TIFF '14: Jaume Bagueró & Manuela Velasco on [REC] 4 Apocalypse

REC 4: Apocalypse (stylized as [REC]4 Apocalypse) is a Spanish horror film, and the fourth and final installment of the REC franchise. The film is a direct sequel to the seond film taking place immediately after its events. Jaume Baguero the director of the first two installments, returns alongside actress Manuela Velasco, who reprises her role of the imperiled reporter Ángela Vidal.The film recently premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival where I had the opportunity to catch up with Juame and Manuela for a spirited chat. 

Jason Robert Brown at TIFF 14

Sam Worthington at TIFF '14

Director Lindsay MacKay on "Wetbum"

From tiff.net -  An awkward teenage outcast (2014 TIFF Rising Star Julia Sarah Stone) finds unlikely companions in two aged residents of the retirement home in which she works, in this charming and poignant debut by Canadian director Lindsay MacKay. Starring Jenna Nye, Kenneth Welsh, Leah Pinsent and Craig Arnold.

A coming-of-age movie driven by sharp observations and a poetic sensitivity towards outcasts, first-time feature filmmaker Lindsay MacKay's Wet Bum is graced by an exceptional lead turn from 2014 TIFF Rising Star Julia Sarah Stone, whose performance is exquisitely crafted yet feels wonderfully devoid of guile.

Forced by her mother to work in the seniors' residence she manages, fourteen-year-old Sam (Stone) endures a daily gauntlet of cleaning rooms and dealing with disgruntled residents. In addition, Sam's slower physical development has made her very self-conscious about her body — an uneasiness that hasn't gone unnoticed by the fellow students in her swim class — and her swim instructor has become strangely solicitous of her.

Unhappy amongst her schoolmates, Sam finds herself increasingly drawn to two of the residents at the seniors' home: silent Judith (Diana Leblanc), who acknowledges Sam exclusively, and Ed (Kenneth Welsh), whose persistent rants and oddly half-hearted attempts to hitch a ride to a mysterious location intrigue and trouble her. As her relationship with them deepens, the girl is drawn into worlds far more complex than the one inhabited by her peers.

Featuring a stellar supporting cast (including Leah Pinsent as Sam's harried mother) and several wonderful set pieces — a mid-winter party in an unfinished house that encapsulates all the thrills and horrors of small-town adolescence — Wet Bum(developed as part of TIFF STUDIO) is a poignant debut whose hard-won wisdom belies the youth of both its star and director.

Wet Bum is preceded by Red Alert, a charmingly comic short documentary from veteran filmmaker Barry Avrich, in which a young auburn-haired girl (Sloan Avrich) panics when she finds out that redheads may become extinct in only a century.

Arabella Bushnell and Brad Dryborough Interview - Songs She Wrote About People She Knows

A timid officer worker becomes both pariah and Pied Piper when she unleashes her confessional, scathingly honest pop compositions upon friends and co-workers, in this hilarious comedy from Vancouver’s Kris Elgstrand (Doppelgänger Paul).

In his work as a playwright, screenwriter, and filmmaker, Vancouver's Kris Elgstrand has wittily and often hilariously chronicled the foibles of bohemians. Following his collaboration with Dylan Akio Smith on 2009's Doppelgänger Paul, Elgstrand now makes his solo directorial debut with Songs She Wrote About People She Knows, which takes caustic aim at art therapy, the contemporary music scene, and the suppressed artistic yearnings of middle managers — which, it turns out, are better left suppressed.

Elgstrand's heroine is Carol (Arabella Bushnell), a timid thirtysomething who, as part of her art-therapy treatment, begins sending her friends and co-workers unsolicited recordings of her swoony pop compositions (think of a heavily medicated Zooey Deschanel), which viciously slag their behaviour and are peppered with some rather extreme turns of phrase. Some of her friends are so outraged they take out restraining orders, but Carol's boss Dave (Brad Dryborough) is so gobsmacked by her musical critique — which, he believes, calls him out for giving up on his dreams of rock stardom — that he quits his job the next day. What follows is a manic trip down and up the West Coast as Carol reinvigorates people's creative sides and bewitches numerous men — all the while completely bewildered as to why she and her songs are having such an impact on her listeners.

If her Carol is off-key, Bushnell is pitch-perfect as this inadvertent Pied Piper, and she has a perfect foil in Dryborough, whose Dave is so permanently wound up that (to paraphrase the late film critic John Harkness, writing about Dabney Coleman) even his hair seems clenched. Skilfully alternating between scenes of outright hilarity (especially the film's opening) and moments of genuine, keenly felt emotion, Elgstrand creates a cinematic world that is both comically exaggerated and thoroughly recognizable.

Peter Mooney and Steve Cochrane We Were Wolves

Rookie Blue star Peter Mooney and Steve Cochrane star as two estranged brothers who hash out their grievances while packing up their late father’s Kawartha Lake cottage in "We Were Wolves, from first-time writer-director Jordan Canning.  Check out the interview with Peter and Steve who almost seem like they could be brothers in real life. 

Director Tony Ayres - Cutsnake

In Cut Snake 

The past catches up with an ex-con who has rebuilt his life in a small town, in this incendiary noir drama by Australian director Tony Ayres.

Young, charismatic, and hardworking, Sparra Farrell (Alex Russell) seems to be sailing into a happy, respectable life. He has a solid job and an adorable fiancée named Paula (Jessica De Gouw), and already owns a modest house in the country outside Melbourne. The only odd thing is that Sparra says precious little about his past — but that past is about to catch up with him, and wrest control of his present.

Set in 1973, Australian director Tony Ayres's bold return to feature filmmaking is equal parts crime story and love story, an inspired variation on A History of Violence that considers aspects of criminal relations rarely explored onscreen. Sparra's domestic idyll is ruptured when he and Paula receive an unexpected visit from Pommie (Animal Kingdom's Sullivan Stapleton, who also appears at the Festival in Kill Me Three Times).

Pommie knows Sparra's most closely guarded secrets — including the stint he did in a Sydney prison — and expects him to make good on an old promise if he wants to keep those secrets safe. "You always knew there was something different about him," Pommie tells Paula. "That something is me."

Working with a stellar cast and Blake Ayshford's brilliantly structured script, Ayres plumbs the shadowy depths of his characters for the brutal truths that most thrillers only hint at. The result is an incendiary noir drama burning with fear, rage, desire, and irresistible impulses. Money will be stolen, blood shed, dreams shattered, but what's left at the end ofCut Snake is a bond made only stronger by twin forces that should not be underestimated: self-knowledge and acceptance.  I spoke to director Tony Ayers about the film.

Director Jordan Canning on "We Were Wolves"

In the new film "We Were Wolves" two estranged brothers return to the family cottage after the death of their father. Over the course of three days they must learn to let go of the man they thought they knew, and accept responsibility for the men they have become. I spoke to director Jordan Canning about working on the film.

Craig Arnold - Wetbum

You may know him from DeGrassi but up and coming young actor Craig Arnold is going places. Arnold showcase his talent as the bad boy in the new film, Wet Bum. We chatted about the film, working in Canada and much more.

Alex Russell Interview - Cut Snake

Watch out for Australian actor Alex Russell. This up and coming young man from down under  stars in the intense thriller , Cut Snake which premiered at The Toronto International Film festival and will soon be seen in Angelina Jolie's, Unbroken.  Check out my interview with him talking about both films and about impending fame.  In Cut Snake a pair of ex-cons hatch a scheme to burn down a nightclub in Brisbane.