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Projections: Toronto Black Film Festival showcases global talent
Its second edition begins with a gala screening of The Forgotten Kingdom.

Toronto Star
February 6, 2014
By Jason Anderson

Toronto Black Film Festival: Founded last year as a spinoff to a long-running event in Montreal, the Toronto Black Film Festival is a new showcase of films and stories from Africa as well as black filmmakers and communities from all over the globe. Its second edition begins with a gala screening of The Forgotten Kingdom on Feb. 11 at 7 p.m. at the Isabel Bader Theatre. An award-winner at several U.S. fests, this African drama by writer-director Andrew Mudge is the story of a young man living in the slums of Johannesburg who travels to his home village in Lesotho to bury his estranged father.

Another film that provides a view of contemporary African life, Angels in Exile is a documentary about Durban street youth that’s narrated by Charlize Theron — it screens at the Carlton on Feb. 13 at 5 p.m.

The TBFF also provides some screen space for two of last year’s most intriguing American indie dramas. Former Grey’s Anatomy cast member Isaiah Washington stars in Blue Caprice, a grimly intense drama based on the Beltway sniper shootings that terrorized the Washington, D.C. area in 2002 — it makes its Toronto theatrical premiere at the Carlton on Feb. 16 at 5 p.m. The festival’s closing selection at the Carlton on Feb. 16 at 9 p.m., The Retrieval is a Civil War story that earned raves when it played South by Southwest last year.

Special events at the TBFF include a motivational seminar on Feb. 13 by Stedman Graham, the author and educator otherwise known as Oprah’s main man, and an evening of South African jazz by singer Lorraine Klaasen on Feb. 15.

The Attorney: One of a recent abundance of South Korean hits to outperform Hollywood competitors at the country’s box offices, The Attorney stars Song Kang-ho (The Host, Secret Sunshine) as a crusading civil-rights lawyer in Busan in the ’80s who defends a man accused of being a North Korean spy by the military dictatorship that then ruled the south. The film starts a Toronto run on Feb. 7.

Igor and the Cranes’ Journey: The Toronto Jewish Film Festival’s monthly Chai Tea and a Movie program pulls some heartstrings with a screening of Igor and the Cranes’ Journey. In this family drama by Russian-Israeli director Evgeny Ruman, an 11-year-old boy channels his sadness over being separated from his ornithologist father by fixating on the travels of a flock of cranes. Doors open at 4 p.m. Sunday Feb. 9 for tea at the City Playhouse Theatre in Vaughan (1000 New Westminster Dr.) with the film to follow at 5.

Odd Thomas: Star Trek’s Anton Yelchin, Willem Dafoe and Patton Oswalt star in the latest screen adaptation of a novel by the late Dean R. Koontz. In Odd Thomas, Yelchin plays a short-order cook whose psychic powers may be the key to stopping a catastrophe. This year’s first pick for the Sinister Cinema showcase of cult horror fare, it plays Feb. 13 at 7:30 p.m. at several Cineplex locations. Genre fans should also mark their calendars with the dates for the rest of the season’s Sinister slate: In Fear (March 13), Cheap Thrills (March 27), The Battery (April 17) and Cabin Fever: Patient Zero(May 29).

Gustavo Santaolalla on Brokeback Mountain: The Grammy- and Oscar-winning composer whose music for film can also be heard in Babel and The Motorcycle Diaries, Gustavo Santaolalla visits TIFF Bell Lightbox to talk about his work on Ang Lee’s cowboy love story and present a special screening on Feb. 9 at 2:30 p.m.

In brief: