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There really isn’t a genre, or more so a movement, within the history of cinema that is quite like Film Noir. Best known for inky black and white photography, rain soaked urban landscapes and men in fedoras being thrust into turmoil by beautiful women with not the best of intentions, Film Noir burst out of post war angst in the early 1940s, and has since become home to some of the most original and vital motion pictures within cinema. Films like Rian Johnson’s Brick have helped evolve this movement into something more than just a fancy name for films involving private investigators. Who would have thought there would be a luchador wrestling noir?

That’s exactly what Arturo Ripstein’s Bleak Street is, or at least in its broadest form. Thrusting us into the seedy underbelly of Mexico City and the world of luchador wrestling, Bleak Street is...

As usual, the Masters programme is cholk-full of carryover items from world renowned auteurs who’ve already premiered last February (Berlin), this past May (Cannes) or as part of the upcoming action on the Lido (Venice). Of the thirteen titles and personalities that need no introduction, it’s the likes of Hong Sang-soo (Locarno) and the Venice preemed, and not yet picked up items from Skolimowski, Bellocchio & Sokurov (all potential Golden Lion winners) that are still sight unseen for several North American based cinephiles. Here are the baker’s dozen of items:

11 Minutes (11 Minut) – Jerzy Skolimowski, Poland/Ireland

North American Premiere

A jealous husband out of control, his sexy actress wife, a sleazy Hollywood director, a reckless drug messenger, a disoriented young woman, an ex-con hot dog vendor, a troubled student on a mysterious mission, a high-rise window cleaner on an illicit break, an elderly sketch artist, a hectic paramedics...