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2008 Toronto International Film Festival
The 2008 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) was held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This 33rd annual festival was from September 4 to September 13, 2008. The opening night gala was the World War I romantic epic '' Passchendaele'' from Canadian director Paul Gross.Brendan Kelly, Variety: "Toronto unveils Canadian selection" (July 15, 2008) Retrieved July 11, 2012 About the 2008 Festival The 2008 festival was heavy on Canadian fare as well as featuring prominent indie films and worldwide as well as North American debuts including: '''' directed by Canada's own |
Passchendaele (film)
''Passchendaele'' is a 2008 Canadian war film, written, co-produced, directed by, and starring Paul Gross. The film, which was shot in Calgary, Alberta, Fort Macleod, Alberta, and in Belgium, focuses on the experiences of a Canadian soldier, Michael Dunne, at the Battle of Passchendaele, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres, inspired by stories that Gross heard from his grandfather, a First World War soldier. The film had its premiere at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival on September 4, 2008, when it also had the honour of opening the festival. The film received a mixed reception upon release. On March 2, 2009, Paul Gross was honoured for his film ''Passchendaele'', winning that year's National Arts Centre Award for achievement over the past performance year. The film won five awards the 29th Genie Awards, including Best Picture, and also received the Golden Reel Award for Canada's top-grossing film of 2008. Plot In the spring of 1917 after Vimy Ridge, Sergeant Mic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neil Burger
Neil Norman Burger (born November 22, 1963) is an American filmmaker. He is known for the fake-documentary ''Interview with the Assassin'' (2002), the period drama '' The Illusionist'' (2006), '' Limitless'' (2011), and the sci-fi action film '' Divergent'' (2014). Life and career Neil Norman Burger was born in 1963 in Greenwich, Connecticut, United States of America. After graduating from Yale University with a degree in fine arts, Burger became involved with experimental film in the 1980s and went on to direct music videos for such alternative artists as the Meat Puppets. Burger approached MTV in 1991 with the idea to create and direct a series of promotional spots for what would be the ''MTV Books: Feed Your Head'' campaign against aliteracy. In association with Ridley Scott Associates, Burger directed commercials for companies such as Mastercard, IBM and ESPN, and created a series of television spots for Amnesty International and their campaign for prisoners of conscience. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RR (film)
''RR'' (a.k.a. ''Railroad'') is a 2007 film by American filmmaker James Benning. Themes Shot in 16 mm film, as most of Benning's films are, ''RR'' is another in Benning's series of American experimental landscape films; this one focusing on trains and their surroundings. In ''Railroad'', Benning explores themes of American consumerism and overconsumption in what Benning calls a "collaboration" with the trains themselves. Summary The film is an exercise in minimalist In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ... restraint for it is basically a series of static shots of trains. There is an empty frame, the train enters, then it passes and leaves. The obsessive gaze of Benning's fixed static frame causes the viewer to wait and watch, obsessing, like train fanatic Benning does, o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Benning (film Director)
James Benning (born 1942) is an American independent filmmaker and educator. Over the course of his 40-year career Benning has made over twenty-five feature-length films that have shown in many different venues across the world. Since 1987, he has taught at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). He is known as a minimalist filmmaker. Early life and education James Benning was born 1942 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Benning played baseball for the first twenty years of his life. He earned an undergraduate and master's degree in mathematics at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, which he attended on a baseball scholarship. Benning experienced a political awakening and racial consciousness during the late 1960s, participating in civil rights protests led by Father James Groppi in segregated Milwaukee. Benning dropped out of graduate school to forfeit his military deferment since his friends, who were mostly not in school, were being drafted and dying in Vietnam. Benning in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synecdoche, New York (film)
''Synecdoche, New York'' (pronounced ) is a 2008 American postmodern psychological drama film written and directed by Charlie Kaufman in his directorial debut. It stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as an ailing theater director who works on an increasingly elaborate stage production and whose extreme commitment to realism begins to blur the boundaries between fiction and reality. The film's title is a play on Schenectady, New York, where much of the film is set, and the concept of synecdoche, wherein a part of something represents the whole or vice versa. The film premiered in competition at the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival on May 23, 2008. Sony Pictures Classics acquired the United States distribution rights, paying no money but agreeing to give the film's backers a portion of the revenues. It had a limited theatrical release in the U.S. on October 24, 2008, and was a commercial failure on its initial release. The story and themes of ''Synecdoche, New York'' polarized cri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charlie Kaufman
Charles Stuart Kaufman (; born November 19, 1958) is an American filmmaker and novelist. He wrote the films ''Being John Malkovich'' (1999), ''Adaptation'' (2002), and ''Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'' (2004). He made his directorial debut with ''Synecdoche, New York'' (2008), which film critic Roger Ebert called "the best movie of the decade" in 2009.Ebert, Roger. (December 13, 2009The best films of the decade – Roger Ebert's Journal. Blogs.suntimes.com. Retrieved on 2010-12-19. Further directorial work includes the stop motion animated film ''Anomalisa'' (2015) and ''I'm Thinking of Ending Things'' (2020). In 2020, Kaufman made his literary debut with the release of his first novel, ''Antkind''. One of the most celebrated screenwriters of his era, Kaufman has been nominated for four Academy Awards: twice for Best Original Screenplay for ''Being John Malkovich'' and ''Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'' (winning for the latter), once for Best Adapted Screenplay ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rachel Getting Married
''Rachel Getting Married'' is a 2008 American drama film directed by Jonathan Demme, and starring Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin, and Debra Winger. The film premiered at the 65th Venice International Film Festival on September 3, 2008, opened in Canada's Toronto International Film Festival on September 6 and released in the U.S. to select theaters on October 3. Hathaway received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her performance in the film. Plot Kym Buchman is released from rehab for a few days to attend her older sister Rachel's wedding at their childhood home. While friends and family prepare for the festivities, Kym struggles to reintegrate with them, as her history of substance abuse has made her the black sheep of the family. Despite Kym's nine months of sobriety, her father Paul is uncomfortable with her driving, leading her to bike to a mandated drug test and Narcotics Anonymous meeting. She returns home and is introduced to Rachel's fiancé Sidney an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonathan Demme
Robert Jonathan Demme ( ; February 22, 1944 – April 26, 2017) was an American filmmaker. Beginning his career under B-movie producer Roger Corman, Demme made his directorial debut with the 1974 women-in-prison film ''Caged Heat'', before becoming known for his casually humanist films such as ''Melvin and Howard'' (1980), '' Swing Shift'' (1984), '' Something Wild'' (1986), and ''Married to the Mob'' (1988). His direction of the 1991 psychological horror film '' The Silence of the Lambs'' (1991) won him the Academy Award for Best Director. His subsequent films earned similar acclaim, notably ''Philadelphia'' (1993) and ''Rachel Getting Married'' (2008). Demme also directed numerous concert films such as ''Stop Making Sense'' (1984), '' Neil Young: Heart of Gold'' (2006), and ''Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids'' (2016), and worked on several television series as both a producer and director. Early life Demme was born on February 22, 1944, in Baldwin, New York, the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miracle At St
A miracle is an event that is inexplicable by natural or scientific lawsOne dictionary define"Miracle"as: "A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency." and accordingly gets attributed to some supernatural or praeternatural cause. Various religions often attribute a phenomenon characterized as miraculous to the actions of a supernatural being, (especially) a deity, a magician, a miracle worker, a saint, or a religious leader. Informally, English-speakers often use the word ''miracle'' to characterise any beneficial event that is statistically unlikely but not contrary to the laws of nature, such as surviving a natural disaster, or simply a "wonderful" occurrence, regardless of likelihood (e.g. "the miracle of childbirth"). Some coincidences may be seen as miracles. A true miracle would, by definition, be a non-natural phenomenon, leading many writers to dismiss miracles a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spike Lee
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee (born March 20, 1957) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. His production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, has produced more than 35 films since 1983. He made his directorial debut with ''She's Gotta Have It'' (1986). He has since written and directed such films as '' School Daze'' (1988), ''Do the Right Thing'' (1989), '' Mo' Better Blues'' (1990), '' Jungle Fever'' (1991), ''Malcolm X'' (1992), '' Crooklyn'' (1994), '' Clockers'' (1995), '' 25th Hour'' (2002), ''Inside Man'' (2006), ''Chi-Raq'' (2015), ''BlacKkKlansman'' (2018) and ''Da 5 Bloods'' (2020). Lee also acted in eleven of his feature films. His films have featured breakthrough and acclaimed performances from actors such as Denzel Washington, Laurence Fishburne, Samuel L. Jackson, Giancarlo Esposito, Rosie Perez, Delroy Lindo and John David Washington. Lee's work has continually explored race relations, issues within the black community, the role of m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Linklater
Richard Stuart Linklater (; born July 30, 1960) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is known for films that revolve mainly around suburban culture and the effects of the passage of time. His films include the comedies ''Slacker'' (1990) and '' Dazed and Confused'' (1993); the ''Before'' trilogy of romance films, ''Before Sunrise'' (1995), ''Before Sunset'' (2004), and ''Before Midnight'' (2013); the music-themed comedy '' School of Rock'' (2003); the adult animated films ''Waking Life'' (2001), ''A Scanner Darkly'' (2006), and '' Apollo 10 1⁄2: A Space Age Childhood'' (2022); the coming-of-age drama '' Boyhood'' (2014); and the comedy film '' Everybody Wants Some!!'' (2016). Linklater is known to have a distinct style and method of filmmaking. Many of his films are noted for their loosely structured narrative. The ''Before'' trilogy and ''Boyhood'' both feature the same actors filmed over an extended period of years. He has received several Academy Awa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Me And Orson Welles
''Me and Orson Welles'' is a 2008 period drama film directed by Richard Linklater and starring Zac Efron, Christian McKay, and Claire Danes. Based on Robert Kaplow's novel of the same name, the story, set in 1937 New York, tells of a teenager hired to perform in Orson Welles's groundbreaking stage adaptation of William Shakespeare's ''Julius Caesar'' who becomes attracted to a career-driven production assistant. The film was shot in London and New York and on the Isle of Man in February, March and April 2008, and was released in the United States on November 25, 2009, and the United Kingdom on December 4, 2009. McKay's portrayal of Welles was recognized with a multitude of accolades, and ''Me and Orson Welles'' was named one of the top ten independent films of the year by the National Board of Review. Plot In New York City in the fall of 1937, 17-year-old high-school student Richard Samuels meets Orson Welles, who unexpectedly offers him the role of Lucius in ''Caesar'', the fir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
