting, irresponsible former cop—to find their daughter. He embarks on a desperate search in the hope of reuniting his family by any means necessary. But as his investigation progresses, Akikazu starts to discover the darkness that lies behind his daughter’s impeccable façade. Clue by clue, revelation by revelation, he starts his descent into the hellish underworld of Kanako’s secret life...

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The 39th Toronto International Film Festival runs September 4 to 14, 2014.

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