There are about 300 films playing at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival and the best of the fraction I've seen so far include John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus; Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, a terrific experimental documentary about soccer great/ignominious head-butter Zinédine Zidane; Guillermo del Toro's surrealist fantasy Pan's Labyrinth; and Volver and Babel, which give the pretty girls and boys (Penelope Cruz and Brad Pitt) the chance to flaunt their acting chops... though Babel's Rinko Kikuchi is the one who should really get the Oscar nomination.
The award for best event of the fest goes to Canadian experimental filmmaker Guy Maddin's Brand upon the Brain!, an expressionistic, silent Super-8 film which was produced and shot in Seattle last year through The Film Company. At TIFF, a narrator, live orchestra, and three separate foley artists augmented the tale of a brother and sister living in a lighthouse/orphanage where mysterious experiments transpire in the basement.
I met up with Maddin and The Film Company's Gregg Lachow the morning after the gala screening. Maddin was still dressed in the clothes he wore the night before and was "giddy" about the film's reception. "Maybe it irritates Gregg when I use words like 'utopian' and 'visionary'... [but] it's so inside-out of what we're used to—the idea of approaching directors with a green light already clicked on." (The Film Company invites directors to make a film in Seattle—without first pitching a script or concept.) "It was the most pleasure I've had working on any of the movies I've made and it might be the movie I'm proudest of as well."
It's a bittersweet thing to hear given The Film Company's recent announcement that it's relocating to New York. Having two films premiere the same week (Lynn Shelton's We Go Way Back opens nationwide this weekend, including a weeklong run at the Varsity in Seattle) is a big success by any measure, and its next slate of directors, including The Simpsons' George Meyer, looks especially promising. "Seattle money sucks," said Lachow. "We've got to get the support from the place we're in. But on the other hand, there's so many wonderful cast and crew and the postproduction houses and vendors in Seattle are fantastic... we'll keep working with them even once we move."
For the world, Brain! is another entry in Maddin's unique oeuvre, but for me, it's one of a surprising number of hometown films screening at TIFF. Roll call includes AJ Schnack's Kurt Cobain: About a Son, an untraditional doc whose voiceover is culled from 25 hours of interviews conducted by writer Michael Azerrad, and features photos by Charles Peterson and possibly the most beautiful footage of Aberdeen and Olympia ever. (It even makes southbound I-5 look good.) John Jeffcoat's topical comedy Outsourced makes its world premiere this week, and James Longley, winner of The Stranger's 2006 Genius Award for film, has a short documentary (originally intended as an additional section of Iraq in Fragments) about an Iraqi mother caring for her AIDS-ridden young son. Though only 20 minutes, Sari's Mother packs more punch than any Oscar-bait feature. 
