Toronto International Film Festival

The Toronto International Film Festival is kicking off today. TIFF has become one of the largest and most important film festival’s, but this year’s even takes on special significance because of the crap global economy.

IndieWire is the best resource for TIFF coverage. In this article, for example, they provide a list of “145 Films For Sale.”

The NY Times has an article called “In Toronto, Directing Is Clearly Women’s Work”:

FROM the tattoo on Diablo Cody’s bicep to Lone Scherfig’s leopard-spot pumps, it was impossible not to notice: The 34th Toronto International Film Festival opened on Thursday with the women in charge.

While still struggling to find their place in the movie industry at large — the number of directors at American studios remains well over 90 percent male — female filmmakers have managed to occupy some of this 10-day festival’s most valuable slots: those showcase screenings and press conferences in the first couple of days, when everyone is still paying attention.

But the deeper question is whether the Toronto festival’s first couple of days might help propel a clutch of female directors to the front of Hollywood’s award race.

Something like that happened in 2003, when a Toronto screening of “Lost in Translation” put Sofia Coppola on the path to a best-director Oscar nomination. She is one of only three women ever to earn that distinction, the others being Lina Wertmüller for “Seven Beauties” and Jane Campion for “The Piano.”

Go here for the schedule for movie screenings.

And for a review of what happened at the 2008 TIFF, go here to see the winners. Hint: The People’s Choice Award went to a movie that has something to do with slums.