2018 TIFF World Cinema and Wavelength Programs feature Ali Abbasi, Cristina Gallego, Ciro Guerra, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and more

Erik Anderson August 14, 2018

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s **Blue**, part of TIFF’s Wavelength program

The Toronto International Film Festival’s Wavelengths program is thrilled to unveil the 18th edition of its adventurous and carefully curated lineup of shorts and feature films from around the world. This rich and varied selection of 43 films demonstrates the ways in which filmmakers continue to expand cinema’s aesthetic, narrative, and documentary forms and languages. This year’s selection comprises 4 programmes of experimental short films, 2 curated pairings, and 10 features, each contributing to an exciting, diverse lineup of moving-image art. Wavelengths is curated and overseen by Andréa Picard, with contributions from members of TIFF’s international programming team, namely Giovanna Fulvi, Kiva Reardon, Steve Gravestock, and Danis Goulet.

“This year’s edition of Wavelengths is undoubtedly one of its most heterogeneous. with films ranging from one minute to 14 hours in formats that include 16mm, 35mm, 70mm, and digital, offering sensual dives into fiction, structural abstraction, and uncompromising documentaries,” said curator Andréa Picard. “While the term ‘avant-garde’ may hold less meaning today or ring suspicious, it is nevertheless clear that filmmakers and artists continue to expand cinema’s aesthetic and expressive possibilities and are willing to take great risks, ensuring vibrancy in the artform. In today’s cultural and political landscapes, these risks are essential and cannot be underestimated.”

Wavelengths ’18 offers trenchant reflections on home, memory, and a world in flux through artistic narratives produced by a mix of emerging talent and contemporary masters and working across a variety of inventive styles. Fiction highlights include Bi Gan’s dazzling and mysterious Long Day’s Journey Into Night, a dreamy neo-noir about memories, passion, and the malleability of time that received critical acclaim at Cannes; the beautiful and intimate RAY & LIZ, the searing debut feature by Richard Billingham, Turner Prize–nominated photographer-turned-filmmaker, inspired by his family and his own Thatcher-era childhood memories; and Mariano Llinás’ epic 14-hour drama La Flor — the longest film in Argentine history — which took nearly a decade to produce and which explores the possibilities of cinematic narrative through impressive and ingenious experiments in acting and genre.

Wavelengths is equally honoured to showcase several astonishing and sure-to-be landmark documentaries, including master Chinese filmmaker Wang Bing’s powerful Dead Souls, a momentous, eight-hour documentary that offers sobering testimonials of experiences in China’s forced re-education camps in the 1950s; the World Premiere of the stunningly shot The Stone Speakers by Igor Drljača, a compelling documentary about faith, tourism, shifting industries, and competing historical narratives in Bosnia and Herzegovina; the provocative and powerful What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire? by the returning Roberto Minervini, a fiery portrayal of Black life in the American South; the gripping found-footage film The Trial by Festival mainstay Sergei Loznitsa, which assembles original material from a show trial conducted under Stalin’s Soviet government in 1930s Moscow; and the elegant, moving Erased,___Ascent of the Invisible by Ghassan Halwani, a personal-essay film by the animator of The Lebanese Rocket Society (Wavelengths 2012) inspired by the distorted image of a mysterious man thought to have disappeared many years ago in Beirut. Andrea Bussmann’s solo debut, Fausto, and Jodie Mack’s The Grand Bizarre are two of this year’s most exhilarating cinematic experiments; they defy categorization as they meld documentary inquiry with inspired audio-visual expressions, ranging from the mythical to the musical.

Short-film highlights include new works by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Abraaj Group Art Prize winner Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Nathaniel Dorsky, Mary Helena Clark, Laida Lertxundi, Ben Rivers, Kevin Jerome Everson, Laura Huertas Millán, and more. The programme also features the World Premiere of artist-filmmaker Beatrice Gibson’s I Hope I’m Loud When I’m Dead, a KW Production Series co-commission with Mercer Union (Toronto), Camden Arts Centre (London), and Bergen Kunsthall (Bergen), which is supported by the Julia Stoschek Foundation and Outset Germany_Switzerland and which features appearances by poets Eileen Myles and CAConrad.

Wavelengths is also pleased to present a number of historical restorations and rediscoveries. This year’s archival selections include the previously unseen 1986 Summer (1986), by Japanese avant-garde titan Toshio Matsumoto; Lisa Baumgardner’s punchy Girl Pack (1981), recently restored by the Museum of Modern Art in New York; and the fascinating and idiosyncratic portrait film Alice (1974), directed by Austrian painter and filmmaker Maria Lassnig as part of her Soul Sisters series.

The 43rd Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 6 to 16, 2018.

WAVELENGTHS SHORT FILM PROGRAMS

PAIRINGS

L. COHEN James Benning | USA
Canadian Premiere
preceded by
Arena Björn Kämmerer | Austria
International Premiere

The Grand Bizarre Jodie Mack | USA
North American Premiere
preceded by
Those Who Desire ( Los que desean) Elena López Riera | Switzerland/Spain
International Premiere

FEATURES

Dead Souls ( Si Ling Hun) Wang Bing | France/Switzerland
North American Premiere

Erased,___Ascent of the Invisible ( Tirss, Rihlat Alsoo’oud ila Almar’i) Ghassan Halwani | Lebanon
North American Premiere

Fausto Andrea Bussmann | Canada/Mexico
North American Premiere

In My Room Ulrich Köhler | Germany/Italy
North American Premiere

The Flower ( La Flor) Mariano Llinás | Argentina
North American Premiere

Long Day’s Journey Into Night ( Di qiu zui hou de ye wan) Bi Gan | China/France
North American Premiere

RAY & LIZ Richard Billingham | United Kingdom
North American Premiere

The Stone Speakers ( Kameni Govornici ) Igor Drljača | Canada/Bosnia/Herzegovina
World Premiere

The Trial Sergei Loznitsa | Netherlands
North American Premiere

What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire? Roberto Minervini | Italy/USA/France
North American Premiere

Previously announced Canadian titles in the Wavelengths Programme include Lina Rodriguez‘s ante mis ojos, Andrea Bussmann’s Fausto, Rolla Tahir’s Sira , Celia Perrin Sidarous’ Slip, and Igor Drljača’s The Stone
Speakers.

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.