(USA/France/UK, 2000)
  A sumptuous, literate film from the Merchant/Ivory studios, a name synonymous with finely crafted films set in the late Victorian And Edwardian eras. Jeremy Northam (An Ideal Husband ) Uma Thurman (Pulp Fiction ) and Nick Nolte (Affliction ) are featured, as are lavishly detailed settings of turn of the century England and Italy.

"Yet another Merchant Ivory triumph, with impeccable performances and equally flawless, grand period settings." -- Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

"There are four good people in 'The Golden Bowl' and four bad people, making, in all, four characters. The genius of Henry James' greatest novel is that these four people have placed themselves in a moral situation that alters as you rotate them in your view... I admired this movie." * * * -- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times

(France, 2001; English subtitles)
  The Closet/Le Placard continues the misadventures of Francois Pignon, whom QFA patrons met in 1999 in The Dinner Game. This time our anti-hero is about to be fired from his accountant's job at a drab factory. Desperate to keep his position, Pignon devises a scheme. He quickly spreads a false rumour that he is gay, hoping that company management would not dare to fire him for fear of being accused of discrimination.

The script is being hotly contested by the major U.S. studios, eager to shoot an American version. Be sure to see this French gem before the Hollywood remake hits the screens.

"Lacks all the insipid sitcom stuff such a story line suggests ... a good-natured comedy, with adept performances and sophisticated laughs." -- Liz Braun, Toronto Sun

(Australia/Belgium, 2000)
  Roger Ebert described 'Innocence' as the best film at Cannes 2000. Andreas, a widower, is possessed by wonderful memories of Claire, a woman he loved in Belgium forty years ago. He searches and finds Claire, who has been in a loveless marriage for twenty years. The decades vanish when the two lovers reunite, and their passions rekindle. 'Innocence' is a heartfelt story that proves that passionate love and lust are not just for the young.

"I am not normally given to superlatives, but I say this without reservation: this is a wonderful film. Seek it out any way you can." -- Andrew Howe, Film Written Magazine

(Italy/Switzerland, 2000; English subtitles)
  Rosalba is a forty year old housewife on a bleak bus charter tour with her family. When she is accidently ‘forgotten' at a rest stop, Rosalba decides to spread her wings and go to Venice, the city of her dreams. She encounters an eclectic group of Venetians who help her rediscover her long suppressed passion for life. Pane e tulipani (its original title) was a big hit last year in Italy. It has become an audience favourite at film festivals throughout the world.

"Sweet, delicately comic and a complete delight." -- Stephen Hunter, Washington Post

Special Hallowe'en Screening

(Canada, 2000)
  The hottest ticket at the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival, John Fawcett's superbly crafted 'Ginger Snaps' is a modern telling of the werewolf myth laced with wicked humour and grisly fun. United against life, the Goth-minded Fitzgerald sisters, Brigitte and Ginger, are late-blooming misfits who would sooner be dead than dull. The sisters decide to pull a prank on the 'popular' girl from school, but their plans are postponed when Ginger, on the night of her first period, is savagely attacked by a wild animal. As her scars heal they begin to grow hair and she becomes a sexually aggressive young woman with a severe blood lust. Mimi Rogers gives an unexpectedly humorous performance as a mother utterly oblivious to reality. Scenes of extreme violence.

"Ground-breaking, genre-bending, female-centric ... utterly intelligent." * * * * * -- Gemma Files, Eye Weekly

(Germany/UK, 2001)
  Academy Award nominated filmmaker Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy) creates a lush, romantic portrait of an extraordinary woman who inspired, bedevilled and captivated the artistic geniuses of her age. The tale of Alma Mahler Werfel (Sarah Wynter, Lost Souls) begins in turn-of-the-century Vienna and encompasses the rich artistic era of two world wars, which serve as the backdrop for her passionate affairs with the most talented artists of her time: the great composer Gustav Mahler (Jonathan Pryce, Regeneration), novelist Franz Werfel, architect Walter Gropius and painters Oskar Kokoschka and Gustav Klimt. Alma defies the mores of her time and becomes, in her own right, one of the era's most exciting and intriguing figures.

"The visuals are worth the price of admission." -- Liz Braun, Toronto Sun

(Iran/Italy, 2000; English subtitles)
  Gifted director Jafar Panahi (The White Balloon) brings us this riveting film about a circle of women who struggle against a restrictive male power structure, banned in Iran.

  "Few things reveal a nation better than what it censors. ... There is no nudity here. No violence. No drugs or alcohol, for sure. No profanity. There is a running joke that the heroines can't even have a cigarette (women cannot smoke in public). Yet the film is profoundly dangerous to the status quo in Iran because it asks us to identify with the plight of women who have done nothing wrong except to be female. 'The Circle' is all the more depressing when we consider that Iran is relatively liberal compared to, say, Afghanistan under the Taliban.
  "Jafar Panahi's film begins and ends with the same image, of a woman talking to someone in authority through a sliding panel in a closed door. In the opening shot, a woman learns that her daughter has given birth to a girl when the ultrasound promised a boy; she fears angry reprisals from the in-laws. In the closing shot, a woman is in prison, talking to a guard. In closing the circle, the second shot suggests that women in strict Muslim societies are always in prison in one way or another."

* * * 1/2 -- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

(Canada, 2001)
  LAST WEDDING was honoured by being selected as the opening night gala film at this year's Toronto International Film Festival and as the closing night gala film at the Vancouver International Film Festival. Focusing on three Vancouver couples at various stages in their dubious unions, Bruce Sweeney's film is an intriguing hybrid, a witty relationship flick that falls neatly between the cracks, neither so serious as to feel purely tragic nor so light as to be simply comic. Call it an 'antiromance comedy.' Unlike most directors, Sweeney uses sex to comment on behaviour, presenting it as an engrained part of the emotional fabric. The result is a movie both funny and sad, assured and accessible, dark in conclusion but not pessimistic in tone.

"A remarkably confident and boldly black comedy. LAST WEDDING is both sharply funny and enormously empathetic. An impressive feat - the movie turns from sweet to sour, funny to squirmy and outrageous to touching on a dime. A romantic comedy in perverse reverse." * * * * -- Toronto Star

"Emotionally raw and very, very funny." * * * * -- Jason Anderson, EYE Weekly