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...
Purchase Festival ticket packages online 24 hours a day at
tiff.net/festival, by phone
from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. ET daily
at
416.599.TIFF
or
1.888.599.843
Or visit the
Gupta Box Office
in person from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. ET
daily at TIFF Bell Lightbox, Reitman Square,
350
King Street West until August 20
(while quantities last).
The 39th
Toronto International Film Festival
runs September 4 to 14, 2014.
Social Media:
@TIFF_NET
#Vanguard
#TIFF14
Facebook.com/TIFF
and, of course, right here at the Official Vanguard Programme Blog.
