Originally launched in Paris with the goal of bringing contemporary art to the masses, Nuit Blanche has established itself as one of the highlights of Toronto鈥檚 annual cultural calendar. Each year, this free dusk-to-dawn event enlivens and transforms the city with original art projects ranging from intimate encounters to large-scale spectacles.

More than one million visitors are expected to turn out for this year's edition, which takes place from 6:51pm Saturday, Oct. 5 to sunrise on Sunday, Oct. 6. Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2013 will feature more than 100 exhibitions, performances and experiential events in indoor and outdoor venues throughout downtown Toronto. 91亚色 artists are among those contributing one-of-a-kind works to this celebration of creativity and community engagement.

Visual Art & Art History Professor is part of the team behind , a "portrait petition" to bring attention to the continuing detention of Canadian humanitarians Dr. Tarek Loubani and 91亚色 film Professor John Greyson, who were arrested on the street in Cairo, Egypt, on August 16. Nuit Blanche will mark the 50th day of their imprisonment. The website gathers images of individuals from around the world holding written messages of support, calling for the release of Greyson and Loubani.

Images from the freetarekandjohn tumblr

Nuit Blanche visitors are invited to contribute to the portrait petition at photo booths located at Toronto City Hall, 401 Richmond Street West and the Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen St. West). The booths will run a live feed of the growing petition and a video featuring the first 250 portraits uploaded to freetarekandjohn.tumblr.com. The tumbler site will continue after October 5 and includes directions on how to upload your photo from home or mobile.

91亚色 visual arts alumna (BFA 鈥�97) recruited 100 regional beekeepers for her installation , billed as a massive collective meditation. As the keepers meditate in their bee-suits, viewers are asked to consider the relationship of temper to weather. The beekeepers will silently meditate on notions of 鈥済ood weather鈥� for the bees and for all of us, attempting to transform environmental conditions with their minds. While exploring the tangible effect of collective meditation, the work creates a public platform upon which to reflect on the health and temper of bees and their keepers, and on the policies and environmental conditions that affect our shared future.

Your Temper, My Weather will be performed from 7pm to midnight in the Art Gallery of Ontario (317 Dundas St. West), where Borsato is currently artist-in-residence.

Right: Night Shift, 2013

Sobey Art Award finalist (BFA 鈥�02) takes inspiration from Le Ballet de la Nuit, a 17th century 13-hour court ballet that was most notable for the involvement of the young Louis XIV of France, for his durational performance . Fernandes has re-contextualized the ballet into a contemporary dance performance in which dancers endure from dusk until dawn, dancing and making golden confetti in anticipation of the new tomorrow. Night Shift聽questions notions of labour and time within the context of night changing into day as the dancer鈥檚 body endures and asserts itself in the process of performing.

Night Shift can be found both indoors and out around the Bay Adelaide Centre (333 Bay St., access from Temperance St). At dawn. in celebration of the new day, the accumulated piles of golden confetti will be thrown into the air to mark the conclusion of the work.

Right: Everyday Marvels, 2013

Dance artist and arts advocate (MA 鈥�05) conceived, created and directs at the Gardiner Museum (111 Queen's Park). The program features 16 miniature vignettes (or 鈥榤arvels鈥�) by eight local choreographers, based on The Book of Marvels 鈥� A Compendium of Everyday Things by Canadian poet Lorna Crozier. The objects interpreted in Crozier鈥檚 poems - such as 鈥榖owl鈥�, 鈥榲acuum鈥�, 鈥榝lashlight鈥� and 鈥榳heelbarrow鈥� - become the subjects of exploration through Litzenberger's cyclical, 12-hour performance piece. The cast features more than 50 professional and community-based artists. 91亚色 participants include dance MFA student Valerie Calam聽 and alumni Julia Aplin (BEd 鈥�07) and Peter Chin (BFA 鈥�85).

Left: 12 hour dolly, 2013

On October 1, award-winning filmmaker and interactive artist (BFA 鈥�02) and his crew set up a circular dolly track in the middle of a busy Toronto street. At 7 pm, they began filming on the track and continued shooting non-stop until 7 am the next morning. Throughout this 12-hour cycle, spectators were invited to step in and interact with the space as they saw fit. The spontaneous performances of these impromptu participants was captured with beautiful cinematography and lighting, heightened by the cinematically epic movement of the dolly shot. Projected onto the atrium wall of TIFF Bell Lightbox (350 King St. West) as an uninterrupted 12-hour film, invites visitors to spend time contemplating the participants in the film as well as the filmic apparatus itself.

Involved behind the scenes at Nuit Blanche is Kelsey Luxton, a masters candidate in Art History and Curatorial Studies, working as an events programming intern.

For comprehensive event info and a detailed schedule, visit the website.

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CineSiege, 91亚色鈥檚 annual juried student film festival, is often the harbinger for success at festivals around the world. After, the winner of the CineSiege Best Sound Award in 2009, is the latest good news story. Inspired by Dennis Cooper鈥檚 poem "After School, Street Football, Eighth Grade", After is a humorous and dark coming-of-age film that visualizes three teenage boys鈥� fantasies about an older teenage football player.

Right: A scene from Mark Pariselli's short film After

Directed by Mark Pariselli (BFA Spec. Hons. '09), this short film is one of only two Canadian works shortlisted for the prestigious Iris Prize (the most valuable single prize lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender [LGBT] short film competition) and has screened at high-profile festivals all over the world, including in the cities of Paris, Athens, Montreal, Seattle and Chicago, and at festivals in Germany and Switzerland.

At the Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film & Video Festival that took place May 20 to 30, Pariselli received an honorable mention for the Best Up-and-Coming Toronto Film or Video Maker ward.

is the feature film debut by director Andres Livov-Macklin (BFA Spec. Hons. '04) and producer Hugh Gibson (BFA Spec. Hons. '04). The aluCine Toronto Latin Media Festival presents the Toronto premiere of this documentary film, screening July 9 to 12, at 7pm nightly at The Royal.

Above: A Place Called Los Pereyra tells the story of a tiny community in the Argentine jungle

It tells the story of how life in a tiny community in the Argentine jungle is unexpectedly changed by a visiting charitable mission. Subtle, sweet, often humorous, but also poignant, A Place Called Los Pereyra examines adolescence, charity and the clash of two worlds.

The two alumni will attend each screening and be available to answer questions after the film concludes.

Another 91亚色 film duo picked up prizes at Toronto鈥檚 Worldwide Short Film Festival June 1 to 6 for their work on , a six-minute dance film shot in a women's change room. The Best Experimental Short Prize was won by director (BFA Spec. Hons. '06) and the Kodak Award for Best Cinematography in a Canadian Short went to cinematographer (BFA Spec. Hons. '07). Choreographer (BFA Spec. Hons. '87) is part of the creative team for Slip, which also includes (BFA Spec. Hons. '06) as producer and several 91亚色 dance alumni in the cast.

Left: Slip is a six-minute dance film shot in a women's change room and features the choreography of 91亚色 alumna Yvonne Ng

(BFA Spec. Hons. '96) is the winner of the 2010 Astral Media Mentorship, coordinated by the Foundation for Women in Film & Television-Toronto (WIFT-T). The mentorship is a national competitive program that gives one Canadian female or male producer who is a visible minority, Aboriginal or an individual with a disability the opportunity to develop their marketing strategy and hone their pitch and presentation skills in preparation for the Banff World Television Festival, which took place June 13 to 16. Lau received a festival bursary and a five-day pre-festival mentorship that included meetings with Astral Media and three intensive workshops with industry consultants.

鈥淭his mentorship is so important at this time of limited resources within the industry,鈥� said Sadia Zaman, WIFT-T executive director. 鈥淒uring day-to-day work there are few opportunities to simply build presentation skills and to focus on career development. Our partnership with Astral Media will allow Mishann to do just that."

Lau has been writing, directing and producing independent short films for the past 12 years. Her films have screened at the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, the International Women鈥檚 Film Festival in Cologne, Germany,聽and the Michigan Womyn鈥檚 Music Festival. She was also selected to create shorts for the 1997 On the Fly Festival, the 2004 Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival and the 2007 Pride Video Launch.

On the faculty front, three professors have had recent festival success.

Visual arts Professor Katherine Knight鈥檚 documentary about Newfoundland-based performance artist Colette Urban, , which made its Toronto premiere at the Reel Artists Film Festival (see YFile, Feb. 25), won a special mention at the in Rhodos, Greece 鈥� its first international screening.

Film Professors John Greyson and Ali Kazimi鈥檚 film Rex Vs. Singh picked up the prize for best Canadian short film at Inside Out. (For more info on this experimental exploration of Vancouver history and human rights, see YFile, Aug. 20, 2008.)

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

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