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Montreal is celebrating its 375th anniversary this year. And to mark the occasion, the celebration committee turned to François Girard, the art house director of “Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould” and “The Red Violin,” to tell the story of Hochelaga, the 16th century city that resided in modern day Montreal. Though Girard has worked in film, opera and with Cirque du Soleil, he said at TheWrap’s Awards and Foreign Screening Series of his film “Hochelaga: Land of Souls” that he’s never truly captured his home in his artwork. “For my own sake, I needed to dig into my own roots,...

Canada has chosen director Francois Girard's Hochelaga, Land of Souls as its contender for consideration in the best foreign-language film Oscar category.

The Canadian French-language drama, which stars Samian, Vincent Perez and Raoul Trujillo, portrays Canadian history through the finds at a fictional Montreal archaeological dig.

Girard, one of Canada's most accomplished filmmakers, has tackled histories and epic narratives before in Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, The Red Violin and Silk.

Canada's national Oscar selection committee, led by Telefilm Canada, unveiled its pick Monday at a press conference in Montreal.

Canada in recent years has had nominations in the...

Late screenwriting guru Syd Field often wrote in his Bibles for wannabe film scribes that if the writer doesn’t grab the viewer in the first 10 minutes (or the first 10 pages), then there’s no reason to stay with the story. Often these introductory minutes indicate the kind of story we are about to see, and illuminate important aspects of the protagonist whose journey we will follow. If one judges Boychoir from its opening scenes, few would want to stick around to see how the rest of the story unfolds.

The film begins going steadily through a checklist of conventions for stories about a downtrodden young protagonist with prodigal talent. The first shot of the film is of Stet, played by newcomer Garrett Wareing, crouching behind a train as it rattles through a Texas town. (If one was looking for a more trite way to show that the main character...

Despite some excellent movies coming out in the past year, we’ve been somewhat scant on the true feel-good, underdog stories of a troubled person who makes good. That is all about to change, however, with the upcoming release of Boychoir, which will hit theatres this March.

Boychoir premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, but is only just now getting a Canadian release. It features Dustin Hoffman as a stern conductor at a boys’ school renowned for its choir. Into his midst comes a recently orphaned twelve-year old boy (Garrett Wareing), a troubled but very gifted young singer. Against the odds, the choirmaster must help the boy find his voice.

The film has an impressive cast in addition to Hoffman, as it also includes appearances by Eddie Izzard, Kathy Bates, Debra Winger, and Josh Lucas. The recent trailer for Boychoir gives them all a chance to shine,...

[As you probably already know, starting on Thursday, August 21, Fxx is running the Every Simpsons Ever Marathon, running through all 552 episodes of "The Simpsons," plus "The Simpsons Movie." To aid in your viewing process, Team HitFix is selecting our favorite episodes from each day, plus an episode or two that you can skip and use as a bathroom or nap break.] Day 4 of Fxx's Every Simpsons Ever Marathon really is where the show hits its peak. It's possible that it can't equal the heights of Day 2 and Day 3, but there's a depth to the episodes between "Round Springfield" and "Grade School Confidential" that no other day can top. How good is this day? I even like the big Abe episode, "Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in 'The Curse of the Flying Hellfish.'" How good is this day? We didn't even consider "Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment" and it includes the immortal line, "To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems." And we considered, but didn't write up "Homer's Phobia," with John Waters in one of the show's best guest vocal turns. And nobody even mentioned "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer (The Mysterious Voyage of Homer)" even though Homer's Guatemalan insanity pepper hallucination is an aesthetic highlight.

Pere Cuadrado is not having a good time. He got roughed up a bit the day before in Madrid’s General Strike, and he’s got the bruises to prove it. Pere seems like the sort who’s always mad about something, but in being a part of the General Strike, he’s not alone. In Demonstration, 33 directors head out into the streets of Madrid on March 29, 2012 and capture a huge day of protest called upon by two of Spain’s leading unions about the government’s proposed tax increases and budget cuts. Is it possible that so many eyes can make sense of the outrage and violence of several hundred thousand people in the streets of one Spanish city? That’s tough to say.

Victor Kossakovsky is the lead director here, but it’s his 32 Masters of Creative Documentary students at the Pompeu Fabra University that fan out into...

Cinema has always liked telling a good life story, and all kinds of biography – from the humblest to the starriest – have been given a filmic going-over. The Guardian and Observer's critics pick the 10 best in a very crowded field

• Top 10 animated movies

• Top 10 silent movies

• Top 10 sports movies

• Top 10 film noir

• Top 10 musicals

• Top 10 martial arts movies

• More Guardian and Observer critics' top 10s

10. Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould

This is the most radical of all biopics. It does exactly what it promises, breaking the Canadian pianist's intense and troubled life into concentrated fragments. Reassembly is left to the viewer. When he began working on the screenplay with Don McKellar, the writer-director François Girard recognised the pitfalls of the genre. "There are many traps," he said. "The main temptation is to try to cram everything about a life into one film. What you need is a radical idea...

Columns Festival Roundup Montreal, Thessalonilki, Turino, Tokyo, Toronto and other fall fetes covered by Noah Cowan, David Tracey, and Peter Broderick Production Update by Mary Glucksman Legal Affairs Robert L. Seigel on verbal agreements and the Boxing Helena case Short Ends Winter 1994 Table Of Contents Features What Me, Theory? Peter Bowen thinks about Scott McGehee’s and David Siegel’s Suture and Francois Girard’s Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould Apocalypse Now Jamie Painter unveils Mike Leigh’s Naked Choose Me A roundtable of international festival programmers Too Far For Comfort Nancy Kricorian fills out Atom Egoyan’s Calender Star Trek Marc …...

Apocalypse is an ever-popular idea in cinema. After all, what could be more dramatic than the possibility -- or even the actuality -- of the end of everyone and everything that you've ever known. It's an all purpose metaphor, and can be used to tell all kinds of stories, in all kinds of tones, as highlighted by this weekend's comedy-drama "Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World," which sees Steve Carell and Keira Knightley brought together by the impending end of civilization.

The film's only semi-successful at melding romantic comedy with the end of days, as you'll find from our review, but there's plenty in the film to recommend it as well. And if you're still looking for a little more end-of-the-world drama, we've picked out five lesser-known examples that are worth seeking out Asap. Check out our selections below, and let us know your own favorites in the comments section.

Music biopics are by and large formulaic, strained and unimaginative, despite sometimes featuring Oscar-winning performances (Jamie Foxx in Ray, Reese Witherspoon in Walk The Line). In fact, those two films I just mentioned perfectly illustrate my point: they have the exact same plot, despite centering on two equally great musicians who were wildly different from each other. The two competing films based on the short, brilliant life of singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley have the potential to transcend those limits and approach the epic scale of Amadeus or the mad joy of creation found in the great Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould.

The Playlist brings us updates on both of these projects. Director Jake Scott‘s take on the singer’s life – using David Browne‘s book Dream Brothers: The Lives and Music of Jeff and Tim Buckley “as a resource” – stars Reeve Carney, star of Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark as Buckley,...

If Tina Fey were to pen a 30 Rock episode where Jack Donaghy, aka Alec Baldwin, were transformed into a cat, no doubt that cat would be played by Maru, a Japanese genius cat who also shares a striking bear-semblance to our favorite silver fox. We’ve seen Maru jump into boxes, jump out of boxes, get his head stuck in a bag, jump through hoops, and attempt to cure cancer. He truly is brilliant, perhaps having something to do with the fact that his head weighs 8 pounds, Lipnicki style. Well his brilliance surely has something to do with his owner, a mysterious hand we sometimes see jump into frame to give him a good chin scratching or a treat. And to celebrate Maru’S Third Big Boy Birthday (strange, I thought he was like 63…), we’ve been given this wonderful gift: A compilation of various Lol-arities that, together, reads like...

If my memory serves me correctly, I first became aware of Glenn Gould when I caught a screening of Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, François Girard's highly impressionistic “bio-pic” from 1993, which features Colm Feore as Gould. Thirty Two Short Films sparked a curiosity inside of me regarding Gould’s strange idiosyncrasies, but I also fell madly in love with Gould’s music. That said, besides purchasing a few Gould albums (yes, on vinyl), my fascination with him never went much further. I continued to have a deep appreciation for his interpretations of Bach, but I never made any attempts to learn about the man attached to those gloved fingers.

The acclaimed Art of Time Ensemble, in association with Harbourfront Centre’s World Stage, proudly presents The War of the Worlds, a celebration of the music of Academy Award-winning film composer Bernard Herrmann to mark the centenary of his birth. Featuring some of Canada’s most outstanding artistic talents, The War of the Worlds runs Thursday, March 31 through Sunday, April 3, 2011 at Enwave Theatre.

This staging of Orson Welles’ notorious 1938 radio drama adaptation of the 1898 novel of the same name by H.G. Wells features a powerhouse cast – Nicholas Campbell, Don McKellar and Marc Bendavid – a live 5-piece band and sound effects by foley artist John Gzowski. Art of Time Ensemble Artistic Director Andrew Burashko directs as well as conducts.

Herrmann was the musical director on Orson Welles’ radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds, originally broadcast on October 30, 1938. Aired as a hoax, it famously caused widespread panic as its news...

Do you want answers? Do you believe you’re entitled to them? Do you want the truth? Can you, in fact, handle the truth? The 15 documentaries competing for Oscar have been selected.

Check out the list below [via Oscars.org]:

Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer Alex Gibney, director (Es Productions LLC) Enemies of the People Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath, directors (Old Street Films) Exit through the Gift Shop Banksy, director (Paranoid Pictures) Gasland Josh Fox, director (Gasland Productions, LLC) Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould Michele Hozer and Peter Raymont, directors

(White Pine Pictures) Inside Job Charles Ferguson, director (Representational Pictures) The Lottery Madeleine Sackler, director (Great Curve Films) Precious Life Shlomi Eldar, director (Origami Productions) “Megamind” Quest for Honor Mary Ann Smothers Bruni, director (Smothers Bruni Productions) Restrepo Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger, directors (Outpost Films) This Way of Life Thomas Burstyn, director (Cloud South Films...

Is it acceptable for biopics to make things up – and even tell lies? Ryan Gilbey speaks to the film-makers and screenwriters who are shaking up the genre

In the opening credits of Gainsbourg, a new biopic about the legendary French singer, chain-smoker and lothario, the star is shown swimming among fish who are all puffing away on cigarettes. A little later, Gainsbourg is menaced by a four-armed monster who has sprung from a Nazi propaganda poster. Then there's the small matter of him being followed around by a life-size puppet that only he can see.

This, you realise, is not your run-of-the-mill biopic. And Gainsbourg is not the only example of how the genre is being shaken up. It used to be all about sticking to the truth, with a conventional narrative: they're born, they live, they die. Now biopics are using invention, and even lies, to tell their stories.

The cast surrounding Marvel’s God of Thunder continues to develop.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Jaimie Alexander and Canadian actor Colm Feore are the latest additions to Kenneth Branagh’s upcoming Thor. Alexander will play Sif, an Asgardian warrior who can hold her own against any man, and the romantic rival of Natalie Portman‘s character.

Feore’s role, meanwhile, is being kept top-secret, although it is rumored he will be playing a villain alongside Tom Hiddleston’s Loki.

Thor revolves around a mighty yet arrogant warrior who, as punishment for re-igniting an ancient war, is cast down to Earth to live among humans. Along with learning humility and how to be a true hero, he falls in love with a mortal woman named Jane Foster (Portman) and saves the world. Thor is one of several Marvel Comics movie adaptations expected to dovetail into the 2012 release, The Avengers.

Alexander,...

New cast in Kervorkian film: The cast of the new film about the high profile doctor, Dr. Jack Kervorkian,  who fought "...to establish the right to die for terminally ill patients..." has announced an expansion of its cast.  The made-for-tv film is entitled "You Don't Know Jack," and it will be directed by Barry Levinson.  As announced "back in May" the title role will be filled by Al Pacino.  Recently, "Susan Sarandon and John Goodman have also joined..." I think this is some brilliant and solid casting.  Who can think of a better person to play Dr. Kervorkian than Pacino; who can play everything from intense caricatures of evil from a coke-fuelled gangster in "Scarface" to the Devil himself in "The Devil's Advocate."  He can also show incredible humanity like in "Scent of a Woman."  Both Sarandon and Goodman are solid actors who I feel are underrated talents.  As great...