The Toronto International Film Festival announced the 2023 selection for the Wavelengths and Classics programs described as “politically charged, geographically diverse, and formally thrilling” featuring new films by Radu Jude, Isiah Medina, Eduardo Williams, Angela Schanelec, Rosine Mbakam, Wang Bing, Chantal Akerman, Pedro Costa, Jean-Luc Godard, Ja’Tovia Gary, Steve Reinke, and Shambhavi Kaul. This year’s Wavelengths boasts 12 feature films and 19 shorts, as well as a suite of four restored early films by the singular Chantal Akerman.
Highlights of the Wavelengths program include the World Premiere of He Thought He Died, from Canadian artist and filmmaker Isiah Medina, who returns to the Festival with an experimental, deconstructed take on the heist film. Also returning is luminary filmmaker Angela Schanelec with Music, a retelling of the Oedipus myth set between contemporary Greece and Germany; and Denis Côté with Mademoiselle Kenopsia, the latest in the filmmaker’s rich creative collaboration with the talented actor Larissa Corriveau.
Wavelengths also welcomes a number of fiction debuts, including Rosine Mbakam’s Mambar Pierrette, an understated and finely calibrated portrait of a Cameroonian seamstress that builds upon the filmmaker’s formidable documentary background. Also featured is Phạm Thiên n’s contemplative Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, winner of the Caméra d’Or at this year’s Cannes.
Non-fiction remains an important mode of artistic expression, with works ranging from Youth (Spring), the latest triumph from master filmmaker Wang Bing, shot over several years in a Zhili textile factory, to personal essay films from Miko Revereza (Nowhere Near) and Brazilian auteur Kleber Mendonça Filho (Pictures of Ghosts), as well as Paul B. Preciado’s award-winning Orlando, My Political Biography, a rousing, playful take on Virginia Woolf’s classic novel and a daring, joyous celebration of trans life, past and present.
Filmmakers remain ever eager to scrutinize and challenge the current state of our world, as seen in Radu Jude’s scathing and hilarious satire, Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, and Eduardo Williams’ much-anticipated The Human Surge 3, a dizzying deconstruction of borders, gender, and language shot between Peru, Sri Lanka, and Taiwan using 360° cameras.
Short film highlights include World Premieres from filmmakers Jorge Jácome, Philipp Fleischmann, Joshua Gen Solondz, Steve Reinke, Shambhavi Kaul, Simon Liu, Tomonari Nishikawa, and Erica Sheu, as well as notable new work from Rose Lowder, Maryam Tafakory, Ja’Tovia Gary, Viktoria Schmid, Blake Williams, Pedro Costa, and Jean-Luc Godard.
“Wavelengths is a testament to the range of cinema celebrated at TIFF,” stated Anita Lee, Chief Programming Officer, TIFF. “It is also evidence that artist-driven experimental films are thriving and growing a new generation of cinephiles.”
“The increasing necessity to support artists willing to take risks, break rules, and challenge the status quo — especially in our over-saturated media landscape — bears repeating,” said Andréa Picard, Senior Curator, TIFF. “Wavelengths continues to be a celebration of subversion, personal expression, and the vast, inexhaustible capabilities of cinema to enlighten, inspire, awe, resist, disrupt, and propose new ways of seeing and being in the world. With this lineup, we hope to demonstrate how Michael Snow’s legacy of mischief making and formal acumen clearly lives on.”
The Wavelengths program is named after Michael Snow’s iconic 1967 film Wavelength, and draws continued inspiration from the artist’s boundless exploration, experimentation, and innovation across media. TIFF honored and celebrated Snow earlier this year at TIFF Bell Lightbox, after his passing in January at the age of 94, and the 2023 Wavelengths program is dedicated to his memory.
This year’s concise Classics lineup presents films that were previously unavailable for decades, films that have been rescued and painstakingly pieced together in new restorations, and a 50th anniversary tribute to Djibril Diop Mambéty’s Touki Bouki.
Films featured in the Classics lineup include the 4K uncut restoration of Chen Kaige’s provocative 1993 Palme d’Or winner Farewell My Concubine. This screening will be the first opportunity for North American audiences to see the film ahead of its North American theatrical release. With new 4K restoration and remastered sound,* Canadian producer-director Brigitte Berman’s Oscar-winning feature documentary Artie Shaw: Time Is All You’ve Got (1985) — portraying the life of the restless and gifted clarinettist and bandleader — returns to the screen in a World Premiere presentation. Confined to decades of oblivion and newly made available is Jacques Rivette’s legendary New Wave film, L’amour fou (1969), whose original celluloid elements were damaged in a fire. A special 50th anniversary screening of Touki Bouki (1973), from Sengalese luminary Djibril Diop Mambéty, will include a panel discussion moderated by Tambay A. Obenson, Akoroko Founder and CEO, with special guests. Rounding out the programme is Ousmane Sembène’s Xala (1975), presented in 4K, a landmark satire of patriarchy and class in post-independence Senegal. Classics is curated by Robyn Citizen, Director of Programming and Platform Lead, with contributions from Andréa Picard.
2023 Wavelengths program
WAVELENGTHS FEATURES
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
Radu Jude | Romania/Luxembourg/France/Croatia
North American Premiere
Here
Bas Devos | Belgium
North American Premiere
The Human Surge 3
Eduardo Williams | Argentina/Portugal/Brazil/Netherlands/Taiwan/Hong Kong/Sri Lanka/Peru
North American Premiere
Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell
Phạm Thiên n | Vietnam/Singapore/France/Spain
North American Premiere
Mademoiselle Kenopsia
Denis Côté | Canada
North American Premiere
Mambar Pierrette
Rosine Mbakam | Belgium/Cameroon
North American Premiere
Music Angela
Schanelec | Germany/France/Serbia
North American Premiere
Luminaries
Nowhere Near
Miko Revereza | Philippines
North American Premiere
Orlando, My Political Biography
Paul B. Preciado | France
Canadian Premiere
Pictures of Ghosts
Kleber Mendonça Filho | Brazil
North American Premiere
Youth (Spring)
Wang Bing | France/Luxembourg/Netherlands
North American Premiere
Luminaries
WAVELENGTHS PAIRINGS
He Thought He Died
Isiah Medina | Canada
World Premiere
preceded by
Laberint Sequences
Blake Williams | Canada
North American Premiere
WAVELENGTHS SHORTS
Wavelengths 1: Quiet as It’s Kept
Borrowing its title from Ja’Tovia Gary’s latest film, this programme invites and encourages alternate modes of seeing ― through queer abstraction, repurposed fragments, and imagined memories ― as well as new forms of listening: to others, to ourselves, and to the natural world.
Bouquets 31-40
Rose Lowder | France
Canadian Premiere
Film Sculpture (1)
Philipp Fleischmann | Austria
World Premiere
Film Sculpture (2)
Philipp Fleischmann | Austria
World Premiere
Film Sculpture (4)
Philipp Fleischmann | Austria
World Premiere
Film Sculpture (3)
Philipp Fleischmann | Austria
World Premiere
It follows It passes on
Erica Sheu | Taiwan/USA
World Premiere
Mast-del
Maryam Tafakory | United Kingdom/Iran
North American Premiere
Shrooms
Jorge Jácome | Portugal
World Premiere
Quiet as It’s Kept
Ja’Tovia Gary | USA
International Premiere
Wavelengths 2: Sundown
With sensory delights, overloads, and mysteries, this programme probes the hallucinatory underpinnings of the world around us and its layered, incongruous temporalities.
Let’s Talk
Simon Liu | Hong Kong
World Premiere
Light, Noise, Smoke, and Light, Noise, Smoke
Tomonari Nishikawa | Japan
World Premiere
NYC RGB
Viktoria Schmid | Austria/USA
Canadian Premiere
Slow Shift
Shambhavi Kaul | India/USA
World Premiere
Sundown
Steve Reinke | USA/Canada/Austria
World Premiere
We Don’t Talk Like We Used To
Joshua Gen Solondz | USA/Japan/Hong Kong
World Premiere
Wavelengths 3: Outlines – Akerman/Costa/Godard
Bookended by a recently discovered and restored suite of Chantal Akerman’s first cinema forays and the legendary Jean-Luc Godard’s final testament, alongside the latest mesmerizing film by Pedro Costa, this special programme pays tribute to a trio of iconic artists and their intoxicating, enticing approach to sketches and outlines as a means of expression.
Chantal Akerman: Her First Look Behind the Camera
Chantal Akerman | Belgium
North American Premiere
The Daughters of Fire
Pedro Costa | Portugal
North American Premiere
Trailer of the Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars
Jean-Luc Godard | France/Switzerland
North American Premiere
2023 Classics program
TIFF Classics is a cinematic legacy celebrating luminary auteurs, filmmakers, and cinematographers for the novice filmgoer and cinephiles alike.
Artie Shaw: Time Is All You’ve Got
Brigitte Berman | Canada
Farewell My Concubine
Chen Kaige | China/Hong Kong
L’amour fou
Jacques Rivette | France
Touki Bouki Djibril
Diop Mambéty | Senegal
Xala
Ousmane Sembène | Senegal
*The restoration of Artie Shaw: Time Is All You’ve Got was overseen by Berman with the generous financial support of Donald Hicks, and made possible through Canadian Cinema – Reignited, a Telefilm Canada initiative, in partnership with TIFF. It will enter the TIFF Film and Reference Library archive, making it available for generations to come. The Telefilm Canada initiative was developed to reinforce the importance of Canadian films in cinemas, festivals, and on digital platforms, and to support the curation, digitization, and preservation of influential Canadian feature films.
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