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91亚色-trained auteur offers interviews around the premiere of his latest feature, a surreal docu-fiction tracing a Mexican miner鈥檚 quiet unravelling following a haunting discovery

91亚色 proudly celebrates the North American premiere of (Cobre), the latest feature by esteemed director, screenwriter and alum Nicol谩s Pereda (BFA 鈥�05, MFA 鈥�07). Screening in the Wavelengths programme at the 50th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Cooper is 鈥渢he latest subtly brilliant work of Pereda鈥檚 magical realist world,鈥� according to In Review Online.

A Canadian-Mexican co-production, the film follows L谩zaro, played by L谩zaro G. Rodr铆guez, a long-suffering mine worker whose years of deteriorating health compel him to seek an oxygen tank. His life takes an unnerving turn when he discovers a corpse by the side of a road, setting off a surreal chain of suspicion, rumour and desire鈥�. This quietly unsettling film employs Pereda鈥檚 signature blend of narrative and documentary elements, underscored by formal restraint, humour and wit.

Having earned both his BFA and MFA in film from 91亚色, Pereda relocated from Mexico City at age 19 to study film in Toronto, culminating in his thesis project and first feature Where Are Their Stories? Over the next two decades, he built a rich oeuvre that has earned him over 30 retrospectives, including presentations by the Anthology Film Archives, Pacific Film Archives and the Harvard Film Archive. His films 鈥� Perpetuum Mobile, Summer of Goliath, Greatest Hits, Killing Strangers, The Absent, Minotaur, My Skin, Luminous, Fauna, L谩zaro at Night 鈥� have premiered at international festivals including TIFF, Venice, Berlinale, Rotterdam, and more.

Pereda is available for interviews to discuss Cooper, as well as his consistent, inventive and deeply empathetic body of work.

Showtimes

Friday, Sept. 12 at 2:15 p.m.

TIFF Lightbox

Saturday, Sept. 13 at 12:30 p.m.

Scotiabank Theatre Toronto

Sunday, Sept. 14 at 7:10 p.m.

Scotiabank Theatre Toronto

Runtime: 78 minutes

Programme: Wavelengths, Unhidden Gems presented by Redbreast

(AMPD) at 91亚色 is a dynamic hub for creative experimentation and expression. With a commitment to cultivating artistic excellence, new ideas and entrepreneurial skills, AMPD students learn by doing with industry-leading professionals in career-focused activities. The Department of Cinema & Media Arts at AMPD offers exceptional hands-on and theoretical training across the evolving spectrum of cinema and media with access to top-tier facilities, including the 91亚色 Motion Media Studio at Cinespace Studios Toronto. From idea to screenplay, camera to screen, screen to critical inquiry, AMPD students learn to think and create in the language of the moving image across all media, guided by faculty who are experts in their field.

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Scholars and filmmakers offer insight on festival programming, Canada鈥檚 screen industry, TIFF: The Market, and the next wave of talent

As the 50th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) celebrates a milestone year, experts from 91亚色鈥檚 Department of Cinema & Media Arts in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design are available to provide commentary on festival programming, industry trends, and the role of TIFF in creating pathways for emerging talent.

Award-winning director, writer, researcher, editor: Professor has worked on over 25 documentaries, a feature film, and numerous television productions. Her films have screened at ZINEBI, DOK Leipzig鈥嬧��, Oberhausen, Chicago and Montreal film festivals, among others. Formerly with the Romanian National Film Board in Bucharest, the Austrian Film Board and CBC/Radio Canada, she is a Gemini award winner and contributor to Film Magazine.

Barta is available to comment on:

• International documentary filmmaking and TIFF Docs programming
• Women behind the camera in the global and Canadian context
• Eastern European cinema and its representation at TIFF
• The art of narrative filmmaking and documentary storytelling

Award-winning director, screenwriter, producer, and scholar: Professor is the writer-director and producer of Obamas and Rosalie, two fiction features that have won over 20 international awards and screened at more than 60 venues globally. He is the author of Spike Lee: Aesthetics of Subversion in Do the Right Thing and is currently writing a book on Indigenous cinema. His research focuses on Canadian Indigenous cinema, African American cinema, city symphony films, and space in cinema. He is writer, director and producer of the upcoming feature Tomorrow at Dawn, due in February.

Djigo is available to comment on:

• Indigenous filmmaking and its representation at TIFF
• Political and racial narratives in North American cinema
• The role of emerging filmmakers and alternative production models at TIFF 50

Award-winning screenwriter, director, producer: Professor is recognized for her bold, inclusive storytelling across film and television. She was the screenwriter for the queer slasher The Retreat, a Globe and Mail Critics鈥� Pick, and won a Directors Guild of Canada award for the short documentary I Was Here, which she directed.  As a producer, her projects premiered at TIFF, Sundance, Sitges Film Festival, AFI FEST, and Locarno. Richards is participating in The Hollywood Reporter鈥檚 inaugural Access Canada Summit at TIFF 50 as part of the Directors Guild of Canada delegation. She currently has two series in development.

Richards is available to comment on:

• TIFF鈥檚 role in developing, shaping and financing emerging talent
• The realities of funding, developing and launching new projects today
• The upcoming TIFF: The Market and its potential for Canadian creators
• How underrepresented voices are reshaping genre film and TIFF鈥檚 role in spotlighting inclusive and genre-defying Canadian content
• 2SLGBTQIA+ narratives in horror and genre cinema

Media industry expert and author: Director, MBA in Arts, Media and Entertainment, Professor teaches at the Schulich School of Business and in the Cinema & Media Arts department. He serves on the City of Toronto鈥檚 film, television and digital media advisory board and is a media policy advisor. He is the author of The Attention Complex and has published on the social and cultural impact of art, media art, and emerging media technology. His research focuses on cultural policy, media policy, and media industry studies. 

He is available to comment on:

• How TIFF supports the Canadian film and television industry
• The launch of TIFF: The Market in 2026 and its impact on the Canadian and international film industry
• The role of government funding and cultural policy in Canadian media
• How academic and industry collaborations shape the future of screen industries

Experimental film scholar, curator, critic and author: Professor is a scholar of experimental cinema, and founding co-chair of the Society for Cinema & Media Studies Experimental Film and Media Scholarly Interest Group (ExFM). He is the author of Moments of Perception: Experimental Film in Canada as well as two books on Hollis Frampton, an icon of the American avant-garde.

Zryd is available to comment on:

• Avant-garde and experimental film at TIFF 50
• How documentaries shape our worldviews, the responsibilities of filmmakers, and how powers and politics influence narrative
• U.S. populism in film and media
• American genre cinema, including sci-fi, musicals, rom-coms, and superhero films

(AMPD) at 91亚色 is a dynamic hub for creative experimentation and expression. With a commitment to cultivating artistic excellence, new ideas and entrepreneurial skills, AMPD students learn by doing with industry-leading professionals in career-focused activities. The Department of Cinema & Media Arts at AMPD offers exceptional hands-on and theoretical training across the evolving spectrum of cinema and media with access to top-tier facilities, including the 91亚色 Motion Media Studio at Cinespace Studios Toronto. From idea to screenplay, camera to screen, screen to critical inquiry, AMPD students learn to think and create in the language of the moving image across all media, guided by faculty who are experts in their field.

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While movie premieres  at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), the future of film is debated in the .

As one might expect nearly  of OpenAI鈥檚 ChatGPT, . But perhaps more significant have been presenters鈥� emphases on how AI and other new technologies are shaping audience experience at the movies.

Talk topics at the conference also included 鈥溾�� a session focussed on new projection and audio technologies for cinemas, and .

Amid such discussions, it鈥檚 clear that movie theatricals 鈥� films screened in physical theatres instead of streaming online 鈥� .

To understand this challenge in historical context, Taylor Mackintosh, a 91亚色 Cinema and Media Arts student (BFA 2024), and I examined the history of movie audiences and their attendance in cinemas.

As the film industry competes for viewers鈥� attention and audiences鈥� limited leisure dollars amid the looming threat of AI, fan buzz at TIFF as well as the TIFF panel discussions hint at something larger: that cinemas may be returning to earlier history by  and  at the movies.

Overall ticket sales decline

The successes of hit summer films such as Inside Out 2 or other recent hits like Oppenheimer, Barbie and Top Gun: Maverick, can look like anomalies, as movie ticket sales continue a more than 20-year decline.

Movie ticket sales in North America peaked at , according to Statista, a data gathering and visualization plaftorm.

While there has been , changing viewer habits may be affecting in-person attendance, while industry strikes .

According to Nash Information Services, in 2024, . Overall, .

Gen Z boosts

One encouraging sign is that in 2020,  and people from this demographic continue to be cinema鈥檚 most habitual moviegoers.

. These audiences access arts and culture first digitally, but they also care about the overall experience, including physical, social and experiential dimensions of events.

A  noted that 78 per cent of this demographic consider social media their primary source for finding cultural content. But they often prefer in-person experiences, and they鈥檙e willing to pay more if they feel it鈥檚 an experience they couldn鈥檛 get elsewhere.

Recorded media, live performance

Perhaps it is no surprise that events combining elements of recorded media and live performance experiences have been successful. The  (2023) movie became , perhaps in part because movie theatres .

Popular immersive experiences drawing on familiar content in art 鈥� like  and  鈥� similarly capitalize on the hybrid experience of popular media presented as an embodied experience.

Television and movies are exploring this format too.   animated favourites in its two-storey projection room and provides interactive projections on the walls and floor.  offers guests the chance to interact with actors dressed in period costume amid live music.

Growing immersive, multimedia experiences

Today, popular entertainment is  we might call the theatricalization of media.

Take, for example, the Netflix series . The series revisits 1980s popular culture, including visual and narrative references to everything from Indiana Jones to hair bands. Now in production for season five, the streaming series has been offered as  and is headed for Broadway as .

Look around and you鈥檒l see the terms 鈥渆xperience鈥� and 鈥渋mmersive鈥� proliferating across media platforms. Along with , the narrative film  (2024) was recently billed as 鈥淎 New M. Night Shyamalan Experience.鈥�

The TED talk by media artist Willie Williams about his collaboration with  has been viewed more . By March 2024 U2 sold more than  the interactive experience.

As Williams describes it, the technical possibilities of an immersive media venue like  create novel artistic opportunities where an audience鈥檚 sensory perception is being choreographed by the artist.

Of course, both theatre and cinemas have always attempted to shape the audience鈥檚 sensory experience. Sometimes this took the form of novel technologies, such as the  and  (image maximum) format in 1970.

Embodied experience at the movies

But some of the most effective examples of audience experience in cinema have had little to do with screen technologies. During the Great Depression, struggling  popcorn and air-conditioning to encourage attendance by a cash-strapped public.

Popcorn was a relatively cheap but filling snack that eventually became a staple of both the movie-going experience and the business model in North America.  that combined with popcorn, newsreels and the escapist entertainment of the films themselves offered an affordable respite during the financial crisis.

Multi-sensory cinematic experiences

Today, we see similar trends in movie-going habits. In a challenging financial context of both technological change and a changing climate, cinemas offer newer attractions and perks such as  and , as well as simple  in a sweltering summer.

Such trends suggest that the future of cinema may look a lot like its past. Or, in the words of the great film and theatre songwriter, 鈥�

By , dean of the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design and Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies, 91亚色, and Taylor Mackintosh, who completed a 91亚色 BFA in Cinema and Media Arts Production, co-authored this story.

This article is republished from . 

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Areas of expertise range from experimental film to documentary, sci-fi and romcoms, animals in film, and the moviegoing experience

The 49th annual Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), running Sept. 5 through 15, features a dynamic lineup of 278 films. Programs like , dedicated to experimental and avant-garde short and feature-length films that challenge traditional cinematic forms; , featuring works from mid-career filmmakers with a strong focus on artist-driven storytelling; , which showcases genre films that push the limits of horror, fantasy, action, and the strange; and others like and combine to make TIFF a celebration of creative freedom and cinematic exploration.

For commentary on programming and films screening throughout the festival, several distinguished voices from 91亚色's Department of Cinema & Media Arts at the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design are available:

 (she/they) is the Dean of the School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design and a professor of theatre and performance studies. She is an expert on film, theatre and new technologies, including digital media in performance which is the subject of three of her books. She has written more than 50 academic and popular essays.

Bay-Cheng is available to comment on the impact of new technologies 鈥� including AI, algorithmic discoverability and digital media 鈥� on filmmaking, the theatricalization of movies, acting, immersive performance and the impact of digital culture on audience engagement and moviegoing.

 is an associate professor and graduate program director for MFA film. He spent his career in cutting rooms 鈥渓ying the truth鈥� through film editing. He understands the importance of story but also its dangers if wielded improperly. In the late 1980s, after studying journalism and film, Becker worked with the National Film Board of Canada to co-edit the documentary  by Academy Award-winning director Peter Watkins. Becker has written, edited and directed nearly 50 documentary films. He is the author of Creating Reality in Factual Television: The Frankenbite and other Fakes (Routledge, 2022).

Becker teaches documentary production, editing, media ethics, essay film, introduction to filmmaking, production, and writing for television. He can provide commentary on documentary, editing, ethics, narrative in fact-based media, media literacy, and German film.

 is a visiting assistant professor who specializes in science fiction and environmental cinema. Thompson is currently working on a book with the University of Minnesota Press titled On Life Support: The Dystopian Environmentalism of 1970s Ecocinema, which uses 1970s science fiction ecocinema as a lens through which to view the early environmental movement.

Other areas of interest include Indigenous futurism, critical animal studies, and film philosophy. He is also available to discuss areas adjacent to his research such as genre cinema, North America in the 1960s and 鈥�70s, animals on film (especially whales!), and AI.

 is tenured faculty and Director of the  at Cinespace. Veninger has produced 15 feature films with premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival, Slamdance, Hot Docs, and the international film festivals of Rome, Whistler, Rotterdam, Locarno, Busan, and Karlovy Vary, and others. She has received retrospectives of her work at the Canadian Film Institute and FEMCine in Santiago. She is a recipient of the Women鈥檚 International Film Television Showcase (WIFTS) International Visionary Award and the Jay Scott Prize presented by the Toronto Film Critics Association.

Veninger is available to offer commentary on independent films (fiction and non-fiction), films by women, the art of screenwriting and directing, and producing.

 is a professor, researcher, critic and curator of experimental film and media. He is interested in the institutional infrastructures and ecologies of experimental film and its intersections with the academy and the art world. Zryd was a founding co-chair of the  (ExFM). He is the author of two books on icon of the American avant-garde Hollis Frampton, as well as Moments of Perception: Experimental Film in Canada.

Zryd is available to comment on programs like Wavelengths, Short Cuts, ,  and select TIFF Docs and Galas premieres. He can provide commentary on experimental cinema, documentary film theory, American genre cinema (including musicals, science fiction, romantic comedies, and the Marvel and DC cinematic universes), U.S. populism in film and media, the history of cinema and media studies as a discipline, video essays and videographic criticism.

About the School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design:

The School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design (AMPD) at 91亚色 is a dynamic hub for creative experimentation and expression. With a commitment to cultivating artistic excellence, new ideas and entrepreneurial skills, AMPD students learn by doing with industry-leading professionals in career-focused activities. The Department of Cinema & Media Arts at AMPD offers exceptional theoretical and hands-on training across the evolving spectrum of cinema and media. From idea to screenplay, camera to screen, screen to critical inquiry, AMPD students learn to think and create in the language of the moving image across all media from faculty who are experts in their field.

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Alumni from 91亚色鈥檚 School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design (AMPD) have films appearing at the 46th annual Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), which runs until Sept. 17. This year, TIFF features several of AMPD's alumni sharing their talent on and off the screen. Read more in

The post Alumni from 91亚色鈥檚 School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design shine at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival appeared first on News@91亚色.