Normally I don’t talk about Entrants submitting their films or screenplays to ReelHeART, but today I will.

We’ve had amazing entries all season long and especially over the last 10 days because we’re coming close to our final deadline. Famous A-listers through to D-listers and beyond. As well, we welcome back a few Alumni.

Filmmakers either find us through word-of-mouth, our advertising, on-line communities and through extensive research that starts in July after the end of ReelHeART.

Since 2004, I’ve done exhaustive research for films and documentaries to premiere at ReelHeART that we think might match our mission statement or if the filmmaker has never approached us we let them know what we’re all about.

I’d say I either see or read about 1500 indie films a year. Of those, there’s a select group that if they haven’t entered, we send them an “Invite To Submit” their film.

Not a waiver mind you, but a greatly discounted rate off our partner’s entry fee.

Every season, we get 300-500 requests to waive fees. It’s not just our film festival, but all film festivals.

As a non profit film festival we can’t afford to waive fees. As a non profit film festival your funding bodies want real facts and figures about your marketing. That includes email marketing. That includes our “Invite to Submit” which is a marketing tool. Think of it that for every effort where we can show tangible proof we sent a letter or an email or ran a press release as part of our marketing efforts, we get a quarter from our funding bodies. Yep. It works out to 25 cents.  In this economy, that quarter is now a nickle.

But we don’t do it for the 25 cents we might make from our funding bodies. We market because we’re in a city that has 75 other film festivals. And you have to make your voice heard.

We don’t have the horsepower of the other 2 huge film festivals in this city. We have our great year-round volunteers, a skeleton staff and since our inception in 2004 … me.

We market to bring one-of-kind films to premiere at ReelHeART before they screen at one of the 74 other film festivals. We market to offer indie film fare that’s affordable to the audiences we want to reach. Audiences that see everything from quirky underground and experimental films to thought provoking documentaries to polished productions with budgets of a few million.

Our “Invite to Submit” contains links, information and clarifies that our email is not a waiver, but an invite to check us out and see if we’re a good fit for their film.

While 2-3 filmmakers we’ve encountered this season (who’ve made 1 or 2 short films) can’t appreciate that as a non-profit film festival we DON’T give waivers they feel compelled to trash us on the Internet. Yet, they fail to realize that we do give specific waivers to inner-city film groups for youths under 18 and to disabled filmmakers of any age.

Today, we’ve come across an entry from a charming, eloquent 13 year old, disabled filmmaker who did not receive an “Invite to Submit”. They found us on their own. They sent a comprehensive and engaging cover letter, 4 screening DVDs to go around and had just an amazing and pleasant attitude.

This filmmaker is eligible for a waiver because of their disability. But may have decided that it would be against their ideas about “pity based fund raising”. They never asked for the waiver they are entitled to, instead paying the rather hefty late deadline fee at our partners website.

What this young person could teach the ‘bashing filmmakers’ who didn’t get a waiver about building bridges in this industry instead of burning them. This young person could also teach those bashing filmmakers how to write an email or a letter that compliments rather than condescends.

The professionalism and HeART of this 13 year old who is “passionate about harnessing the power of film to open people’s minds” is my new Hero…

Actor, Hotel Owner, Tribeca Film Festival Director - Robert De Niro

Robert De Niro has angered New York City officials after refusing to reconstruct his upscale Manhattan hotel to meet city standards.

Bosses at the Landmark Preservation Commission (Lpc) ordered the actor to modify his Greenwich Hotel in June 2008 after he built the structure without the commission’s approval.

Officials argue the building’s architectural style does not fit in with the industrial Tribeca neighborhood and have asked De Niro to modify the sprawling penthouse, which executives claim is 1,100 square feet bigger than the design approved in 2004.

The actor has yet to correct the building, blaming the non-compliance on “mistakes”.

De Niro’s business partners and team of architects were set to appear before the commission on Friday to explain the delay in bringing the structure up to standard.

An LPC spokesperson would not confirm the meeting, citing “the ongoing application process”.

The commission has yet to set a date for De Niro to reconstruct the hotel. According to the New York Post, he could be ordered to tear the structure down, costing an estimated $1.5 million.

In the meantime, last moth is was reported that New Yorkers longing for a pre-”Rent,” pre-luxury condo filled Lower East Side might not have to wait much longer…on television, anyway.

Robert De Niro and Spike Lee are developing the series “Alphaville” for Showtime, which will be set in the Alphabet City of the 1980s. Lee is set to direct the pilot episode, his first TV pilot since 2006’s “Shark” for CBS. Though the series seems poised to capture a grittier, pre-gentrification Tompkins Square Park, we can only imagine what adding another production regularly shooting on location will mean for the real Tompkins Square Park.

Director Fatih Akin picks up Special Jury Prize at Venice

By Shannonn Kelly
4:53AM, EST, Saturday
September 19, 2009

With questionable programming, I never thought I’d see it. The end of TIFF 2009.

On a bright note, if I never see another f%*#cking bottle of Vitamin Water again in my life, I’ll be happy.

Today is the last day where something that costs $1.79 will be shoved into my hand instead of something I really want like a leisurely lunch with George Clooney or Government funding…

So, for the last day of TIFF 2009, and hopefully a glass of Kinclaith instead of that damn vitamin water, here are Shannonn Kelly’s picks for TIFF Day 10:

• From Germany

I’ve got to go with an award winner-

German-Turkish director Fatih Akin turns to comedy in his latest film Soul Kitchen which showed at the Venice Film Festival on the same day TIFF started and walked away with the Special Jury prize.

The story centers around a locals-only joint in Hamburg. While the food isn’t great, the customers are loyal to the German-Greek chef Zinos (Adam Bousdoukos). When he hires a more talented chef to upgrade his repertoire, the locals’ revolt is just one of many troubles to come Zinos’ way.

The film represents a departure from the more serious tones set in Akin’s 2004 Berlin Golden Bear winner Head On and The Edge of Heaven, which won the screenplay award at Cannes in 2007.

Catch Soul Kitchen today at 12:15PM at the Varsity.

• From India

What’s Your Rashee? (Hindi for ‘astrological sign’) has only one screening at TIFF, today at 1:30PM, Roy Thompson Hall. It’s light, frothy and often pink.

It’s the story of young man who has only ten days to locate his soul mate as dictated by the stars, otherwise he and his family could lose a fortune. He meets twelve different girls to find the one who fits his astrological sign.

This ‘romcom’ is co-written and directed by Ashutosh Gowariker who’s film Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India was nominated for best foreign-language film Academy Awards® in 2002.

What makes this film fun is all 12 girls are played by the same actress, Priyanka Chopra.

• From France/Germany/Canada/Belgium

The Drama, Fantasy, Romance, Sci-Fi screenplay of Mr. Nobody, comes from Belgian writer, director Jaco van Dormael; who’s critically acclaimed films are especially noted for their respectful and sympathetic portrayals of people with mental and physical disabilities.

Toronto’s triple-threat film sweetheart, Sarah Polley plays wife Elise to husband Nemo Nobody (played by Jared Leto), a man who leads an ordinary existence until one day in 2092 and at the age of 120, Nemo awakes to find he is both the oldest man in the world and the last mortal of a new mankind where nobody dies anymore. But that doesn’t seem to interest or bother him very much.

The only questions that preoccupy Nemo in the present is whether he lived the right life for himself, loved the woman whom he was supposed to love, and had the children whom he was meant to have… now his purpose is to find the right answer among 3 women he had to choose from.

Van Dormael made his feature-length debut in 1991 with Toto le Héros (Toto the hero), an endearing tale about a man who believes his life was “stolen” from him when he was switched at birth. Toto le Héros gained wide critical acclaim, winning both the César Award for best foreign film and the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

His last effort was over 13 years ago with Le huitième jour (The Eighth Day) from 1996.   Mr. Nobody is a film you’re either going to love or hate. If you have 140 minutes to spare on a lazy Saturday, it screens today at 3:15PM at Ryerson.

• From the United States of America

For the past 10 days, I kept saying go for the foreign gems, but I can no longer deny it. George Clooney has done another great job bringing a character we all like to the big screen. And that’s what its about in film people – caring for your protagonist.

My final pick to round out TIFF 2009 is Up In The Air from the Walter Kirn novel “Up in the Air” with screenplay by on fire Montreal writer, director Jason Reitman (Juno, Thank You for Smoking, Consent).

Up In The Air stars everybody’s mega-movie hunk George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a gun-for-hire who specializes in the dirty work some corporate bosses don’t like to do themselves, firing employees.

He’s great at his job, expert at suggesting to devastated workers that new horizons in life can now be explored, and he loves the lifestyle of spending most of his time in business class seats and upscale hotels; given that, at last count, he’s on the move 322 days a year.

When inevitable downsizing occurs, his cherished life on the road is threatened just as he is on the cusp of reaching ten million frequent flyer miles and just after he’s met the frequent-traveler woman of his dreams.

The film also stars Vera Farmiga and Jason Bateman who’s having a helluva year, for the last 6 years with success since the debut of his role as Michael Bluth in Arrested Development to the droll feature Extract by King of The Hill creator, Mike Judge.

Up In The Air screens at 6:30PM at Ryerson. To read a great review by Variety, please click here.

Well readers, this is my last TIFF blog for 2009. Hope you all enjoyed the last 10 days. I really appreciate you checking in and reading your RSS feeds.

It’s time for me to go back to the planning of our own festival. Season 6 of ReelHeART International Film Festival.

We bring you the best in international independent film from some of the best minds working in indie film today. ReelHeART runs for 6 days, June 21-26, 2010.

Mark it in your calendars. I’ll see you right here…

Los Santos Sucios (The Dirty Saints)

This is a big night for parties with the TIFF Awards hosted at the Intercontinental Hotel (one of the main press pause stops this season). Cheval hosts tonight’s after party for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, directed by Terry Gilliam.

Cheval security is stiff unless you’re a super hot chic (all subjective of course) depending on who’s ‘hotness’ meter is being used. I laughed when I hear a bouncer say: “Let in Spanish chics. Dude dated Selma Hayek“, on the night Cheval hosted Edward Norton and cast from Leaves of Grass.

Party-goers beware. If you are not in direct access, it will be pretty tough to get into that VIP room to see Johnny Depp, Jude Law or Colin Farrell. However, I’m pretty sure  Christopher Plummer and Tom Waits will be celebrating elsewhere. Unless of course they want to be snapped with a 22 year-old in a micro mini. At least they won’t be snapped with a bunch of goats instead of with Robert Duvall.

As always, I say your best bets are the beautiful, quirky, highly dramatic and often under appreciated foreign films. Such was the case yesterday, when some audiences feigned excitement at a few H’wood films.

So, for Friday, September 18, 2009, here are Shannonn Kelly’s picks for TIFF Day 8:

• From Ireland

Eamon is a haunting feature-film debut from Irish short film writer and director Margaret Corkery. Eamon is a six-year-old boy whose clingy relationship with his mother causes a potentially fatal rift between his parents. Newcomer Robert Donnelly gives a memorable performance in the title role where a family holiday brings to a head the destructive love triangle between Eamon, his selfish mother Grace and his sexually frustrated father Daniel.

Eamon premiered last Sunday, so your last time to catch it is this morning at 9:00AM at the Cumberland.

• From Argentina

Los Santos Sucios (The Dirty Saints) is the 3rd feature from Argentian writer, director Luis Ortega. With errie music and strange but beautifully photographed surroundings, something has happened (you don’t know what) in the world and there are very few people left on Earth.

The cast of characters is made up of a gay couple Rey (Alejandro Urdapilleta) and Cielo (played by Ortega), an old bell ringer, a mute, a midget, and a peculiar streetgirl named Monito. All but Monito who’s afraid of the unkown, must face their fears and cross the Fijman River that apparently is the key to their salvation and freedom.

Today is your last chance to see Los Santos Sucios (The Dirty Saints) which screens at 3:45PM at the AMC Theaters.

• From Norway/Denmark/Germany

We at ReelHeART have a weakness for films from Norway, Denmark and Germany. Here’s a co-production between all 3 countries in the film Max Manus co-directed by Stolkholm film school chums, Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg.

A combination War/Action/Biography/Drama, this is a period film set in Nazi occupied Norway, that follows one of history’s celebrated resistance fighters Max Manus as he joins with the Norwegian resistance movement in their fight against the Germans.

Max Manus premieres tonight at 9:30 PM Roy Thomson Hall and screens again tomorrow at 3:00PM.

By the way, don’t forget to check out the free happenings at Dundas Square. Tonight is going to be a ‘hippie-fest’ when at 7:00PM the free film and concert series presents:

Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound by Mary Wharton

TIFF In Concert Film Series: American Masters Joan Baez – Sing Me Home. Featuring a short concert by Baez.

I’ll see y’all tomorrow for the final day of TIFF. Have a good one!

Omahyra Mota in 'Les Derniers jours du monde (Happy End)'

Only two more days to go for TIFF goers. There’s still more to see, especially if you missed any premieres earlier in the week. TIFF projected a 500 Million attendance record this year, so better get those remaining tickets now. They really need the cash-

Speaking of ridiculous money, the PR campaign for Zombieland starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin is nauseating. Billboards, posters, postcards, widgets, wraps EVERYWHERE. Like a bad rash…

Now that I’ve got that off my chest. As always, I say your best bets are the beautiful, quirky, highly dramatic and often under appreciated foreign films.

So, for Thursday, September 17, 2009, here are Shannonn Kelly’s picks for TIFF Day 8:

• From France/Spain/Taiwan

A back to front, past to present story about the end of the world is Les Derniers jours du monde (Happy End), co-written and co-directed by brothers Arnaud Larrieu and Jean-Marie Larrieu.  What I love most about this film are the ‘Plot Keywords” you can find. They are as follows:

• Toilet
• Love
• End Of The World
• Dead Body
• Hand Prosthetic
• Gas Mask
• Fictional War
• Suicide
• Snow
• Death

And most importantly this late in the 10 days of TIFF

• Female Full Frontal Nudity
• Male Full Frontal Nudity

Adapted from the eponymous novel by Dominique Noguez, Les derniers jours du monde is an ‘apocalyptic film’ that follows Robinson (Mathieu Amalric) through his journey from the French resort of Biarritz to Spain, when the world as we know it is coming to an end. The year before the apocalypse, he met a woman (Omahyra Mota), but when she suddenly disappears, he tries to find her. The film also stars Catherine Frot, and Sergi Lopez.

Les derniers jours du monde (Happy End) premieres tonight at 6:00PM at Ryerson and screens again Friday and Saturday

• From Australia

The Waiting City stars Radha Mitchell, Joel Edgerton as an Australian couple who travel to Calcutta, India to collect their adopted baby, but the plans have not been finalized and this throws them into separate and unexpected directions that tests the strength of their marriage.

Written and directed by Claire McCarthy, who also wrote and directed a short documentary called Sisters in 2008 about a teenage girl who spends 2 months of her summer holidays volunteering in the slums of Calcutta with a missionary.

She’s clearly inspired by that experience and she unravels the mysteries of Calcutta like one peels back the skin of an orange. I urge you to go for the cinematography of (the very hot) Denson Baker who also DP’d on the award winning Black Balloon, starring Toni Collette and Rhys Wakefield.

The Waiting City premieres 6:00PM tonight at the Elgin and screens again Friday and Saturday.

• From Vietnam

Choi voi (Adrift), written by Phan Dang Di and directed by Chuyên Bui Thac is the story of A young newlywed couple in modern Hanoi who begin to experiment with their sexual desires.

The film explores sexual awakening, lesbian desire and marital infidelity, topics are still largely taboo in conservative Vietnam, but due to the country’s transition from communism to a form of capitalism, the rapidly changing economic reality means a shift in social mores.

Erotic and fascinating without the Hollywood, huff and puff sex scenes, this is a pure sensory delight. The cast, includes Do Thi Hai Yen (The Quiet American), and Linh-Dan Pham (Indochine, The Beat That My Heart Skipped).

If you missed the premiere on Tuesday you can catch it today at 5:45PM at the Varsity or Saturday morning at 10:15 AM. And you know sex is always better in the morning… Enjoy

I’d love to here about your TIFF selections. Comment here or email me anytime

Peter Gallagher

Yesterday in TIFF Land was a rather weird day. Wrong guest list, bitchy PR managers and incredibly great weather. Better weather than we saw the whole months of June, July and August combined.

I snuck off for some admin tasks for our own festival ReelHeART International Film Festival (RHIFF), which since mid-July we’ve been planning Season 6.

While waiting for a few latecomers to meetings I wandered down Bloor street near the InterContinental to find Drew Barrymore being interviewed and Don McKellar waiting for a ride.

Further down the street, while meeting for coffee with a prospective new PR intern for ReelHeART, I spotted the O.C.s Peter Gallagher in line at the 2nd Cup. That’s why his picture is featured here today. Please excuse the quality as it was taken with my Blackberry Curve.

Here’s hoping the next film Peter stars in is my newly finished feature script The Brothers McDonagh…(in which I’ve seen him in since the script’s inception).

Back to the matter at hand. Thank you ReelHeART Blog Readers for your daily support (and 168%  increase in visitors); it’s Wednesday September 16, so here are Shannonn Kelly’s picks for TIFF Day 7:

We premiered  a film this past season at ReelHeART, by the title, Call Me Son, by Belfast writer director Louis McCullagh. Audiences and myself alike, were moved by Louis in his heart rendering Q&As and his simple and bittersweet film about a child in care.

• Being moved by so many of her performances in Sweet and Low Down, the incredible Morvern Callar, In America, opposite Paddy Considine - I suggest you see the directorial debut of UK’s Samantha Morton in The Unloved. The IndieWire quote from Kate Ogborn is simple and pragmatic:
  

  ‘I hope that the film touches people and gives them an insight into what it feels like to be a child in care. And of course I hope that it sells.”

  The Unloved screens at 6:00PM at the AMC theaters across from Dundas Square.

• Staying with family as my theme today, my next suggestion is the drama/thriller Madeo (Mother), directed by Korea’s Bong Joon-Ho, one of the few directors with an excellent track record. Madeo is the story of a mother (played by the astonishing Kim Hye-Ja) who desperately searches for the killer that framed her son for a horrific murder.  Outstanding cinematography is by Kyung-Pyo Hong and intelligent editing by Sae-kyoung Moon.  Madeo (Mother) screens at 6:00PM at the Elgin.

To read an incredible cineaste review please go to TwitchFilm.net

• A film about the lack of family brings me to my next suggestion in the form of Portuguese director, João Pedro Rodrigues and his co-production with France called, Morrer como um homem (To Die Like a Man). It stars newcomer, Alexander David as transvestite Rosário as the film’s protagonist.

TIFFs Noah Cowan does a good job describing no doubt one of his picks:

(Rosário) is a transsexual star of the Lisbon club world. She contends with a needy junkie boyfriend, competition from a new black drag sensation, her psychopathic soldier son and, worst of all, the physical and emotional ravages of age. Her body has come to reject the various surgical and hormonal transformations that made her famous, a fact brutally represented by the silicone literally seeping from an infected nipple. Her body seems to insist that her life lived as a woman must end in her dying like a man.

There is something oddly dangerous and transgressive about this idea. It questions conventional thinking about the degree of personal control we have over our own bodies and the limits of choice around sexual identity in the face of mortality. Risky thinking like this is what makes João Pedro Rodrigues Portugal’s master of the cinematic demimonde. With the same clarity and refreshing lack of political tact, his first two features, Phantom and Odete, also boldly explore the longings and secret desires of characters at society’s margins. In this regard, he is a child of Fassbinder, goading us into a laugh at the expense of a sexual fetishist or drag queen before throwing her humanity in our face for our own ashamed examination. At the same time, his writing and especially his sense of humor leavens his intensity; often very funny, his films have a sense of the absurd and delight in dialogue un-ironically ripped from the spirit of Joan Crawford and Bette Davis.

Morrer como um homem (To Die Like a Man) premieres today at 5:30PM at the Scotiabank Theater.

• Since the pod cast of 89.3 KPCC: Film Week’s Larry Mantle’s interview with Werner Herzog, I have become a renewed fan. With two films screening at TIFF, (Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans starring Nicolas Cage) and even though it breaks my heart to say this as I’m the biggest ‘Cage’ fan out there; I strongly suggest you see My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done instead of the quirky, experimental ride of Bad Lieutenant.
• What’s also great about this film is that my all-time fave weatherman (if you twitter you’ll get this) David Lynch produces this surreal horror/dramatic tale and injects some his own peculiar stamps into the film such as Twin Peaks reminders of coffee and a midget named ‘Midget”, played by Verne Troyer , Wild At Heart oatmeal (which is what all school kids in wintery Missoula Montana mornings were fed), dead dark skies, pink terracotta, strange animals and more.It stars the incomparable, New Orleans native “Fuck me now Reggie” Grace Zabriskie, Willem Dafoe, starring in 4 films at TIFF;  Chloe Sevigny, Brad Dourif, my fine Latino brother from another mother Michael Peña, Academy® award nominee Michael Shannon and an actress with one of the most unusual voices, Loretta Devine.My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done screens at 9:00PM tonight at the Elgin Theater.

I like a segment of Anne Brodie’s review, where she writes

This phenomenally unconventional look at the ritual murder of a woman by her son is relentlessly disturbing and insanely fascinating, served up with a huge dollop of dread.

What else should you expect from a David Lynch – Werner Herzog collaboration…?