Thursday Party Picker

Opening night party: Following the premiere of U2 documentary From The Sky Down, the annual opening-night fete takes over the massive Liberty Grand space at the Exhibition grounds, where much of the industry heads to kick off the fest. Bono and The Edge are expected to be at the screening. No idea if they’ll make it to this party but most of the industry folk and local filmerati stop by to start things off right.

Raju Mudhar

TIFF: The weird art of costuming scary movies

The Pierrot costume worn by Heath Ledger in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus won Vancouver costume designer Monique Prudhomme her first Academy Award nomination. It's on display at Otherworldly: The Art of Canadian Costume Design at TIFF Bell Lightbox.

 

“Here are some neck stumps,” says curator Sylvia Frank, pointing to a case of bloody body parts from George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead. It could be dessert for zombies, but the carnage is just one of the many treats being dished up by Otherworldly: The Art of Canadian Costume Design, an exhibition that celebrates the strange and wonderful work that goes into dressing fantasy, science fiction and horror movies.

The show, which opened Friday and runs through March in the Canadian Film Gallery at TIFF Bell Lightbox, does not deal in the usual kind of glamorous spectacle that comes to mind when movie costume is mentioned. But — original, informative, entertaining and free — it’s better than spectacular.

Curated by Frank, the director of TIFF’s reference library, presented in partnership with the Canadian Alliance of Film and Television Costume Arts and Design, and designed effectively without resort to flashy effects by Breanne Woods, the exhibition features a delightful variety of artifacts.

For sentimental reasons, none is more powerful than the archetypal Pierrot outfit, with its conical hat and pompons, that was worn by Heath Ledger in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which won Vancouver costume designer Monique Prudhomme her first Academy Award nomination and was the last movie Ledger made.

Exerting a cooler Warholian fascination are the Polaroid photographs of Deborah Harry’s wardrobe tests for Videodrome, which, directed by David Cronenberg and costumed by Delpine White, dates from 1983 and is the earliest film featured in Otherworldly.

Of course, clothing Harry would be a snap compared to the challenge faced by Alex Kavanagh. For Splice, by Vincenzo Natali — another Canadian director who, like Cronenberg, has a knack for designer organisms — Kavanagh had to come up with a wardrobe for a bioengineered creature called Dren (that’s nerd in reverse) that was part human but could sprout wings like an insect’s and had a tail that looked like it belonged on a kangaroo. To accommodate the tail, created by computer-generated imagery, the designer chose short, simple dresses, including the one on display in Otherworldly that came from H&M. 

Another girlish garment in the exhibition is a dress — austere, impeccably sewn, creepily perfect — that was designed by Antoinette Messam for the demonically imperfect child that is the title character in Orphan.

The same kind of careful craft is evident in a polar getup, designed by Luis Sequeira, for The Thing, a soon-to-be-released prequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), which involves a helicopter crash in the Antarctic. But that’s not frost on that parka. It’s wax, applied using a range of temperatures and brush techniques.

Sometimes, costumes have to meet more than the requirements of plot, character or setting. For Defendor, in which Woody Harrelson plays a delusional superhero, Gersha Philips had also to bear in mind the vegan star’s habit of wearing no animal products. Those boots on the mannequin are not leather, they’re synthetic microfibre.

For costume designers, stardom is elusive. But Otherworldly should spur recognition for Monique Prudhomme, whose Oscar nomination for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was the first for a Canadian costume designer. The exhibition also establishes Alex Kavanagh as a name to know, featuring her work from five movies: Ginger Snaps 3; Repo! The Genetic Opera; Survival of the Dead; Splice; and Saw VI. From that last gore fest, there are four of the many versions of the shirt worn by the crooked health insurance adjuster at various stages of his death from crushing by a hellish contraption and injections of acid. Stencilled so that blood splatters and acid holes were consistent, the multiples appear like something you might see at a runway presentation by fashion conceptualists Viktor and Rolf.

David Livingstone

Hey TIFF starlets: Wear Canadian

Imagine if you’re a budding actress whose star is on the rise and your break-through movie that is gathering buzz is premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival.

With the help of your Hollywood stylist, you’ve carefully selected and work-shopped your outfits for all your events and appearances at this important event attended by industry power-players and global media.

Photo gallery: Our starlet in blockbuster looks from Canadian designers

And you touch down in Toronto, feeling excited, fierce and ready to take this city by storm. This is your big moment! You can feel it! You’ve arrived!

But, um, the airline lost your luggage. All those borrowed fabulous designer frocks and accessories are lost.

Sure you can hit Toronto’s Mink Mile for a quick shopping spree, but you’re a starlet, darling, you don’t put down plastic for clothes.

So with the help of a local stylist you resort to wearing Canadian designers. You’ve decided to play this to your advantage. After all this is a Canadian film festival, you tell yourself. You remember how Kate Middleton played that Can-con card when she visited this past summer, trotting out a few Canadian outfits from her royal trousseau. Look how that won over an entire nation.

The Canadian outfits arrive at your hotel. They are fabulous. The paparazzi go into a frenzy at your every move. The tabloids can’t get enough pictures of you. We check the gossip pages to track your every move during the festival. And darling can we just say it? You never looked better.

CREDITS: Styling by Derick Chetty. Hair & Make-up by Dylankhanson.com using TRESemme Hair Care.

Photographed on location at Malaparte, 6th floor Terrace at Malaparte and Luma.

Derick Chetty

 

 

A starlet’s morning coffee run is yet another photo op. She’s already showed off her ladylike side but can also be cool and hip. She is still a fresh-faced young actress, after all. So she shows paparazzi she’s still in command by wearing leather and a tank from one of Canada’s hippest labels. On her: Skull safety pin tank by Greta Constantine Primer, $275, at Rac Boutique, 124 Cumberland St. Cardigan, $98, Roots. Leather pants by Object by George Antonopoulous for Danier, $449. Christian Louboutin shoes, Holt Renfrew. On him: T-shirt, Gap. Pants and leather jacket, Roots. RICHARD LAUTENS/TORONTO STAR

 

Cameron Bailey honoured

TIFF co-director, Cameron Bailey, responsible for the vision and execution of the festival, has been  feted by the Consulate General for Trinidad and Tobago for all his heavy lifting during the annual event over the years as well as putting the islands on the map.

British born, but with deep roots in both Barbados and Canada, Bailey has curated myriad film festivals and served as a programmer for TIFF for more than a decade.

The celebration, at Harbourfront’s Lakeside Terrace is paired with the kick off of Caribbean Tales — a 10-day showcase of the best films by new and established Caribbean filmmakers.

“It’s important that we celebrate and honour our own, especially those who represent us on the world stage,’’ says Frances-Anne Solomon, CEO of Caribbean Tales Worldwide distribution.

-Paul Irish

Juliette Lewis, Hayden Christensen, Elizabeth Shue and Ivan Reitman have arrived for the festival

They're here, they're here!

Juliette Lewis

Hayden Christensen

Ivan Reitman

Elisabeth Shue

-Malene Arpe