Hey, remember last fall when I told you guys about this great weird Hungarian movie, Liza, The Fox-Fairy, and how it was screening at the European Union Film Festival, and how it would probably never see the inside of a theatre again?
Well, it’s back! The EUFF is holding two nights of encore screenings, screening a quartet of last year’s festival titles tonight (Friday January 22) and Saturday (January 23) at The Royal. Once again, admission is free — but if you want to guarantee your seat, you can reserve one in advance for $10 by going to the relevant page on the EUFF website and clicking “Advance Reservation” tab.
Liza kicks it all off tonight at 7 pm, followed by the Irish drama Noble at 9 pm. Tomorrow night, it’s the bleak German comedy Parents at 7 pm and the Dutch epic Admiral at 9 pm. All worth seeing – but Liza is the one you mustn’t miss.
Also on Saturday night, the Carlton Cinema marks the passage of an icon with Sound And Vision: A Celebration Of David Bowie – a double-bill of Jim Henson’s 1986 fantasy Labyrinth, in which the rocker leapt around in very tight pants whilst surrounded by Muppets as the goblin king Jareth, and Nicolas Roeg’s existential sci-fi drama The Man Who Fell To Earth, which cast Bowie as an alien emissary assimilated by an indifferent Earth. (Okay, I’m oversimplifying that one a little.)
Admission is $10 for one film or $15 for both, and all proceeds will be donated to the Canadian Cancer Society. I can’t think of a better way to honour the man’s life by celebrating the weirdness he threw himself into so enthusiastically. Or I guess you could just listen to his entire discography again. That’s been going pretty well for me.
And once you’ve had a chance to come back down, check out the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema on Sunday (January 24), where Doc Soup is launching a companion series to its usual monthly premiere.
Titled Doc Soup Sundays and devoted to premiering documentaries about art, culture and design, this new series will run monthly through June, always at 11 am on a Sunday. Individual tickets are $16, or $12 for Bloor members you can buy a full subscription for $69, or $54 for members.
This weekend kicks it all off with Harold And Lillian: A Love Story, Daniel Raim’s sweet documentary about the eponymous Michelsons: he was a storyboard artist, and she was a film researcher, and their relationship wound its way through dozens of Hollywood classics, including Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, Mike Nichols’s The Graduate and, um, Mel Brooks’s Spaceballs.
Raim recounts Harold and Lillian’s story through interviews, film clips and archival material, but his masterstroke is tapping contemporary storyboard artist Patrick Mate to create charming visualizations of the couple’s key moments.
Mate’s art, along with Danny DeVito’s engaging narration, give the film a lightness that distinguishes it from other ain’t-Hollywood-grand documentaries … while also working to set up the story’s emotional conclusion. This would be a really good way to spend a Sunday morning.
