25X25: Instant Filmmaking from Toronto

The 25X25 event will be best memento of the Toronto International Film Festival's 25th year and should be released as a film. During the festival, 25 filmakers were given digital cameras and told to shoot a short film documenting a 25-hour day in the life of the festival. The resulting program proves to be a more informative compendium of the festival experience than any catalogue. The shorts by small indie filmmakers side by side with the work of respected veterans like Paul Cox generate a kamikaze, renegade recapturing of the joy of filmmaking.

Screened to the hardest core film fans in Toronto for free on the last day of the festival, the films ranged from remarkable to idiotic. Watch the veteran french filmaker Agnes Varda (The Gleaners and I), co-founder of the New Wave style of film, get a pedicure and be eclipsed by her funny Russian cosmetician. See Paul Cox (Innocence) make dirty old man comments to all the women he captures on his camera. Come to the Norman Jewison festival BBQ and watch the Beef Queen in pigtails and gingham, search for beef amongst the stars and generally deflate the burgeoning pomposity of the event.

Bad-girl Asia Argenta, daughter of famed Italian director Dario, treats the Tononto viewers to full frontal bathroom nudity as she and her pouty girfriend get decked out in tacky eurotrash outfits for a festival party. But things can get serious as Chad filmmaker, Mahamat Haroun demonstrates when he interviews flustered and embarassed programmers about the Planet Africa series. The idea of African film being so marginalized, however respectfully, was quite the little scandal this year, even though the programmers themselves were African Canadian. One anticipates it will not be around next year. Hence, both entertaining and iconoclastic, the 25X25 should be come a tradition at all festivals. It would eclipse People magazine and "Entertainment Tonight" for providing an insider's view of the events,a sort of reality TV for film festivals, and you can believe, after ten days of films and parties, it makes "Survivor" looks like a walk in the park.

May Lou Zeitoun