After an impressive onslaught of weekly announcements, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) unveiled this year’s Wavelengths and TIFF Classics programme this morning. Andréa Picard and Jesse Cumming’s specialised Wavelengths programming focuses on daring new work from autonomous voices. The section was named after Michael Snow’s Wavelength (1967), which commemorates the Canadian filmmaker’s legacy by devoting its curation to visionary cinema.
Circulated this morning via a press release, this year’s selection of avant-garde films include a handful of promising documentary features. “This year’s programme sees many artists looking back at crucial points in history in order to meet our complex and confusing contemporary moment,” says Picard, in a recent YouTube video posted by the festival. “Between a great two-minute film and 14-hour one, I assure you that there are great moments of humour, beauty, and levity as well.”
Both of Wang Bing’s hotly-anticipated additions to his Youth trilogy are set to premiere at TIFF this year. Youth (Hard Times) covers the same textile workshops featured in its predecessor Youth (Spring). The second part showcases the inhumanity at the crux of the workshop conditions, by including distressing footage involving the workers’ bosses. A web of distrust clashes with the management’s misguided operations that ultimately culminates towards a singular vision of capitalist exploitation. Youth (Hard Times) will first premiere in the main competition at Locarno next week, before premiering at TIFF.
The final chapter Youth (Homecoming) widens the scope of the worker’s lives by following a handful of employees on their return to home for New Years celebrations. The hopeful closer offers glimmers of prosperity for the overworked staff. Youth (Homecoming) will premiere in competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival. Both parts of the Youth saga are North American premieres at the festival.
Whereas the epic runtime of Youth (Hard Times) is undeniably meaty with a 220 minute length, Dimitris Athiridis’ colossal exergue – on documenta 14 holds the record for the longest feature-length running time at the festival. At 848 minutes, the Greek filmmaker presents an introspective portrait on artistic director Adam Szymczyk. Over the span of two years, the documentary shows Szymczyk’s curatorial team at work as they prepare for their titular project documenta 14. Under the title of “Learning from Athens,” the 2017 edition was considered as the world’s most prominent art exhibition. It was held for the first time in Kassel, Germany and Athens, Greece. Expanding the two locations, the documentary highlights Szymczyk’s infamous curation, which eventually led to financial deficit and media scandal. Told in 14 chapters, exergue – on documenta 14 will be presented over three screenings at the festival. The film originally premiered at the Berlinale. It will screen at TIFF as a North American premiere.
Accompanying exergue – on documenta 14’s Berlinale origins, Wavelengths alumni Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias returns to the programme after premiering his unconventional crime fable Cocote. His latest film Pepe mixes fiction and documentary into a singular commentary on the ripple effects of colonisation. The radical hybrid-film details the life and death of a Hippo that was once held prisoner by Pablo Escobar. The illegal importation of invasive species to Colombia led to domestic havoc. Implementing sentient anthropomorphised narration from the titular Hippo as its primary storytelling tool, Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias’s enlightening feature comments on ecological colonisation through the avant-garde. The film won the Best Director prize at the Berlinale. Pepe will make its North American splash at TIFF this year, before premiering at the New York Film Festival. (Subscribe today to read more about Pepe in the fall issue of POV.)
Pepe isn’t the sole zoological reverie premiering in the Wavelengths section. In Jessica Sarah Rinland’s feature debut Collective Monologue, the film utilises intimate and fragmented vignettes which unfold within a community of zoos and animal rescue centres in Argentina. Through the use of colourful 16mm film stock, Rinland uncovers the mutual bond between humans and animals in their institutional care. Collective Monologue will have its North American premiere at TIFF, after competing at Locarno in the Cineasti del Presente competition.
Alongside Rinland’s feature, The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire is another Wavelengths wild-card that incorporates documentary traditions in innovative and unexpected ways. The film centres around the life and legacy of writer, teacher, and feminist activist Suzanne Césaire. Presented as an investigation shared by a group of filmmakers, the documentary finds its unconventional basis through hours of audio recording from Césaire’s family archive. The intention was to grapple with the writer’s present and past, blurring the lines between the imagined and the biographical. Césaire was best known as a pioneer of Afro-surrealism and a key member of the Négritude movement. After competing in the Tiger Competition at the Rotterdam Film Festival, The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire will bow at TIFF as a Canadian premiere.
The Wavelengths program wouldn’t be complete without its short film programming. Johann Lurf and Christina Jauernik’s Revolving Rounds utilises radical 3D technology to document a planimetric path. Lawrence Abu Hamdan mid-length The Diary of a Sky observes Beirut’s noise levels by documenting the militarism of the skies.
In Francisco Rodríguez Teare’s October Noon, four friends and a sound engineer talk about events seen and experienced within a popular Chilean revolt. In Malena Szlam’s Canadian/Chilean co-production Archipelago of Earthen Bones — To Bunya, the renowned artist utilises 16mm Ektachrome positive film stock to study the recent trend of geological cinema. Tiffany Sia’s The Sojourn also examines landscapes by collaborating with actor Shih Chun. Together, they peruse the iconic locations featured in Dragon Inn (1967).
In John Smith’s Being John Smith, the titular artist comments on the negative impact of possessing the most common name in the English-speaking world. Last but certainly not least, Jean-Luc Godard’s swan songs Exposé du film annonce du film “Scénario” and Scénarios will premiere in the Wavelengths 3 programme. Exposé du film annonce du film “Scénario” describes his final unfinished feature through script readings and miscellaneous footage, whereas Scénarios contemplates on Godard’s mortality through jumbled notes and images. Scénarios was completed the day before Godard’s death.
Other notable Wavelengths titles include Rhayne Vermette’s experimental animated short sequel A Black Screen Too; Chris Kennedy’s Go Between; Miguel Gomes’ dreamlike travelogue Grand Tour, which won Best Director at Cannes; Nicolás Pereda’s Canadian co-production and performance study Lázaro at Night; Roberto Minervini’s unconventional period-drama The Damned; and Trương Minh Quý’s banned queer love-story Viet and Nam. The festival will also screen Wael Shawky’s Drama 1882, which restages an anti-colonial uprising in eight chapters. The 45-minute installation will be presented in a looped format in-cinema on Saturday, September 7th.
For fans of older documentaries, the TIFF Classics selection will screen the world premiere of the 4K restoration of Frederick Wiseman’s 1972 film Essene. The recent restoration is part of the Zipporah Films’ recent efforts in digitising the entirety of Wiseman’s oeuvre. The restorations will later tour the globe beginning in the fall. Other notable TIFF Classic titles include two new 4K restorations of renowned Canadian features from the ’90s. World premiere restorations of Atom Egoyan’s Oscar-nominated drama The Sweet Hereafter and Srinivas Krishna’s musical dramedy Masala will screen at the festival. In partnership with TIFF, the selected titles are part of an ongoing initiative from Telefilm Canada’s the Canadian Cinema Reignited program. The Classics programme is curated by Robyn Citizen and Andréa Picard.
The titles announced today are as follows:
Wavelengths – Features
Collective Monologue [Monólogo colectivo] Jessica Sarah Rinland | Argentina/United Kingdom
North American Premiere
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exergue – on documenta 14 Dimitris Athiridis | Greece
North American Premiere
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Grand Tour Miguel Gomes | Portugal/Italy/France/Germany/Japan/China
North American Premiere
Lázaro at Night [Lázaro de noche] Nicolás Pereda | Canada/Mexico
North American Premiere
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Pepe Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias | Dominican Republic/Germany/France/Namibia
North American Premiere
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Perfumed with Mint [Moattar binanaa] Muhammed Hamdy | Egypt/France/Tunisia/Qatar
North American Premiere
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The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich | USA
Canadian Premiere
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The Damned Roberto Minervini | Italy/USA/Belgium
North American Premiere
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Viêt and Nam Trương Minh Quý | Philippines/Singapore/France/Netherlands/Italy/Germany/Vietnam
North American Premiere
Youth (Hard Times) [Qing Chun (Ku)] Wang Bing | France/Luxembourg/Netherlands
North American Premiere
Luminaries
Youth (Homecoming) [Qing Chun (Gui)] Wang Bing | France/Luxembourg/Netherlands
North American Premiere
Luminaries
Wavelengths Special Presentation
Drama 1882 Wael Shawky | Egypt
Festival Premiere
Wavelengths – Shorts
WAVELENGTHS 1: EYE & EAR CONTROL
Revolving Rounds Johann Lurf, Christina Jauernik | Austria
North American Premiere
The Diary of a Sky Lawrence Abu Hamdan | Lebanon
North American Premiere
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October Noon [Octubre al mediodía] Francisco Rodríguez Teare | Chile/France
World Premiere
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A Black Screen Too Rhayne Vermette | Canada
World Premiere
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Archipelago of Earthen Bones — To Bunya Malena Szlam | Canada/Australia/Chile
World Premiere
WAVELENGTHS 2: RIDE THE WAVE
Someplace in Your Mouth Beatrice Gibson, Nick Gordon | Italy
International Premiere
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Notes of a Crocodile Daphne Xu | Cambodia/China/Canada
World Premiere
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Adrift Potentials [Potenciais à deriva] Leonardo Pirondi | Brazil/USA
North American Premiere
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Go Between Chris Kennedy | Canada/Australia
World Premiere
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The Sojourn [暫棲] Tiffany Sia | USA
Canadian Premiere
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WAVELENGTHS 3: EXPOSÉ(S) – JEAN-LUC GODARD/JOHN SMITH
Scénarios Jean-Luc Godard | France/Japan
North American Premiere
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Exposé du film annonce du film “Scénario” Jean-Luc Godard | France/Japan
North American Premiere
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Being John Smith John Smith | United Kingdom
World Premiere
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Classics
Awāra Raj Kapoor | India
Bona Lino Brocka | Philippines
Essene Frederick Wiseman | USA
Masala Srinivas Krishna | Canada
The Sweet Hereafter Atom Egoyan | Canada
Time of Maturity [Reifezeit] Sohrab Shahid Saless | Germany
TIFF previously announced the TIFF Docs, Galas and Special Presentations titles, and will release the Shorts and Primetime (episodic) titles tomorrow.
This year’s festival runs Sept. 5 to 15.
