TIFF '11 Schedule

Looks like it's time to boot this up again.

Until less than 10 days ago, I was sure I'd be missing TIFF for the second consecutive year. In fact, by the time I sat down to order a pass, they were sold out; luckily, I'd previously attempted to order when low on cash, and when that order was declined, my place in line remained intact. So I happily owe this year's trip to a technical blunder.

As for reneging on my vow to stop going, this year's lineup was simply too good--on paper, in any case--to pass up. And as several fellow attendees have already remarked, the difficulty of narrowing a schedule down to 50 titles was as vexing as the program was enticing. Here's what I'm counting on seeing:

Sep 8 Thu
Into the Abyss (Werner Herzog) C+
Play (Ruben Ostlund) B

Sep 9 Fri
Le Havre (Aki Kaurismaki) C-
This Is Not a Film (Mojtaba Mirtahmasb and Jafar Panahi) B
Porfirio (Alejandro Landes) B
Chicken With Plums (Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud) B-

Sep 10 Sat
Mr. Tree (Han Jie) W/O
The Ides of March (George Clooney) B
This Side of Resurrection (Joaquim Sapinho) W/O
Goodbye First Love (Mia Hansen-Love) A
Last Winter (John Shank) W/O
Free Men (Ismael Ferroukhi) C+

Sep 11 Sun
A Separation (Asghar Farhadi) B+
Dark Horse (Todd Solondz) C+
The Silver Cliff (Karim Ainouz) B-
Faust (Alexander Sokurov) B

Sep 12 Mon
Miss Bala (Gerardo Naranjo) D
Footnote (Joseph Cedar) C
The Loneliest Planet (Julia Loktev) A-
Martha Marcy May Marlene (Sean Durkin) C

Sep 13 Tue
Almayer’s Folly (Chantal Akerman) C
Back to Stay (Milagros Mumenthaler) B-
The Kid With the Bike (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne) B
ALPS (Yorgos Lanthimos) C

Sep 14 Wed
Damsels in Distress (Whit Stillman) C
Cafe de flore (Jean-Marc Valée) B-
The Invader (Nicolas Provost) W/O
Swirl (Helvecio Marins Jr. and Clarissa Campolina) D+
Michael (Markus Schleinzer) D
Sleeping Beauty (Julia Leigh) C+
Lovely Molly (Eduardo Sánchez) W/O

Sep 15 Thu
That Summer (Philippe Garrel) C-
Breathing (Karl Markovics) C-
Generation P (Victor Ginzburg) C+
Mushrooms (Vimukthi Jayasundara) C

Sep 16 Fri
Outside Satan (Bruno Dumont) B-
Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols) B-
Twilight Portrait (Angelina Nikonova) B+
The Other Side of Sleep (Rebecca Daly) DNF

Sep 17 Sat
The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodovar) B-
Amy George (Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas) W/O
Moneyball (Bennett Miller) C-
The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies) B+
Killer Joe (William Friedkin) C

Sep 18 Sun
Page Eight (David Hare) B
Oslo, August 31st (Joachim Trier) B
Elena (Andrey Zvyaginstev) B
A Mysterious World (Rodrigo Moreno) B

Post-Festival
Invasion (Hugo Santiago) DNF
Crane World (Pablo Trapero)