TIFF revealed its Canada’s Top Ten list of features and short films of 2019. This year’s Top Ten list features three directorial debuts and four Indigenous filmmakers. The shorts and features lineups showcase works by 12 of Canada’s most talented female filmmakers. Four directors are alumni from TIFF’s Talent Development programs: Filmmaker Lab, Writers’ Studio, and Telefilm Canada’s PITCH THIS!
Noah Baumbach’s divorce drama Marriage Story leads all films in the Vancouver Film Critics Circle’s international section with five nominations including Best Picture.
Parasite, South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s dark, class-based comedy about a poor family that scams a rich one, took three top awards from the Toronto Film Critics Association – Best Picture, Best Director and Best Foreign Film.
Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY Releasing debuted the official trailer for the critically-acclaimed Canadian film The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open. Directed and written by Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn and starring Tailfeathers and Violet Nelson, the personal drama explores two Indigenous women living very different lives who are briefly brought together by desperate circumstances.
The American Film Institute announced the films that will play in the New Auteurs, Cinema’s Legacy, Midnight, Shorts and AFI Conservatory Showcase sections at AFI FEST 2019 presented by Audi, completing the festival’s program.
The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open won the award for Best Dramatic Feature on Sunday at the Awards Presentation of the 20th Annual imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival. The Alanis Obomsawin Award for Best Documentary Work Long Format went to Mothers of the Land (Sembradoras de vida).
The 20th imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival announced the full lineup of independent films and works by Indigenous screen-content creators for the Festival, running October 22 to 27, 2019 in Toronto, Ontario.
The Canadian drama The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open which debuted at the Berlin Film Festival 2019 and had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival 2019 was acquired by Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY Releasing.
Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit starring Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansson, Rebel Wilson, Thomasin McKenzie, and newcomer Roman Griffin Davis won the top prize – the Grolsch People’s Choice Award at the 42nd Toronto International Film Festival. In the comedic satire, a young German boy discovers a Jewish girl hiding in his home and consults with his imaginary best friend, Adolf Hitler.
One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk by Zacharias Kunuk will open the 20th imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival on Tuesday, October 22 at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema in in Toronto, Ontario. Rich in Kunuk’s distinct visual language, One Day tells the true story of Noah Piugattuk’s community in Kapuivik, north Baffin Island, 1961. They live and hunt by dogteam, just as Noah’s ancestors did when he was born in 1900. When a European settler, known as Boss, arrives in camp, what appears as a chance meeting soon opens up the prospect of momentous change.
For its 30th anniversary, the Oscar-qualifying New Orleans Film Festival will showcase a slate of 232 visionary, thought-provoking films from October 16 through October 23, 2019. The festival will close with Harriet biopic about renowned abolitionist Harriet Tubman, and the Tribeca Film Festival award-winning film Burning Cane, directed by 19-year-old Phillip Youmans, will serve as the Centerpiece Film.
The 2019 Toronto International Film Festival highlights the works of Indigenous filmmakers and artists, from veteran Alanis Obomsawin (Abenaki), who comes to TIFF with the provocative and emotional Jordan River Anderson, The Messenger, to relative newcomer Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (Sámi/Blackfoot/Blood), with The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open.