TIFF '25 Day Zero

A few words about weirdness

“Funky Forest: The First Contact,” dir. Katsuhito Ishii, Hajime Ishimine, and Shunichiro Miki

Staring down the barrel at another year of TIFF is nerve-wracking and daunting. Exciting, but stressful. Making my long journey—five minutes by bicycle!—to Phae Tavern for the annual pre-TIFF Toronto Film Critics Association party, I did wonder to myself whether I’d made things a bigger pain for myself by not having planned out my festival schedule. Even Day One remained a mystery to me, except for the Midnight Madness opening night premiere of Matt Johnson’s Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, and I’d pretty well decided Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value would be my first of the fest. These two fixed points came in handy as friends and people I met at the party, one after another, asked what films I’d be seeing. Of course, I asked them the very same question. How better to figure out my own plans than jump on whatever bandwagon I could find?

I skipped the TFCA party last year in order to attend Midnight Madness programmer Peter Kuplowsky’s now annual unofficial festival kickoff, Midnight Dankness. This year, it seemed sensible to attend both. After all, the TFCA party is a great little mixer, populated mostly by film critics, and a few local filmmakers. A few years back, I chatted with Sarah Polley, for example, who was about to premiere Women Talking, and whose films Take This Waltz and Stories We Tell are two all-time favourites. I didn’t embarrass myself mentioning that, though I did tell Polley earlier this year when I interviewed her via Zoom for an article about her hilarious episode of The Studio—read it at GQ! There were no Oscar-nominees at the party this year, from what I could tell.

Of course, I was mostly there to catch up with friends, both local and international, and that I did aplenty, munching on hors d'oeuvres of Thai food all the while. Most of the chatter was about film schedules and how none of us had really made one. Some of it was the usual complaining about TIFF as an organization—the winnowing of the Wavelengths avant-garde programme was a particularly hot topic for complaints, and the subject of an excellent, important piece by Mark Peranson in the Globe and Mail earlier this week. In the end, though, TIFF is pretty great as a festival to attend, particularly for someone who lives mere minutes away from all the venues. The city spaces I frequent are suddenly abuzz and there are so many fun people to meet. And the movies, too. All those movies.

After spending a fair amount of time at the TFCA party, long enough to notice attendees dwindling down to about a handful of talkative stragglers, I decided to head over to the Royal for Midnight Dankness. I knew I had missed the first part of that programme, Charles Roxburgh and Matt Farley’s no doubt uproarious new no-budget feature Evil Puddle. No matter, I’d make it in time for the second feature, a 20th anniversary screening of the surrealist Japanese anthology comedy Funky Forest: The First Contact, which I ashamedly had not heard of, but whose cult status was instantly understandable from the wonderfully absurd opening scene. Things only got more absurd as it went, with humour as random as a Tim & Eric sketch, but also much more strangers. The introduction of weird alien-y creatures in later segments of the film—150 minutes with a very funny, short intermission, by the way—pushes everything even more into the realm of “weirdest, funniest shit you’ve ever seen.”

In between the two features, Kuplowsky once again programmed a remixed movie, this time the Wachowskis-produced V for Vendetta, chopped up and screwed into a piece called Ctrl-V. These trippy recuts are fun to zone out to, though not entirely my thing. I got more excited when Peter told me they’re done by the same mysterious guy who does The Elephant Graveyard channel on YouTube, which regular readers here will know I only recently discovered. (His videos on Joe Rogan are fantastic!) No, Peter does not know the guy’s identity.

Much as I was enjoying Funky Forest, I was feeling quite tired, and after the film ended, I hopped on my bike and raced home, desperate for sleep. Friends, countrymen… I did not fall asleep until about 3 am. Now, four hours later, writing this newsletter update, I’m quote-unquote awake and ready to quote-unquote tackle the festival. I’ve also managed to look at my schedule, finally. Because of how front-loaded TIFF tends to be, particularly with press and industry screenings, it’s gonna be a very busy and long day despite my previously stated goal of taking it easier this year. I will take it easier! Just not on Day One, apparently. And maybe not Day Two either. Or Day Three. Fuck me!

So I’ll get out of bed and shower and spruce up and find a way to not look half dead as I head out for a day that will stretch from a 9 am screening of Sentimental Value to the wee hours of morning after what will surely be a riotous screening of Nirvanna at midnight. Check back in tomorrow to find out how the films were, or to see if I survived. I make no promises.

Oh good, it’s raining.