Website:  Thai Spotlight 

Date:  June 14, 2008

Location:  Cumberland Cinema

Video clip:  host intro

Several short films from Thailand, some funded by their royal government, were screened at Cumberland within a 2 and 1/2 hour time frame.  Worth noting are 'Norasinghavatar', with performers in Asian god costumes flying and fighting in the heavens and filmed analog not digital according to the hosts, and 'Luminous Sound' a jazz pianist is interviewed as he plays jazz tunes on a piano with interesting angles and focus shots on his lips, eyes, hands, and various angles as an invisible interviewer asks him questions and he answers; according to the WWFS write-up, he is blind.

Date:  June 11, 2008 

Locations:  Sassafraz and Cumberland

Websites:  restaurant and cinema 

Video Clips:  Sassafraz Party and

Filmmakers Q & A, pt. 1 and pt. 2

Popular restaurant for film industry people and stars while visiting Toronto for film festivals, Sassafraz was renovated for over a million dollars.  The Filmmakers Reception Party was held on the top floor with free drinks and appetizers for guests.  Lots of networking with local filmmakers and other organizers, such as Reel Asian staff, Sable Films, Tellavision and other independents at Sassafraz.  Screenings at nearby Cumberland for "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me" selections:  Closer, The Coat, Teenage Girl, Cursing Hanley, Null Null, Chainsaw (sex-rated animated scenes of a man and woman in a room with moaning and creaking bed, while another man takes his chainsaw and cuts the wooden posts of the house which collapses, then he goes to the woods and chops of a heart formation among the trees and then commits suicide with the chainsaw; according to the WWFS summary, one of the men is a husband) and others from Selection 3 were followed with a Q & A with attending filmmakers.

Refer to Femicide-Suicide 

Website:  Shorter Is Better 

Date:  June 10, 2008

Location:  Bloor Cinema and C Lounge

 Short films are a great way to sample international cinema, for those with short attention spans and want everything to happen within a few minutes, instead of hours. Worldwide Short Film Festival is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year!  The Bloor Cinema hosted the opening screenings of Award Winners:  Paradise, Peter and Ben, Situation Frank, Pearce Sisters, Tony Zear and Gravity.  Welcoming speeches to the audience and thanks to sponsors from the organizers started the evening's entertainment to the cheers of the full theater.  There were claps for each of the films:  Paradise is about a tin toy couple with a troubled marriage from the husband's routine indifference to the needs of his wife; Peter and Ben -- a sheep who leaves its flock to befriend their keeper at home; Situation Frank shows a man whose wife commits suicide and he cracks up so his best friend keeps him company until her funeral; Pearce Sisters live isolated in a fishing island, one fat and one thin both single, and have rescued drowning men who run away and would rather drown and the sisters later preserve them by smoking them as fish to have a tea party with them as cadavers; Tony Zear has big ears sensitive to sound and has problems with dating until his family finds him a girlfriend with big ears too as they all do; and last Gravity, a collage slideshow of various glamourous Hollywood actors and actresses in kissing and hugging scenes.  After there were special buses driving the audience to C Lounge, a modern spacious club with patio and bars indoors and outdoors, with a wading pool, and low couches.  Some familiar faces from Reel Asian, Meow Films, and other independent film industry people.  Hot appetizers were served by the staff, a free drink for each guest, and dance music played with a dj.  The whole week will be full of screenings and parties for the short film buffs and industry insiders.  It was a funtastic night for an opening!