Jody Shapiro

300 years of a remarkable musical instrument. Crafted by the Italian master Bussotti (Cecchi) in 1681, the red violin has traveled through Austria, England, China, and Canada, leaving both beauty and tragedy in its wake. In Montreal, Samuel L Jackson plays an appraiser going over its complex history.

Gangster and deadbeat dad, Ulysses Pick, embarks on an unusual journey through his home.

In Depression-era Winnipeg, a legless beer baroness hosts a contest for the saddest music in the world, offering a grand prize of $25,000.

A jovial shirtless man attempts to rouse a contingent of lethargic dancers to life in NUDE CABOOSE. His highjinks really get the deadbeats bustin' out until something unusual catches his eye. Dance floor seduction distilled into a fateful moment!

Sailors in repose on an island paradise seemingly have no worries of war or danger — until a playful gesture is interpreted as an act of wilful aggression. Soon, the innocent act of slight slapping becomes a relentless and unforgiving orgy of open-palmed face-smacking.

Pure fantasia, a race to save the world from a fatal heart attack, juxtaposed against a love rivalry between two brothers - a mortician and an actor playing Christ - for the heart of a scientist studying the earth's core.

Gangster and deadbeat dad, Ulysses Pick, embarks on an unusual journey through his home.

In Depression-era Winnipeg, a legless beer baroness hosts a contest for the saddest music in the world, offering a grand prize of $25,000.

A jovial shirtless man attempts to rouse a contingent of lethargic dancers to life in NUDE CABOOSE. His highjinks really get the deadbeats bustin' out until something unusual catches his eye. Dance floor seduction distilled into a fateful moment!

A jovial shirtless man attempts to rouse a contingent of lethargic dancers to life in NUDE CABOOSE. His highjinks really get the deadbeats bustin' out until something unusual catches his eye. Dance floor seduction distilled into a fateful moment!

Sailors in repose on an island paradise seemingly have no worries of war or danger — until a playful gesture is interpreted as an act of wilful aggression. Soon, the innocent act of slight slapping becomes a relentless and unforgiving orgy of open-palmed face-smacking.

Pure fantasia, a race to save the world from a fatal heart attack, juxtaposed against a love rivalry between two brothers - a mortician and an actor playing Christ - for the heart of a scientist studying the earth's core.

A festival is a concentration of hope. Audiences hungering for something startingly new, famously familiar or just plain "good". Actors hoping their well-conceived sincerity and ritual entrances have that special glow. Press and critics poised to love or hate lucidly. And proud, desperate filmmakers looking for that little blessing on their latest self-projection. All squeezing together for a few days, in a few rooms wondering whether this will truly be the perfect place at the perfect time. Of course, it rarely is. Mostly it's just a collection of almosts. Delicious, shared almosts.

The geographical dead center of North America and the beloved birthplace of Guy Maddin, Winnipeg, is the frosty and mysterious star of Maddin’s film. Fact, fantasy and memory are woven seamlessly together in this work, conjuring a city as delightful as it is fearsome.

This featurette documents a 2008 screening of 'My Winnipeg' at the Royal Cinema in Toronto, for which director Guy Maddin provided live narration.

Documents life aboard a modern Canadian ice breaker.

While a veteran actor laments the state of film and film acting, a group of young children sneak a Panavision camera into the apartment where the actor resides and decide to make a film with it.

A short film in which Isabella Rossellini discusses the life and work of her father, Roberto Rossellini.

Guided by the spirit of “The Cuadecuc Manifesto” (coined by co-director Evan Johnson and inspired by Pere Portabella’s 1970 experimental cult documentary, Cuadecuc, vampir), Bring Me the Head of Tim Horton is a strange, stirring behind-the-scenes look at Paul Gross’s new feature, Hyena Road. Shot on location at CFB Shilo near Brandon, Manitoba, and in Aqaba, Jordan, the film mixes deep contrast black-and-white expressionism with wry and raw western revisionism reminiscent of Sam Peckinpah, as it summons unwieldy, psychedelic energy from the main event. [TIFF]

A look at the micro-nations of the world that are rarely recognized by more conventional countries

The electric metre is broken, lets play with the fuses...

BURT'S BUZZ is an in-depth and personal look at the life of Burt Shavitz, known to millions around the world as the "Burt" of the Burt’s Bees natural product brand. The documentary explores what it means to be marketed as an icon, and how that life differs from the one of the man behind the logo.

Mike Jones and his siblings Andy and Cathy travel by helicopter from rural Newfoundland to a gala to make speeches congratulating TIFF on its anniversary.