Culture & Entertainment

TIFF names Canada's Top Ten

Canadian Living
Culture & Entertainment

TIFF names Canada's Top Ten

Every year, the Toronto International Film Festival assembles a team of industry players and asks them to select the year’s 10 best homegrown films. Earlier this week, TIFF announced the class of 2013, and all but two of the films ( Watermark and Vic + Flo Saw a Bear) still await theatrical release. Here’s the full list: Asphalt Watches, directed by Shayne Ehman and Seth Scriver Enemy, directed by Denis Villeneuve The F Word, directed by Michael Dowse Gabrielle, directed by Louise Archambault Rhymes for Young Ghouls, directed by Jeff Barnaby Sarah Prefers to Run, directed by Chloé Robichaud Tom at the Farm, directed by Xavier Dolan Vic + Flo Saw a Bear, directed by Denis Côté Watermark, directed by Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky When Jews Were Funny, directed by Alan Zweig Maybe the most high-profile film on the list is Enemy, which stars Hollywood A-lister Jake Gyllenhaal and was directed by rising Quebecois auteur Denis Villeneuve ( Incendies, Prisoners). Based on José Saramago’s novel The Double, it’s about a man (Gyllenhaal) who rents a movie and notices an actor in the background who looks exactly like him. Enemy had its premiere at TIFF in September, where it received a lot of raves. No word on when it’ll get a theatrical release, but it’ll be screened (as will all of the other films) as part of the Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival in Toronto in January. Also featuring a big American star: the romantic comedy The F Word, about a young man (Daniel Radcliffe) who falls in love with a young woman (Zoe Kazan), only to discover she’s already spoken for. (The F-word, by the way, is not what you’re thinking— it’s “friend,” as in the dreaded phrase, “let’s be friends.”) It’s directed by Michael Dowse, the man behind last year’s raunchy (and excellent) hockey comedy Goon, and it’s based on a play by the super-talented and funny Canadian writer-performer T.J. Dawe, a regular fixture on the Fringe Festival circuit. Those two titles (as well as the already released Watermark) are the only films on the list pretty much guaranteed nation-wide distribution—the others are likely to play in only a handful of major cities (and, sadly, probably only for a week or two). But you should look for them all soon on VOD. Asphalt Watches, which won Best Canadian First Feature at TIFF, is an animated comedy based on a real-life hitchhiking trip taken by the two writer-directors; Gabrielle, which is Canada’s submission to the Oscars this year, is about a musically gifted young woman with Williams Syndrome; Sarah Prefers to Run, which screened in competition at Cannes last May, is about a young runner forced to make major compromises in order to get an athletics scholarship; and Tom at the Farm, the latest from 24-year-old Quebecois wunderkind Xavier Dolan, is a Hitchcockian thriller about a gay man who travels to the country for his lover’s funeral, only to discover his family has no idea who he is.

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TIFF names Canada's Top Ten

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