TIFFed Out?

In the last days of TIFF I was able to catch a few movies. This, of course, involved waiting in line and drawing everything.

The beautiful Elgin & Winter Garden Theatre was host to a screening of brothers

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's feature The Kid with a Bike. What a magnificent venue!

If you ever get a chance to step foot into the Elgin be sure to do it! There are in fact two separate theatres tucked away in this gorgeous historical building. The Winter Garden is actually stacked atop the Elgin in the world's last remaining example of this style of architecture.

I went on a walking tour of the building a few years ago and they explained how the Winter Garden was left abandoned for decades. When the time came to restore it the walls were caked with layers of filth from years of housing squatters and pigeons.

The film itself was brilliant. It's a drama about an orphan boy who befriends a woman after his father rejects him. If you get a chance, give it a look.

On another day I waited in the lobby of the TIFF Bell Lightbox to have a cup of tea before the Short Cuts Canada screening.

There are many, many shorts in the SCC programme so they divide them up into six blocks. I was there especially to see the premiere of the NFB's thermal 3D dance film, ORA. Which is AMAZING, by the way. Anyone who tells you that 3D is dead needs to see what happens when these tools are placed in the hands of a true artist.

The other films were really fun too, but mostly live action. Except for a stop-motion animated short about cabbage!

On the topic of festivals, I'm soon off to OIAF. If you're in the Ottawa area maybe you'll want to check it out?