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FESTIVAL SCHEDULE |
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OPENING NIGHT SCREENING AND CELEBRATION
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WED FEB 23 6:30PM WORLD PREMIERE KOOP 6:30 pm Pre-screening Reception 7:00 pm Screening 8:30 pm Celebration The Royal Conservatory
Single tickets: $175 Advance tickets only. Opening night tickets will not be mailed. They will be held KOOP will be screened again on Friday, February 25, at 1:00 pm Painter Wanda Koop makes us question how and what we see: she shows us what we missed the first time around, and what remains hidden. Two, 25-year career retrospectives at the Winnipeg and National Art Galleries are approaching, and this visionary Canadian artist is preparing massive new works depicting archetypal cities and familiar yet disquieting landscapes. In Katherine Knight’s brilliant new film, we enter Koop’s world, and are compelled to relate her strange yet familiar images—in which the real and the abstract coexist—to our own frames of reference. Katherine Knight is a filmmaker, artist and professor of visual art at York University. In 2006, Knight and David Craig founded Site Media Inc., a Toronto film company that produces documentary films about creative individuals in extraordinary places. Knight is the producer of Annie Pootogook and Kinngait: Riding Light Into the World. Her 2009 film about Canadian performance artist Colette Urban, Pretend Not to See Me, received Special Mention at the Ecofilm Festival in Rhodos, Greece.
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Thursday Feb. 24 7:00 pm |
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| TIFF Bell Lightbox Reitman Square, 350 King Street West Directors: Edgar B. Howard, Tom Piper As one of the leading figures of minimalism and conceptual art, Sol LeWitt redefined art making by emphasizing the idea behind a work rather than its execution. During the four decades of his career, LeWitt produced more than 1,200 remarkably complex wall drawings using a deliberately limited repertoire of lines and geometric shapes. Sol LeWitt: Wall Drawings focuses on a posthumous, grand-scale retrospective of 105 of these works, which opened in 2008 for a 25-year run at one of MASS MoCA’s old mill buildings in North Adams, Massachusetts. Edgar B. Howard is the Founder and President of Checkerboard Films, Tom Piper is the Director of Production for the Checkerboard Film Foundation,
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 Photo: Edgar B. Howard.
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Thursday Feb. 24 9:00 pm William Kentridge: Anything Is Possible CANADIAN PREMIERE |
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Directors: Susan Sollins, Charles Atlas Named in 2009 as one of Time magazine’s most influential people in the world, South African William Kentridge is among the most dynamic and exciting contemporary artists working today. His acclaimed charcoal drawings, animations, video installations, shadow plays, mechanical puppets, tapestries, sculptures, live performances and operas are rich with historical references, political undertones, social commentary and metaphors for the artistic process. William Kentridge: Anything Is Possible follows Kentridge during preparations and rehearsals for the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Shostakovich’s The Nose, for which he was both director and set designer. The film gives viewers an intimate look into the mind of an experimental artist whose personal history as a white South African of Jewish heritage has informed his work’s recurring themes, including violent oppression, class struggle and political hierarchies. Susan Sollins is the Executive Director and founder of Art21 and has served as Executive Producer, Director and Curator of the Peabody Award–winning PBS television series Art in the Twenty-First Century. In addition to her past curatorial and consulting work for many art institutions, Susan Sollins is the co-founder and Executive Director Emerita of the nonprofit organization Independent Curators International.
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Friday Feb. 25 1:00 pm KOOP |
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Director: Katherine Knight Painter Wanda Koop makes us question how and what we see: she shows us what we missed the first time around, and what remains hidden. Two, 25-year career retrospectives at the Winnipeg and National Art Galleries are approaching, and this visionary Canadian artist is preparing massive new works depicting archetypal cities and familiar yet disquieting landscapes. In Katherine Knight’s brilliant new film, we enter Koop’s world, and are compelled to relate her strange yet familiar images—in which the real and the abstract coexist—to our own frames of reference. Katherine Knight is a filmmaker, artist and professor of visual art at York University. In 2006, Knight and David Craig founded Site Media Inc., a Toronto film company that produces documentary films about creative individuals in extraordinary places. Knight is the producer of Annie Pootogook and Kinngait: Riding Light Into the World. Her 2009 film about Canadian performance artist Colette Urban, Pretend Not to See Me, received Special Mention at the Ecofilm Festival in Rhodos, Greece. |
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Friday Feb. 25 3:00 pm Aakideh: The Art & Legacy of Carl Beam TORONTO PREMIERE |
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Directors: Robert Waldeck, Paul Eichhorn “Aakideh” or “one who is brave” was the Ojibwe name given to the fearless and visionary Manitoulin Island–born artist Carl Beam as a child. This documentary examines how Beam’s experiences growing up in an Ojibwe community and attending a residential school affected his life and illustrious career as a contemporary artist. Personal remembrances along with insights about his art and ideas are illustrated through dozens of Beam’s artworks, family photos, interviews, performance videos and journals. Aakideh: The Art & Legacy of Carl Beam vividly portrays the legacy of a pivotal figure in Canadian art. Robert Waldeck is an accomplished visual artist and an award-winning filmmaker whose films have screened worldwide. In 2004, Waldeck founded W.E. Productions with Paul Eichhorn and together they directed the award-winning documentary A Growing Season in 2008. Waldeck has taught visual and media arts at various secondary and post-secondary schools around North America.
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Friday Feb. 25 5:15 pm |
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TIFF Bell Lightbox
“I do not draw simply the surface of the landscape. I feel I am capturing the breath and soul of the earth,” explains Shuvinai Ashoona. Ghost Noise celebrates the absolute intelligence, mischief and poetry of this gifted Inuit artist. Director Marcia Connolly leads the viewer into the magical world of Ashoona’s fantastical artworks, where imagination collides with the realities of Arctic life. We also see Ashoona in the Kinngait Studios, Cape Dorset, where she has been working for over 15 years, creating her meticulously detailed drawings that deftly reflect personal experience, psychological perception, and the landscape that surrounds her. Marcia Connolly produces emotive films that create a sense of intimacy between her documentary subjects and her audience. Connolly’s work has been shown internationally and nationally, including at the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Palme in Paris, the Toronto International Film Festival, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), the Edinburgh International Film Festival, the Smithsonian Institute and the National Gallery of Canada. She has contributed over 50 pieces for award-winning programs at the CBC.
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Ai Weiwei: Sunflower Seeds DOUBLE SCREENING (in conjunction with Ghost Noise) |
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NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
Director: Kate Vogel In October 2010, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei filled the interior of the Turbine Hall at London’s Tate Modern with 100 million hand-crafted porcelain sunflower seeds. Seemingly realistic and identical, the seeds were each individually sculpted and painted by specialists in small-scale workshops in the city of Jingdezhen, known as the “porcelain capital” of China. This film offers viewers a rare glimpse into the production of this installation, made up of millions of pieces that, together, form a single, unique, remarkable surface. From the porcelain mines to the workshops in Jingdezhen and finally to the Tate Modern, where the seeds are poured into the Turbine Hall, we witness the magnificent creation of Ai’s thought-provoking work. Kate Vogel commissioned documentaries at Channel 4 for five years. She currently works at Tate Media, where she looks after film production and media across the four galleries, commissioning films about artists and exhibitions. |
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Friday Feb. 25 7:00 pm |
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TIFF Bell Lightbox Documentary filmmaker Michael Hegglin enters the eccentric world of internationally renowned Swiss video artist Pipilotti Rist in The Colour of Your Socks: A Year With Pipilotti Rist. The film follows Rist in her Zurich studio and around the world, from the Biennale in Venice to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, as she prepares for various exhibitions. This behind-the-scenes documentary sheds light on Rist’s creative process, the development of her projects and her collaboration with her team. Michael Hegglin was born in Zug, Switzerland. He studied philosophy, history and German before beginning a career in television. He has made numerous documentary films and film portraits.
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Friday Feb. 25 9:00 pm About Jenny Holzer TORONTO PREMIERE |
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TIFF Bell Lightbox For more than 30 years, conceptual artist Jenny Holzer has used language to call into question how contemporary selfhood is influenced by media and politics. Her texts have appeared on posters, LED signs, billboards, stone benches and, most recently, as projections on various surfaces in major cities across the world. About Jenny Holzer traces her tremendous career, from putting up posters in New York in the late 1970s to being awarded the Lion d’Or at Venice in 1990 and becoming one of the most influential female artists today. Director Claudia Müller followed Holzer over a 10-year period, at work and in numerous exhibitions, gaining a unique perspective on the artist and her art. Claudia Müller has a background in journalism, German literature, and fine art.
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Saturday Feb. 26 1:00 pm |
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Director: Jan Schmidt-Garre Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson’s practice includes spectacular, ephemeral experiments with architectural spaces, often incorporating light and water, to create what he calls a “utopia of time.” In this film, we journey inside Eliasson’s Berlin studio to witness the preparations for his installation Notion Motion at the Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam. Through a series of interview questions we learn about Eliasson’s aesthetic and philosophical theories in relation to the work. The exhibition asks questions about the perception of space, surface, nature and technology and, through interactive elements provided in the installation, allows viewers to experience these ideas tangibly. Jan Schmidt-Garre studied philosophy, film, conducting and phenomenology of music in various cultural centres in Europe. His art- and music-related award-winning films have been broadcasted and have appeared in film festivals worldwide. He has been a lecturer at the Theatre Academy of Burghausen since 1999.
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Saturday Feb. 26 1:00 pm |
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Damián Ortega, one of the most prominent artists of the new Mexican generation, is known for taking things apart and putting them back together again. In playful and imaginative ways, he explores the elements that make up a whole, whether a car, a dwelling, a body or an economic system. Damián Ortega: Do It Yourself features interviews with Ortega and Jessica Morgan, curator of Ortega’s 2009 exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. These are complemented by artist-shot footage in Mexico City, images of his Berlin studio and installation shots at the ICA. Branka Bogdanov is an award-winning director, producer and scriptwriter of documentaries and educational and feature films. Her interest in contemporary art led to the development of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston’s in-house video production in 1989. Since, she has written, produced and directed more than 50 films on art and artists.
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Saturday Feb. 26 2:45 pm |
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TIFF Bell Lightbox Reitman Square, 350 King Street West Director: Heinz Peter Schwerfel French artist Christian Boltanski began exhibiting in Germany in the early 1970s and today has gained worldwide recognition for his art, which grapples with notions of remembrance and forgetting, appearing and vanishing, childhood and dying. The Possible Lives of Christian Boltanski plunges us into a sombre yet humourous universe, portraying monumental, if little known, works. The film contains previously unaired archival footage through which the artist confronts his own past and future. Boltanski, who describes himself as an “emotional minimalist,” speaks of his true and possible lives, of humanism, religion and utopia, and explains his major project, Archives of the Heart, which will bring together tens of thousands of heartbeats in a remote place. Heinz Peter Schwerfel is a filmmaker and art critic. Born in Cologne, he founded
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| Saturday Feb. 26 4:30 pm The World According to Ion B. |
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TIFF Bell Lightbox Director: Alexander Nanau “Straight from the dumpster to the gallery.” The World According to Ion B. journeys into the world of self-taught artist and drifter Ion Barladeanu. Living on the fringe of society for nearly 30 years, during which time he amassed thousands of image clippings, Ion is discovered, at age 62, by a young gallerist who decides to exhibit his collages for the first time. These collages, created between 1970 and 1990, are both scathing in their critique of Romania’s former communist regime and stunning in their references to surrealism and pop art. In The World According to Ion B., director Alexander Nanau chronicles one man’s rapid transformation from outsider to recognized artist. Born in Bucharest in 1979, Alexander Nanau has been living in Germany since 1990. He studied film directing at the German Film and Television Academy (DFFB) in Berlin and has directed and produced numerous short films and documentaries.
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| Saturday Feb. 26 7:00 pm Nam June Paik: Open Your Eyes WORLD PREMIERE |
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TIFF Bell Lightbox Director: Maria Anna Tappeiner Korean-born artist Nam June Paik is known as the inventor of media art, and is one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. At a time when television was still a novelty, Paik foresaw the future popularity of this new and exciting medium. He transformed objects through destruction, alteration and the integration of eastern and western cultures, creating a curiously ironic visual language. This film presents a review of his works and shows excerpts from old footage, along with interviews with the artist’s collaborators, contemporaries and family members. Maria Anna Tappeiner is a freelance art historian and documentary filmmaker living in Frankfurt, Germany. She has made documentaries on prominent artists and filmmakers such as William Kentridge, Richard Serra and several others.
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| Saturday Feb. 26 9:00 pm China, the Empire of Art? TORONTO PREMIERE |
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TIFF Bell Lightbox Reitman Square, 350 King Street West Directors: Sheng Zhimin, Emma Tassy Producer: Olivier Mille Distributor: The Cinema Guild Colour, 52 minutes, Mandarin and French with English subtitles, 2010 Introduced by Yi Gu, Assistant Professor, Art History & Global Asia Studies, University of Toronto. Over the last two decades, the contemporary art scene in China has undergone a radical transformation. Once long ignored, Chinese artists have achieved great fame, and the country is now home to the third largest art market in the world. China, the Empire of Art? traces the events leading up to this rise, carefully considering the historic, economic and cultural events that set it in motion, including the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. In the 20 years since, the art scene has exploded, resulting in the most provocative and controversial artwork ever seen in the country. The film features interviews with renowned artists who have contributed to fueling this boom, including Zhang Huan, Yue Minjun and Yan Pei-Ming, as well as curators Hou Hanru and Jerome Sans. Sheng Zhimin is a screenwriter and executive producer for independent filmmakers. He began directing films in 2003. Emma Tassy lived in Beijing in the 1990s before working in the field of contemporary art upon her return to Paris. She is now an author and independent journalist.
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| Sunday Feb. 27 1:00 pm This Not That: The Artist John Baldessari CANADIAN PREMIERE |
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TIFF Bell Lightbox Director: Jan Schmidt-Garre One of the driving forces of conceptual art, John Baldessari challenged and deconstructed the idea of painting through introducing modes of objective representation to the medium. His most famous series, the “Information Paintings,” consists of descriptive text telling the viewer what they are looking at in an exploration of the relationship between art and didacticism. In this intimate portrait of the renowned artist, we witness all aspects of Baldessari: in his studio, with the technicians with whom he collaborates; in the classroom, interacting with his students; and in the world, as a passionate observer of the contemporary art scene. The film, which also includes interviews with his former students, including Matt Mullican and David Salle, demonstrates the profound influence Baldessari has had—and continues to have—on young artists and art today. Jan Schmidt-Garre studied philosophy, film, conducting and phenomenology of music in various cultural centres in Europe. His art- and music-related award-winning films have been broadcasted and have appeared in film festivals worldwide. He has been a lecturer at the Theatre Academy of Burghausen since 1999
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| Sunday Feb. 27 3:30 pm Picture Start WORLD PREMIERE |
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Director: Harry Killas Picture Start documents how a small group of artists put Vancouver at the leading edge of contemporary art. Focusing on Jeff Wall, Ian Wallace and Rodney Graham, three celebrated artists of the so-called Vancouver School, the film traces the history of the development of Vancouver photo-conceptualism, capturing the relationships between the artists and their peers. Featuring interviews with the artists, curators and collectors, the film seeks to answer key questions as to how and why these artists came together as contemporaries in what might be thought of as an unlikely setting. Harry Killas is a Vancouver-based director, writer and producer. Recent documentary work includes Aristotle’s Lagoon, a history of Aristotle’s biological thought, for the BBC. Of note for this festival, Killas directed and produced Glowing in the Dark, a history of neon art and design. Dramatic work includes What Else Have You Got? and Babette’s Feet, which played at over 25 international festivals including Toronto and Clermont-Ferrand. Killas currently teaches documentary and dramatic filmmaking, and media studies at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver.
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Sunday Feb. 27 5:30 pm |
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TIFF Bell Lightbox
Andreas Gursky: Long Shot Close Up offers an insightful glimpse into this lauded photographer’s creative and technical processes. The film details one of his recent works, Hamm, Bergwek Ost, which he completed in the locker room of a major German mine. Here is Gursky through all stages of production, from his initial site visit for the work to its final unveiling. Gursky’s teacher, Hilla Becher, offers commentary on his work and its contribution to the photographic arts. Jan Schmidt-Garre studied philosophy, film, conducting and phenomenology of music in various cultural centres in Europe. His art- and music-related award-winning films have been broadcasted and have appeared in film festivals worldwide. He has been a lecturer at the Theatre Academy of Burghausen since 1999.
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Schedule subject to change. |
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