A look at the news and events surrounding the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, and a very quick look at one Canadian short film every day.

Day Nine

The Toronto International Film Festival has been around for as long as most of us can remember, but it is still young at 31 years old when compared to some festivals like Cannes. While Cannes is still noted as the premiere film festival in the world, Toronto comes a close second in they eyes of most cineastes, showing how quickly the Toronto festival has grown and evolved in a few years. Which brings me to wonder: what are we, in Toronto, going to do in less than 20 years when TIFF turns 50?

To celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of Cannes, noted filmmakers from 25 countries came together to create short films in celebration of the art of cinema. Together, they form Chacun son cinema, a compilation of thirty-four films all talking about movies. While the film isn't quite as good as last year's tribute compilation Paris, Je T'aime, it's still a great tribute to the art form that we all know and love. You can catch Chacun son cinema screens at the Elgin at 6pm tonight.

In other news, I have a friend that bought a condo at the festival towers back before they were renamed the Bell Lightbox. Earlier this week, the festival group invited all the buyers to a special reception where they were given tickets to screenings at the festival and were thanked for their early support of the festival centre. Yesterday, the TIFF group announced even more support for the centre, as they confirmed a gift of more than $22 million from the Reitman family and The Daniels Corporation.

The Daniels Corporation joins Canadian filmmaker Ivan Reitman and his sisters as part of the King and John Festival Corporation, which joins founding sponsor Bell, the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario who have each contributed $25 million, and various other sponsors to create the city's premiere film centre. I'm looking forward to seeing the ways the Toronto International Film Festival changes and evolves once the new Bell Lightbox has been constructed.

If you're set on starting your weekend a bit early in order to do some celeb stalking, there aren't many new celebs arriving in town today, but here are a few that might still be floating around:

• Lisa Ray
• Rupinder Nagra
• Eddie Vedder
• Francois Ozon
• Keira Knightley
• Christopher Plummer
• Guy Pierce
• Jason Reitman
• Freddie Prinze Jr.
• Jennifer Connolly
• Lauren Bacall

The Dialogues programme at the festival is busy today, with Sidney Lumet introducing William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives at the Cumberland at 2:45pm, and Max von Sydow introducing Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring — particularly poignant in light of Bergman's recent passing — at the Isabel Bader Theatre at 8pm.

And now, a short (100-word) look at a short:

Dada Dum
At first, when I watched Dada Dum, I thought that I just didn't quite get it. So I watched it twice more and realized that while the weird floating gyrations of an iris-less woman creeped me out to no end, I just couldn't quite understand what Britt Randle was trying to do with his short movie. There is promise in the way the film is shot, but I could just never immerse in what was going on because it was way over my head.

Britt Randle's Dada Dum screens at the Cumberland at 3pm as part of the Short Cuts Canada Programme 2.

(Image: Still from Chacun son cinema, via TIFF.)