Besides bringing us great films, TIFF also puts together some great events like those in the Mavericks series.  Sunday night a large crowd at the Isabel Bader theatre was greeted by Howard Zinn, Anthony Arnove, director Chris Moore, Matt Damon, Viggo Mortensen, Josh Brolin and Marisa Tomei who all came to present us a preview of the documentary The People Speak as well as discuss how this project came to be.

After another standing ovation and having the trailer for the film, Zinn started the conversation by saying "I hadn't learned history from the standpoint of black people, native people, ... we need to tell history from the view of the people who been left out."  The crowd applauded.  The idea for a film version of Zinn and Arnoves's anthology Voices of a People's History of the United States since 1998.  They first sold it to FOX network but the deal didn't work out... anyone want to guess why?  Regardless, they moved on and created the performances so that actors can embody and give voice to those whose stories are not well known.

Mavericks' programmer Thom Powers asked each of the actors why and how they got involved with the film.  Brolin joked at first, "I got to meet Viggo and Matt... but to be honest.. I'm very proud of the film.  It's very empowering to me... even [the crowd] watching the trailer here is empowering."   Mortensen spoke of his experience working on this project; "it's fun besides it being an honour."  He continued by explaining that "as a kid I was drawn to adults who treated me differently; not just like a kid.  As an adult, I'm drawn to peole like Howard Zinn who encourage others to speak truth; to be honest with themselves.  In lots of places in the world, why people don't say how they really feel can be due to peer pressure, fear of sounding stupid, fear of being liberal... if you can't get [what you want to say] completely right, you'd best [stay quiet].  It's best to get it off your chest and get going."  Mortensen is quite passionate about being open about all issues affecting all parts of the world today and this became more apparent as the conversation continued.

Tomei mentioned she got involved in the project a while back through Arnove, whom she already knew.  "It's hard for me to speak in public but this kind of thing lets me do it."  She expressed she's proud to represent the voice of many women who made changes in US culture one way or another.

Halfway through the discussion, we got to see about twenty minutes of the film.  Afterwards, the conversation moved on to issues like the "Vietnam Syndrome," as Zinn called it; regarding the media and how they "all joined the bandwagoon of war and supported the deceptions that were put over the American people.... It's a subservient media."  Zinn believes their "movement [telling the real history] will grow" and that national inclinations of people will turn things around.

Arnove brought the topic back to the actors' perfomances.  He said, "some of these voices feel so current; so urgent... They can cross time."  Director Chris Moore explained how the emotion the actor brings to the words and the collective experience with the audience and through the process of staging, they found  series of pieces that can be part of this documentary.  "These are the real people... those things really happened... it's their real voices, just performed very well... when you look at that you ask what's the history that's happening now."

Other artists involved in the project include Benjamin Bratt, singer John Legend, David Straithearn.  As well, sitting in the audience were actors Danny Glover, Tim Robbins and Michael Ealy; to name a few.  It was a great discussion; stimulating on several levels.  It will definitely create a buzz and have people talking for a long time.  The documentary itself will hopefully be released in the near future.

There are many different qualities that can constitute what makes up a good film, great acting, great cinematography, an excellent movie score. When all of these components all work in tandem - often times more than not results in a great film. A film in my opinion should also inspire conversation once the credits roll.

Deadgirl is one such film. As someone who has watched scores of horror films Deadgirl made me squirm in my seat, made me uncomfortable and somehow made me laugh at the same time. The backbone of this film lies in the great screenplay by Trent Haaga. Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel bring strong direction to the film and the actors Shiloh Fernandez, Noah Segan and Jenny Spain (in the titular role) bring strong fearless performances to their respective roles. I would like to mention everyone in the cast but once again should really digress.

Armed with my voice recorder and quite curious what others thought of this film I couldn't wait to ask people their respective opinion. As one can imagine with strong subject matter comes equally strong opinions.

Carolline "It was a good shocker that's for sure."

Jason "Beyond reprehensible, I was recoilling the whole time I ended up looking around the theater to see what people were looking at and what they were taking in."

Devon who was sitting directly beside Jason started laughing and said "Yeah it was a great film."

Further down the line I began to speak to an older a couple by the names of Suzanne and Mark from Buffalo NY that at first glance one wouldn't think they were sitting in line for Midnight Madness Suzanne says of Deadgirl "I loved Deadgirl, I almost broke my husbands arm while watching the film, I'm like Whoa! Scary."  Mark "Deadgirl was great, yeah Deadgirl was terrific."

Devon goes on to say "It was disturbing as hell. This film was shocking in a way I'm not used to."

Melanie "I hated it, my friend left after five minutes after being there. I only stayed to see how it would end."

Alexia "It was awesome." However Adam who was sitting beside Alexia says "The film went a bit too far, a bit disturbing."


Chris informed me "I enjoyed it as a zombie movie and thought it was a different direction for a zombie film to go."

Tracey "Eleven on the eeecchhhh scale!"

Richard at almost a lost for words says "Very creepy movie.....wow! Deadgirl, different."

Dan tells me, "I liked it, than I hated it, then I started to enjoy hating it then I began resenting myself for enjoying something I hate and then I was pretty much over it, so kudos to Deadgirl and hopefully next time she is directed by people who give her lines next time and care about her safety and comfort."

Bernadine "I wasn't repulsed by it at all  but it did make me scream and it is hard for me to scream so it was great and I got to laugh so much. It was a really good horny teenaged guy movie."

At the time of this writing Deadgirl has two more screenings.

Robert Mitchell

I showed up at Ryerson theater tonight just before ten p.m and decided to make like Johnny Cash and walk the line. Find out what compelled people (the line was 80 people long when I started talking to people) to wait in the Rush line for the hopes of seeing JCVD

       The Rush line up for JCVD 10 o'clock pm Thursday Sept 4th 2008

Here is why Rudy one of the first in the Rush line waited to see JCVD
I thought this would be a really interesting comedy and I would like to see Van Damme try something a little more interesting

Dianne told me the film was sold out and wanted to see the film. This is Dianne's first film fest and Midnight Madness. She had traveled all the way from Florida

Karranga saw the trailer online and thought the film looked funny and goes on to say when asked if he was a Van Damme fan no, but I am a child of the 90's and saw many of his films but not a fan just exposed (to his films)

Kirk because Van Damme was like one of my childhood heros, I spent my youth watching Bloodsport, Kickboxer and all the the other fabulous one word titles he was in and the trailer looked pretty cool

Brandon I really enjoyed Van Damme movies and I have never been to the film festival and thought it would be a cool experience

Priscilla from Cincinnati goes on to say I think it would be really interesting and be something different from his genre and thinks it's wonderful (that Van Damme)  could face his demons and be able to share that with the world

Talking to people in the ticket holders line up I learned of the dedication that many who attend Midnight Madness have to make the ten screenings.


George and Greer both work during the day and still make every screening of Midnight Madness when asked why they share this dedication to Midnight Madness here is was what they said.

 George I would say the most important are the audience and the all the films and how obscure some of the films are

 Greer says sometimes it's more about the crowd experience than the actually film it's the film that draws us together but it's the experience with the crowd that makes it enjoyable.

So on this warm September night awaiting the screening of JCVD I learned of the dedication that many who make up the audience have for Midnight Madness. There were many I talked to who informed me that JCVD would be their first Madness experience and I was also surprised how far some had traveled to be here this year. All and all many in the line were chatting excitedly for what promised to be a great performance from Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Robert Mitchell

The Real to Reel doc Obscene has a brand new web site that includes a fascinating career history written by its subject publisher Barney Rosset:

While still taking courses at the New School in New York (1951), I took over three abandoned reprints from a stillborn press called Grove and slowly embarked on a legal and literary trench war - from the campaigns for Lady Chatterley's Lover, Tropic of Cancer, and Naked Lunch all the way to putting the iconographic portrait of Che Guevara on the cover of the Evergreen Review. Was Grove controversial? The word is too pale for the tempests at Grove. Say rather that Grove was a valve for pressurized cultural energies, a breach in the dam of American Puritanism - a whip-lashing live cable of zeitgeist. One has to reach back to early Elizabethan Theatre to find a parallel in terms of enraptured audience, outraged authority, political daring, exploding passion, and the perennial threat of censorship. The writers: Beckett, Selby, Genet, Brecht, Robbe-Grillet, de Sade, Casement, Behan, Borges, Pinter, Ionesco, Fanon, Neruda, Kerouac, Baraka, Paz, Tutola, Oe, Malcolm X, Mamet, Stoppard, Burroughs?Miller! Not to mention my comrades-in-arms at Grove, with Dick Seaver, Fred Jordan, and Don Allen in the front row.?

Somewhat rashly, I also made and lost fortunes in film distribution, waging cultural war on behalf of I Am Curious (Yellow) the landmark Swedish film, and Titcut Follies (Frederick Wiseman's masterpiece which takes place in a prison for the criminally insane in Massachusetts). I endured hilarious but costly fiascos with Godard and Norman Mailer (Beyond the Law). I rode the gales of the '60s. My private life sometimes mirrored the fiction I published. ?Kitten? in Robert Gover's best-selling novel The One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding for instance, resembled my girlfriend at the time - the woman whose photograph we used on the cover of the book. This meshing of life and art is one that I could never escape.

Continued here...

Brian Newman is a shrewd observer of the documentary scene from his position as a funder at Renew Media and on his personal blog Spring Board Media . Here he shares his picks from this year's Real to Reel:

I always feel that the best thing about attending the Toronto International Film Festival is that I really can?t go wrong with the films I see. You can literally walk into any screening randomly (perhaps because another film sold out) and odds are good it will be a great film. This is especially true with the documentary programming, and this year looks like another stellar line-up. Every year, however, I make my list of must-see films, often based on the pre-festival buzz, the filmmaker?s career or because the description sounds great. Note to filmmakers ? this is your one chance to level the odds that someone will attend your film, so pick a good still and write a snazzy description. This year, my list includes many of the films that others have
recommended, as well as many films we helped with a grant, but these are on the top of my must-see doc list.

DINNER WITH THE PRESIDENT: A NATION'S JOURNEY
by Sabiha Sumar and Sachithanandam Sathananthan
I don?t know these filmmakers at all, but I do know that their subject, Pervez Musharraf (pictured), has been in the news daily as he considers whether to implement martial law in Pakistan due to political unrest. He?s been running a military dictatorship, was  installed by a coup, and is now considering sharing power with former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. I can?t imagine I won?t learn a lot that I don?t know from Sumar and Sathananthan?s filmed dinner with Musharraf where he discusses his views on democracy.

TRUMBO by Peter Askin
Askin was a writer on Susan Seidelman?s Smithereens, a film that we featured in a retrospective program when I was at the Atlanta Film Festival. He was also a producer of the original off-broadway Hedwig show, among other things, so these alone put his film at the top of the list. The main reason to see this, however, is because it covers something I?m fascinated with ? those who fought back against the infamous HUAC blacklists. I?m a sucker for freedom of speech films.

OBSCENE by Neil Ortenberg and Daniel O'Connor, USA
This film?s been mentioned by others, but honestly, its in my top three picks, so I must bring it up again. Has to do with that freedom of speech thing, and who wouldn?t want to learn more about Barney Rosset, who ran Grove Press, and published works like Naked Lunch and Tropic of Cancer. It?s also made by Ortenberg, the former Avalon Press publisher, and his colleague from Thunder Mouth press, Dan O?Connor, so they know what their talking about. A must see.