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Journals of Knud Rasmussen
The festival kicks off this year with a film by Zacharias Kunuk, who directed the acclaimed Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner). Directed by Kunuk and Norman Cohn, the film examines the history of the Inuit people from the perspective of a father and daughter. |
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Penelope
Featuring a star-studded cast including Christina Ricci, Reese Witherspoon, and Catherine O’Hara, Penelope is a romantic fable that casts a jaded eye on celebrity culture. Director Mark Palansky's feature filmmaking debut stars Ricci as Penelope, a young girl who carries the burden of her aristocratic family’s curse in the form of a porcine snout. |
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Volver
Spanish director Pedro Almodovar’s (Bad Education, All About My Mother) much-anticipated Volver is a comic drama starring Penelope Cruz. The film is about sisters coping with family strife and the ghostly return of their long-dead mother, who begins making appearances in their hometown. It was a hit a Cannes with Volver’s female cast sharing the best actress prize and Almodovar winning for his screenplay. |
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The White Planet
This Canada/France co-production is the Sprockets Family Zone gala presentation. The documentary follows the change in season from winter to spring at the North Pole as it explores how the seasons affect various animal species. |
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A Good Year
Based on the novel by Peter Mayle, Russell Crowe reunites with Gladiator director Sir Ridley Scott to play a London-based financier who moves to Provence to sell a small vineyard inherited from his late uncle. But his desire to close the deal and make a quick profit is thwarted as wild cards are thrown his way. |
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Babel
The multi-lingual film Babel, that weaves the stories of four disparate groups from three continents, garnered Mexican filmmaker Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu the best director award at Cannes earlier this year. The conclusion to Inarritu’s trilogy that began with Amores Perros and 21 Grams, Babel stars Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett as a couple trying to cope with catastrophe while on vacation in Morocco. |
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Never Say Goodbye
The film generating the biggest buzz among Bollywood cineastes is Karan Johar's Never Say Goodbye, starring heartthrob Shah Rukh Khan, Bollywood beauty Rani Mukherji and the iconic legend Amitabh Bachchan. This entertaining love story about couples finding happiness outside marriage, is a passionate love story tinged with humour, featuring lush music and standout performances set against a backdrop of New York’s luxury apartments and exclusive estates. |
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For Your Consideration
Actor-director and mockumentarian Christopher Guest reunites his usual band of suspects, former SCTV cast members Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara, in his latest film For Your Consideration, which takes a comedic look at the film industry. O’Hara stars as a washed-up screen siren who has been struggling for recognition for three decades. Oscar fever spreads after she hears a rumour that her latest gig could land her an Academy Award nomination. |
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All the King’s Men
The epic film, set in the 1940s and '50s, stars Sean Penn as a larger-than-life southern politician who transcends the poverty of the Great Depression to become the populist governor of Louisiana. The film, which also stars Jude Law, Kate Winslet and Anthony Hopkins, is an adaptation of Robert Penn Warren’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. |
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Away from Her
Sarah Polley makes her feature directorial debut in Away From Her. An adaptation of a short story by Alice Munro, the film tells the story of Grant (Gordon Pinsent) and Fiona (Julie Christie), an elderly couple grappling with Alzheimer's disease after a long and sometimes troubled marriage. |
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Bonneville
Joan Allen, Kathy Bates and Jessica Lange star in Christopher N. Rowley’s Bonneville, a story of a grieving widow who hijacks her two best friends and sets out on a cross-country road trip in a vintage 1966 Pontiac Bonneville. It’s a heartwarming pilgrimage filled with surprises, laughter, tears and most importantly, the love of good friends. |
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Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing
The film — from two-time Oscar-winning director Barbara Kopple and filmmaker Cecilia Peck — goes behind the scenes to explore the controversy that followed country music’s best-selling female group of all time after lead singer Natalie Maines' infamous off-the-cuff remark about U.S. President George Bush. |
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Mon Meilleur Ami
A middle-aged Parisian antique dealer, played by French star Daniel Auteuil, is blindsided by the revelation that he has no friends. When his business partner wagers that he can’t produce his best friend, he sets out to win the bet. What’s at stake? She will let him keep the Greek vase he acquired on the company tab if he proves her wrong. |
Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2006 |
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Breaking and Entering
The latest film, from The English Patient director Minghella, stars Jude Law, Juliette Binoche and Robin Wright Penn in the tale of a London-based landscape architect whose life is changed by a series of burglaries at his offices. |
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Black Book
Basic Instinct director Paul Verhoeven’s returns to his native Netherlands with his first Dutch-language film in more than 20 years. The Second World War film tells the story of a high-ranking Gestapo commander who has an affair with a young Jewish singer that infiltrates his Amsterdam headquarters. |
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Bobby
Emilio Estevez's Bobby recreates the final hours of Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in Los Angeles in June 1968 while running for U.S. President. Estevez stars in the film, along with his father Martin Sheen, Harry Belafonte, Anthony Hopkins, William H. Macy, Sharon Stone, Laurence Fishburne, Heather Graham and Lindsay Lohan. |
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Infamous
Based on a George Plimpton book, Infamous follows famed author Truman Capote as he investigates the murder of a family in rural Kansas. Though the film is being released less than a year after the Oscar-winning Capote premiered, industry insiders say that’s where the similarities end. Starring Toby Jones (Capote), Sandra Bullock (Harper Lee), and Jeff Daniels (local sheriff Alvin Dewey) the cast is rounded out by Gwyneth Paltrow, Isabella Rossellini and Sigourney Weaver. |
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The Banquet
This $15 million U.S. epic adaptation of Hamlet, set in ancient China, stars Ziyi Zhang and Daniel Wu. Among director Xiaogang Feng’s collaborators are composer Tan Dun and designer Tim Yip, both Oscar winners for their work on Ang Lee’s runaway hit Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. |
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After the Wedding
Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier's acclaimed domestic drama tells the tale of the head of a struggling orphanage in one of India’s poorest regions. He faces the heartrending threat of closure until a wealthy entrepreneur who may be willing to save the orphanage steps into the picture. |
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Amazing Grace
The festival will close on Sept. 16 with Michael Apted's period piece about a British parliamentarian, played by Welsh star Ioan Gruffudd, who led the fight to end the slave trade in 18th-century England. |
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THE WORLD ON FILM
A look at some of the countries represented at TIFF 2006.
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