I do not usually make ‘end of the year‘ lists nor ‘new year resolutions‘ but I will say that 2013 has been a fun year. It’s had its moments, but all in all, I’ve had a great time.
I’ve met new friends, solidified old friendships, met new artists, and discovered new places in this big city of Toronto…
I hope you’ve all had a good year, and that 2014 brings you many happy moments.
And I sincerely hope you continue to follow my musings here for more Arts and Culture tidbits in Toronto.
Miguel Angel Asturias Rosales (October 19, 1899 – June 9, 1974) was a Nobel Prize-winning Guatemalan poet, novelist, playwright, journalist and diplomat. Asturias helped establish Latin American literature’s contribution to mainstream Western culture, and at the same time drew attention to the importance of indigenous cultures, especially those of his native Guatemala.
Inside Llewyn Davis, Joel and Ethan Coen’s tale of a folk singer making his way through Greenwich Village, 1961, won two top prizes at the 2013 awards of the Toronto Film Critics Association (TFCA).
Inside Llewyn Davis was named Best Picture, with Oscar Isaac winning the Best Actor prize.
The awards were voted by the TFCA at a meeting Dec. 15. The membership also chose the three finalists for the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award: The Dirties, directed by Matt Johnson, Gabrielle, directed by Louise Archambault; and Watermark, directed by Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky.
The 2013 BMO Allan King Documentary Award is given to The Act of Killing; director Joshua Oppenheimer will receive a $5,000 cash prize.
The 2013 TFCA Awards will be presented at a gala dinner at Toronto’s Carlu on Tuesday, January 7, 2014, hosted by Cameron Bailey, Artistic Director of the Toronto International Film Festival. There the TFCA will also reveal the winner of the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award, which carries a record-setting $100,000 cash prize, the richest arts award in the country. The runners-up will each receive $5,000.
The TFCA named A Touch of Sin the year’s Best Foreign-Language Film. Jia Zhang-ke’s ambitious, stylized look at life in contemporary China stars Zhao Tao and Jiang Wu as ordinary citizens forced into violent confrontations by an apathetic and amoral state.
“It’s been an unusually thrilling year for cinema,” said TFCA President Brian D. Johnson, film critic at Maclean’s. “And these awards celebrate a remarkable diversity. Among our distinctive Canadian finalists, each offers an inspired take on a compelling issue—from school bullying in The Dirties to sexual liberation among the disabled in Gabrielle to epic environmental crisis in Watermark.”
Also the January 7 Gala, the TFCA will also announce the winner of the Manulife Financial Student Film Award, which carries a $5,000 cash prize. It will be presented to a short film that the critics select from student entries submitted by film programs at Humber College, Ryerson University, Sheridan College and York University.
Previously announced, the 2013 recipient of the Technicolor Clyde Gilmour Award is Norman Jewison who will present a filmmaker of his choice with $50,000 worth of services at Technicolor. The winner of the Scotiabank Jay Scott Prize for an emerging artist, Matt Johnson, will be presented with a $5,000 cheque for The Dirties, which he directed, starred in and co-wrote.
The full list of Toronto Film Critics Association Awards winners and runners-up:
BEST PICTURE “Inside Llewyn Davis” (Mongrel Media) Runners-up “Her” (Warner Bros.) “12 Years a Slave” (Fox Searchlight) BEST ACTOR Oscar Isaac, “Inside Llewyn Davis” Runners-up Chiwetel Ejiofor, “12 Years a Slave” Matthew McConaughey, “Dallas Buyers Club” BEST ACTRESS Cate Blanchett, “Blue Jasmine” Runners-up Julie Delpy, “Before Midnight” Greta Gerwig, “Frances Ha” BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Jared Leto, “Dallas Buyers Club” Runners-up Michael Fassbender, “12 Years a Slave” James Franco, “Spring Breakers” BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Jennifer Lawrence, “American Hustle” Runners-up Lupita Nyong’o, “12 Years a Slave” June Squibb, “Nebraska” BEST DIRECTOR Alfonso Cuarón, “Gravity”
Runners-up Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, “Inside Llewyn Davis” Steve McQueen, “12 Years a Slave” BEST SCREENPLAY, ADAPTED OR ORIGINAL Spike Jonze, “Her” Runners-up Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke & Julie Delpy, “Before Midnight” Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, “Inside Llewyn Davis”
BEST FIRST FEATURE “Neighboring Sounds”, directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho Runners-up “Fruitvale Station”, directed by Ryan Coogler “In a World …”, directed by Lake Bell BEST ANIMATED FEATURE “The Wind Rises” (Touchstone Pictures) Runners-up “The Croods” (20th Century Fox) “Frozen” (Walt Disney Pictures) BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM “A Touch of Sin” (Films We Like) Runners-up “Blue Is the Warmest Color” (Mongrel Media) “The Hunt” (Mongrel Media) BMO ALLAN KING DOCUMENTARY AWARD “The Act of Killing” (Films We Like) Runners-up “Leviathan” (Films We Like) “Tim’s Vermeer” (Mongrel Media) ROGERS BEST CANADIAN FILM AWARD FINALISTS “The Dirties” (Phase 4 Films) “Gabrielle” (Entertainment One) “Watermark” (Mongrel Media)
There you have it, an interesting list of winners and runners-up. Some bold choices in my opinion like Best Documentary Act of Killing, and a surprising non-win for The Hunt in the Best Foreign Film category.
I have some catching up to do when it comes to watching some of the other films on this list. Curious what other film aficionados have to say about this list of winners. Leave a comment and share with the rest of us. And see you at the movies!
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond by E. E. Cummings
somewhere I have never traveled,gladly beyond any experience, your eyes have their silence: in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which I cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me though I have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skillfully, mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, I and my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly, as when the heart of this flower imagines the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals the power of your intense fragility:whose texture compels me with the color of its countries, rendering death and forever with each breathing
(I do not know what it is about you that closes and opens; only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses) nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
E. E. Cummings, Edward Estlin Cummings (October 14, 1894 – September 3, 1962) was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He began writing poems as early as 1904. In his work, Cummings experimented radically with form, punctuation, spelling and syntax, abandoning traditional techniques and structures to create a new, highly idiosyncratic means of poetic expression. His body of work encompasses approximately 2,900 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays and several essays, as well as numerous drawings and paintings.
Only a few weeks remain to see Ghost Dance: Activism. Resistance. Art.currently on view at the Ryerson Image Centre (RIC) until December 15, 2013. Guest curated by Steve Loft, the newly appointed Coordinator of Aboriginal Arts at the Canada Council for the Arts, this exhibition examines activism as a culture of resistance in contemporary indigenous art. This exhibition presents photographs from the Black Star Collection with contemporary works by aboriginal artists to examine the role of the artist as activist, as chronicler and as provocateur in the ongoing struggle for indigenous rights and self-empowerment.
Ghost Dance: Activism. Resistance. Art. features the work of prominent indigenous artists, including Sonny Assu, Vernon Ah Kee, Dana Claxton, and Skawennati. In describing the exhibition, Loft writes, “Colonialism has been the cause of the suffering, oppression and violence perpetuated against Indigenous people in Canada and many other countries, for centuries… As a curator and art historian I would posit that Aboriginal art is innately political. It is the culmination of lived experiences, from pre-contact customary societies through the colonial enterprise. It is tied up in histories that include both pre- and post-contact epistemologies, narratives empowered by continuity, inextricably inter-linked; and it is the assertion of cultural autonomy and sovereignty.”
This Wednesday, December 11 at 6pm, you can hear more from Steve Loft and a special guest, for a guided walk-through of the exhibition.
You can also join in the conversation online on the exhibition blog at imagearts.ryerson.ca/ghostdance, by contributing knowledge or memories of the individuals and places captured in the 99 Black Star photographs, which are displayed on the Salah J. Bachir New Media Wall during off-gallery hours. The blog provides an online forum for you to contribute knowledge or memories of the individuals and places captured in the 99 photographs from the Black Star Collection.
Whether you make it to the exhibition or not, I recommend going online to read more about it, learn about the history of Canada’s First Nations, and how their art is a means to chronicle the “struggle for Indigenous rights and self-empowerment”.
Michael Abramson, “Untitled” (American Indian Movement: Lakota Indians), Wounded Knee, South Dakota, USA, 1973, gelatin silver print. Reproduction from the Black Star Collection at Ryerson University. Courtesy of the Ryerson Image Centre. BS.2005.285357 / 187-546
Force, no matter how concealed, begets resistance. (Lakota saying)
In which she describes rationally the irrational effects of love Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
That my heart is suffering from love pangs is plain, but less clear by far is the cause of its pain.
To make fancy come true my heart strains but, thwarting desire, only gloom remains.
And when most I plead and lament my plight, though I see my sadness, its cause escapes sight.
I yearn from the chance to which I aspire, yet when it impends, I shrink from desire, lest, sensing at hand that longed-for day, my misgivings spoil it, fear drive it away.
And if, reassured, I clasp it tight, with the slightest pretext, all pleasure takes flight.
My timid misgivings turn boon into bane and for love’s very sake, I must show disdain. *(Translated by Alan S. Trueblood)
En que escribe racionalmente los efectos irracionales del amor
Este amoroso tormento que en mi corazón se ve, se que lo siento y no se la causa porque lo siento
Siento una grave agonía por lograr un devaneo, que empieza como deseo y para en melancolía.
y cuando con mas terneza mi infeliz estado lloro se que estoy triste e ignoro la causa de mi tristeza.
Siento un anhelo tirano por la ocasión a que aspiro, y cuando cerca la miro yo misma aparto la mano. Porque si acaso se ofrece, después de tanto desvelo la desazona el recelo o el susto la desvanece.
Y si alguna vez sin susto consigo tal posesión cualquiera leve ocasión me malogra todo el gusto.
Siento mal del mismo bien con receloso temor y me obliga el mismo amor tal vez a mostrar desdén.
Source: Wikipedia
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz was a self-taught scholar and poet of the Baroque school, and Hieronymite nun of New Spain. Although she lived in a colonial era when Mexico was part of the Spanish Empire, she is considered today both a Mexican writer and a contributor to the Spanish Golden Age, and she stands at the beginning of the history of Mexican literature in the Spanish language.
