Description

TICKETS $10 GA | BUY TICKETS AT EVENT WEBSITE

CinemAsia GALA SCHEDULE:

6:30-8:15 Toronto premiere screening of MONDAY [Innis Town Hall]
8:15-8:30 Brief break
8:30-9:30 Japan/film lecture “FITS OF LAUGHTER” by Eric Cazdyn (Professor of Comparative Literature and Film Studies) [Innis Town Hall]
9:30-12:00 Post screening party [Innis Café transformed by Dinah Koo; catering by Koo & Co and herriott grace]

For more CinemAsia/Reel Asian co-presentations, please check the website on Nov 13 (6:00 pm Hong Kong panel) and 14 (2:30 pm THE BLESSING BELL by Sabu; 6:00 documentary films panel).

INTRODUCTION BY Joseph Wong, Director of Asian Institute at the Munk Centre for International Studies

This is the 12th edition of the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival. The festival has grown in size and reach to become the premier platform dedicated to Asian cinema and Asian-Canadian films in the country. This year also marks the debut of CinemaAsia, a collaboration of the Asian Institute at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto, and Reel Asian. Bridging filmmakers, film critics and scholars, CinemAsia offers a series of special screenings and crucial talks and panels supplementing the rich offerings of the film festival. The premier CinemaAsia features a retrospective of the extraordinary and challenging Japanese director Sabu and a presentation on his films by U of T Professor Eric Cazdyn, author of THE FLASH OF CAPITAL. During the festival itself, CinemaAsia will feature two panels, one on the past and future prospects of Hong Kong Cinema, in this its centenary year; and a second, a moderated conversation between Canadian doc-maker Yung Chang and American filmmaker and NYU professor Christine Choy.

The Asian Institute is Canada’s leading centre devoted to research and teaching, centred on Asian research and teaching. The Asian Institute is committed to bringing the community and university closer together and so we are thrilled to form this partnership with Reel Asian in the form of CinemaAsia. The festival’s strong support for Canada’s Asian communities in its programming and critical élan has always been one of its hallmarks. The 12th edition of the festival once again affirms a common spirit of intellectual curiosity and Canada’s cultural diversity in which the Asian Institute is an eager participant.

MONDAY
Special Feature Presentation | Tue Nov 11 | 6:30 PM | Director: Sabu (Hiroyuki Tanaka) | Japan | 2000 | 100:00 | 35mm | Toronto Premiere
Cast: Shinichi Tsutsumi, Naomi Nishida, Yuko Kirishima, Akira Yamamoto, Susumu Terajima

Waking to the Monday morning weather report, salaryman Koichi Takagi finds himself in an empty hotel room. He cannot remember where he has been or how he got here and he is suffering from an intense hangover. Reaching into his pocket, he begins to remove items that trigger his memory, slowly unravelling the events of the past few nights: an explosion at a bizarre funeral, a hysterically dull conversation with his girlfriend, accidentally falling in with the Yakuza, etc. The more he recalls, the more sinister his circumstances prove to be. Bouncing back and forth across moments in time in order to make sense of the present, director Sabu playfully confuses reality, emphasizing the instability and rewritability of history.

Shinichi Tsutsumi’s turn as the hapless salaryman should also be applauded, both for his nuanced, endearing performance of a man scrambling to reorder his life and for his jaw-dropping dance moves in a sequence that should be recognized among the great cinematic dances of all time.

MONDAY, winner of the Don Quixote Award and FIPRESCI Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival (2000), is crafted with knife-sharp wit, astute social satire and a hypnotic cinematography that diffuses the film with an air of surrealism. Such qualities can be found in Sabu’s previous efforts, but in MONDAY they have been honed to perfection.

— synopsis by Eric Cazdyn and Peter Kuplowsky

SABU was born in 1964 as Hiroyuki Tanaka. He began his film career as an actor. His performance in Katsuhiro Otomo’s WORLD APARTMENT HORROR (1991) won him an award at the Yokohama Film Festival 1991, and he went on to appear in several other films, working under Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Hideo Nakata and Takeshi Miike. In 1996, he debuted as both a writer and director with D.A.N.G.A.N. RUNNER. Celebrated for his inventive style and humorous storytelling, Sabu quickly became a highly regarded director in both Japan and overseas, particularly in Europe.

FITS OF LAUGHTER: SABU’S MONDAY
Following the presentation of MONDAY, and departing from Sabu’s MONDAY (with special attention granted to laughter), this lecture will discuss current cultural and political trends in contemporary Japan and beyond.

Speaker: Eric Cazdyn, Professor of Comparative Literature and Film Studies, University of Toronto
In conversation with: TBA

CinemAsia GALA CO-PRESENTERS
CinemAsia [Asian Institute at the University of Toronto]
Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival

— and generously sponsored by
Dr. David Chu Distinguished Leaders Program
Toronto After Dark
Donderdag
Photographer Joyce Wong
Toben Food by Design
Koo & Co
herriott grace
Holiday Inn Midtown