Rendezvous With Madness

Episode 63 of This Is Toronto is now available.

This latest episode previews the 19th annual Rendezvous with Madness Film Festival.

www.thisistorontopodcast.blogspot.com

NEXT EPISODE: Nov. 4, 2011

Brazil on Film

Episode 61 of This Is Toronto is now available!

This latest edition previews the 5th annual Brazilian Film and TV Festival of Toronto (BRAFFTv).

www.thisistorontopodcast.blogspot.com

NEXT EPISODE: Oct. 7, 2011

Try Veg

Episode 59 of This Is Toronto is now available!

This latest edition previews the 27th annual Vegetarian Food Festival.

www.thisistorontopodcast.blogspot.com

Next episode: Sept. 9, 2011

Mister Baxter

Happy Canada Day!

Episode 55 of This Is Toronto is now available!

This latest edition features Mister Baxter - an urban drama being performed at this year's Toronto Fringe Festival.

www.thisistorontopodcast.blogspot.com

NEXT EPISODE: July 15, 2011

Youth Shorts

Episode 53 of This Is Toronto is now available!

This latest edition previews the 3rd annual Toronto Youth Shorts Film Festival.

www.thisistorontopodcast.blogspot.com

NEXT EPISODE: June 17, 2011

Moving Images

Episode 48 of This Is Toronto is now available!

This latest edition previews the 24th annual Images Festival.

www.thisistorontopodcast.blogspot.com

NEXT EPISODE: April 8, 2011

Cinefranco

Episode 47 of This Is Toronto is now available!

This latest edition previews the 14th annual Cinefranco Film Festival.

www.thisistorontopodcast.blogspot.com

NEXT EPISODE: Mar. 25, 2011

Toronto After Dark

Episode 31 of This Is Toronto is now available!

This latest edition previews the 5th annual Toronto After Dark Film Festival; Aug. 13-20.

www.thisistorontopodcast.blogspot.com

NEXT EPISODE: Aug. 13, 2010

Toronto Youth Shorts

Episode 29 of This Is Toronto is now available!!!

This latest edition previews the 2nd annual Toronto Youth Shorts Film Festival; July 14-17

www.thisistorontopodcast.blogspot.com

NEXT EPISODE: July 16, 2010

Parkdale Showcase

Episode 28 of This Is Toronto is now available!!!

This latest edition previews the 12th annual Parkdale Film + Video Showcase; June 25-27.

www.thisistorontopodcast.blogspot.com

NEXT EPISODE: July 2, 2010

Silver Screens

Episode 26 of This Is Toronto is now available!!!

This latest edition previews the Silver Screens Arts Festival, a week-long event that celebrates the vibrancy, vitality and creativity of adults 50-plus.

www.thisistorontopodcast.blogspot.com

Next Episode: June 4, 2010

- ER

Silver Screen L'Chaim

Episode #23 of This Is Toronto is now available!!!

This latest edition features a preview of the 18th annual Toronto Jewish Film Festival; Apr. 17-25

www.thisistorontopodcast.blogspot.com

NEXT EPISODE: Apr. 23, 2010

Toronto Comic Arts Festival

Toronto, I've noticed, has become increasingly blessed with comic book-related events in the last decade. This is to the good of many, I think. But being a cartoonist part of the time, I have an admitted bias on this point.

One of the events coming up this year is the Toronto Comic Arts Festival on the May 9-10 weekend.

Among the guests this time around: Seth, Bryan Lee O'Malley, Tara MacPherson, Paul Pope, Adrian Tomine...

For more details and updates as they come in, check the TCAF site regularly.

No idea if I'll be there at all, never mind what sort of capacity...but I hope you go and that you have fun.

Dead of Winter in Halifax

The In the Dead of Winter Music Festival is set to kick off this Wednesday in Halifax. It will run from Jan 27 - 31 and this year's fest features performances by Buck 65, Jon McKeil, Dan Ledwell, Justin Rutledge, Laura Peek, Rebekah Higgs and many, many others. The full schedule is here.

Ottawa Councilor Moves to Stop Arts Cuts

According to the CBC Clive Doucet, councilor for capital ward is going to attempt to remove the 4.1 million dollars in cultural funding cuts from the City of Ottawa's budget.

Those who got up to speak said it was irresponsible for the city to put arts and culture groups in the position of having to beg for funding year after year.

About 300 arts supporters packed into the council chambers for the first day of budget hearings for public delegations. (Kate Porter/CBC)
"Others understand the economic value of culture but in Ottawa, there's a perception problem evident in the draft budget," said John Reid, chair for the city's arts, culture and heritage advisory committee. "We need to break out of this annual cycle of destructive debate and threats to long-term plan commitments which are a matter of trust."

The cultural community is ready for constructive dialogue, but "never again do they want to feel so victimized," he added, bringing all 300 arts supporters to their feet in applause.

Doucet's announcement, which followed, drew even louder applause.

. While in the short term pressure must be kept up to insure that Doucet is successful, it is now likely that the city of Ottawa's culture sector is safe for another year.

Chartattack: Full Halifax Pop Explosion Lineup

Chartattack has the full lineup for this years Halifax Pop Explosion:

"Jay Reatard, Polaris Prize Music finalist Basia Bulat, HILOTRONS and White Cowbell Oklahoma are among the acts to join a lineup that includes Islands, The Inbreds, Monotonix, Woodhands and Polaris finalists Holy Fuck and Two Hours Traffic.

This year's Halifax Pop Explosion features more than 140 acts performing at 12 venues in the city from Oct. 21 to 25. You can see the full schedule at the festival's website and a program guide here. Passes and tickets to select shows are available at the HPX site. "

You can read the full article at http://www.chartattack.com/news/60676/full-halifax-pop-explosion-lineup or visit the Halifax Pop Explosion website at halifaxpopexplosion.com.

The Better Reasons Festival (On Now)

Running alongside NXNE is the Better Reasons Festival. I don't know the story behind the name but if I was going to guess, or make something up, I'd say that it has something to do with having a festival for a reason other than promotion and tourism. The Better Reasons Festival is a fundraiser for Sketch "a Toronto based organization which creates art making opportunities for young people who live street-involved and homeless or who are considered to be at risk."

All of the shows are at the Tranzac and all are pay what you can. The lineup looks alot like this:

Thursday June 12th - Out of this Spark presents :

Forest City Lovers

The Magic

Evening Hymns
 
 
Bike Pirates - will be setting up 3 stations outside the Tranzac for the night offering FREE tune-ups for your two wheeled buddy! - any donations made will be forwarded to SKETCH.)

Doors at 8 PM
_____________________________________________
Friday June 13th - Fuzzy Logic Recordings presents :

Prairie Cat (backed by The Bicycles)

Scraps from Boil Street:
Puppet Shorts by Juliann Wilding and Henry Fletcher (see details below)

Peter Project
 
Lily Frost
 
Laura Barrett


Doors at 8 PM   (stick around for fireworks after the show!!! ...shhhh)
_____________________________________________
Saturday June 14th - Blocks Recording Club presents:

Kids on TV

Nif-D

The Phonemes

Tradition

Matias Rozenberg

Doors at 5 PM
There is a BBQ feast that begins at 5.

Scraps From Boil Street (as described by Juliann Wilding)

Boil Street: Largely considered to be a ghetto. Many sites left vacant by demolition during the 1970s were never redeveloped, leaving the area with a patchwork of vacant lots, parking lots and a few buildings that escaped demolition: the prison, the peep shows. Boil Street the grey area, tolerated but ignored.

But someone lives there - there's a liquor store, and loads of garbage, and if you hang out long enough, a bunch of freaks start to emerge from the muck...

Scraps From Boil Street are short productions serving as prequel to a full-length puppet musical currently in development, Don't Go Down to Boil Street, by Juliann Wilding and Henry Fletcher, starring Lil' Scurvy, Crups, The Crapper, and more ...

Human Rights Film Festival

From February 28 to March 5 the Human Rights Watch will present the 5th Annual Human Rights Film Festival. The festival which is co-presented by Cinamatheque Ontario will run at Jackman Hall, at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Seven new films from six countres will be screened. From the festivals blog

"The opening night film (preceded by a reception), Hana Makhmalbaf’s powerful Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame, is about a powerful little girl trying to go to school in rural Afghanistan. The festival continues with Ramin Bahrani’s Chop Shop, featuring a young boy surviving on the streets of Queens in New York City; Tahani Rached’s These Girls chronicles the lives of the rowdy and engaging street girls in Cairo as they try to live life to the fullest and Sam Lawlor and Lindsey Pollock’s We’ll Never Meet Childhood Again introduces us to “Ceausescu’s babies”, Romania’s HIV orphans and the heroic families who took them into their homes and their hearts.
 
Alex Gibney’s powerful Taxi to the Dark Side is an indictment of the US use of torture in Iraq, Guantanamo and secret prisons in other nations. Osvalde Lewat-Hallade’s elegant and accomplished A Love During The War examines the effects of the widespread use of rape as a weapon during the Civil War in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Jawad Rhalib’s El Ejido, The Law of Profit explores the deplorable working and living conditions of the 80,000 Moroccan fruit and vegetable workers in the south of Spain."

For more info visit the festival blog or the facebook event page

TIFF Site Up

I likely won't talk about the Toronto International Film Festival on this site much. I'm not big on celebrities, I don't care who was seen where, I'm not interested in autographs, so unless there is a particular film that really strikes me (and given the purpose of this site it would have to be a Canadian Film). I won't dwell much on the TIFF, but I thought I should mention that the web site is up for those who want to order tickets etc.,

Miramachi Festival Starts Today

In Miramachi, New Brunswick the 14th Annual Miramachi Rock-n-Roll Festival kicks off today. The festival is a cellebration of 'classic' Rock and Roll faturing the "Overdrive Classic Rock Show" on Thursday. For a full list of events click here.