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Film, Fundamentalism, Festivalia

I’m going to open this week’s column by reminding you all that Tacita Dean’s Kodak – a 16mm documentary about a 16mm film manufacturing plant – is screening at the Lightbox tomorrow (Saturday, August 15) at 1 pm as part of TIFF’s summer Free Screen program. It is good, and you should see it. (I wrote about it in last week’s column due to a scheduling error, which is a fancy way of saying I am an idiot.)

There’s another free screening Saturday evening that you might want to check out. As part of this year’s Habari Africa festival, Harbourfront Centre will be screening Timbuktu, Abderrahmane Sissako’s Oscar-nominated drama about a small village dealing with the arrival of religious fundamentalists. It’s playing in the Studio Theatre at 8 pm if you missed it during its theatrical run earlier this year, you really should catch up to it. It’s pretty great.

Finally, TIFF 2015 is less than a month away, a fact of which I’m sure you’re entirely aware given the flood of press conferences and announcements over the last few weeks. Me, I’m most excited by the revelation that Ben Wheatley’s High Rise will screen in the juried Platform section, giving that brilliant British filmmaker the global showcase he’s long deserved. (Also, Tom Hiddleston is in it, and he’s always fun.)

Two local filmmakers, Kazik Radwanski and Andrew Cividino, have features in this year’s festival – How Heavy This Hammer and Sleeping Giant, respectively. And they’re marking that accomplishment with a screening of their previous works this Wednesday (August 19) at The Royal: Radwanski’s 2012 feature Tower, a creepy character study about an Toronto introvert locked in a death-battle with a persistent raccoon, and Cividino’s 2014 short version of Sleeping Giant, which led to the feature film. Radwanski and Cividino will also be interviewed on stage by fellow Toronto filmmaker, Matt Johnson (The Dirties), which should be fun.

The show starts at 7 pm. If you have any interest at all in the local cinema scene, you should check it out. Plus, you get to feel like you’re immersing yourself in the luxe film-festival circuit without standing in line for an hour while people shove past you to get to one of the dozen other movies playing at the same time.

… yeah, sorry. I’m feeling a little jaded this week.

normw@nowtoronto.com | @normwilner

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