Bacchanal: food, film and Fellini
The Joseph D. Carrier Gallery at the Columbus Centre is currently hosting a unique opportunity to view “Food in Federico Fellini’s Drawings”. The exhibit provides a true feast for film, food and Fellini fanciers.
– Ambrose Roche
On Lake Superior, listening for Rebecca Belmore
Belmore is an award-winning Canadian artist and member of the Lac Seul First Nation who has a new installation at Pukaskwa National Park in northern Ontario. Here, she invites visitors to ‘listen to the land’.
– Schuster Gindin
Distilled Light
Once again in Toronto someone is out to prove that you don’t have to be athletic to enjoy going outside in winter. That’s right, no skiing, skating or sledding involved.
– Schuster Gindin
Music on Every Scale
Toronto offers a rich array of live classical music on every scale of performance. In addition to large concert halls, there are small venues where you can hear solo and ensemble performances by musicians at every level of professional accomplishment playing stimulating new, unconventional, or seldom heard compositions.
– Schuster Gindin
Luminato: Adventure at the Hearn
Our thrilling trek though the derelict industrial site of the Hearn Generating Station, now the locus for the Luminato Festival.
– Schuster Gindin
Art in the Lunchbox
Artists abound along St. Clair W and local café Stella’s Lunchbox is fast becoming a new art hub.
– Schuster Gindin
GET INSIDE: The Winter Stations at the Beach
Winter Stations are back, and we explore the installations both outside and in.
– Schuster Gindin
Finn with an Oyster: The Story Behind Toronto’s New City Hall
Free screening of filmmaker Michael Kainer’s doc on Toronto’s City Hall at The BLOOR/Hot Docs Cinema, 506 Bloor St. West, Wednesday, December 9, 2015, 6:30 p.m.
– Elizabeth Cinello
Wordless Books for Kids
In response to the waves of refugees from Africa and the Middle East arriving on the small Italian island of Lampedusa, the International Board on Books for Young People is establishing a library to be used by young migrants and local children. See their collection of outstanding wordless picture books from 23 countries now on view at the North York Public Library in Toronto.
– Elizabeth Cinello
A TIFF MOMENT: An Outsider Looks In
A Torontonian puts her book down to experience TIFF, and finds the interminable line-up and the screaming insanity over the movie stars of a light-weight comedy drama drives her back to real life in the city.
– Elizabeth Cinello
Drama in our Neighbourhoods – Toronto’s Porch Theatrics
Stroll through a neighbourhood on a warm summer evening, as we often do, and the gardens and front porches, empty chairs or people sitting out, parked bikes and strollers all hint at details of private lives.
– Schuster Gindin
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
Yeah that’s right, I went to see a movie with that title! What’s more, unbeknownst to me, it was the third in a trilogy of which I had obviously missed the first two.Continue reading…
– Miria Ioannou
Reel A
rtists Film Festival
12th annual Reel Artists Film Festival at the TIFF Lightbox screens three documentaries on the subject of risk-taking in the arts.
– Elizabeth Cinello
The Lost Dhow: A Discovery from the Maritime Silk Route
When you enter the latest Aga Khan Museum exhibition ― The Lost Dhow: A Discovery from the Maritime Silk Route ― you are literally aboard a 1200-year-old Arab trading ship, a dhow.
– Robert Fisher
Going Out 
to the Movies
Two movies worth leaving the house for. Rosewater and CitizenFour are engrossing and moving; they add context and nuance to the nightly news and our daily lives.
– Schuster Gindin
Killarney: An Iconic Wilderness Preserved by Artists
Killarney Provincial Park is the only park in the world founded by artists. Only four-and-a-half hours from Toronto, its pristine state is awe-inspiring.
– Schuster Gindin
Hillcrest 
Village Fibreworks: Sharing Our Art
A local group of fabric and textile artists get together to show their work and inspire the community to get creative.
– Stephanie Lever
Talking Food: The 100 Foot Journey
A soufflé of a movie, and why would French people speak to each other in English with French accents?
– Miria Ioannou
May 13 Screening
Hot Docs Cinema presents ‘Abacus, My Love,’ a film by local filmmaker Rebeccah Love on May 13.
Continue reading and view the trailer…
La Grande Bellezza – The Great Beauty
If you’ve seen this Oscar-winning movie from Italy, you’ve heard the remarkable soundtrack. One song takes me back to the dog days of disco…
– Elizabeth Cinello
The Place of Art, The Art of Place
Harbourfront is one place where you feel both in the city and on its edge at the same time. We stroll along the Waterfront Trail to our ultimate destination, the exhibition at the Power Plant.
– Schuster Gindin
Arctic Defenders
Opening night at the Planet in Focus Film Festival and a young Inuit drummer and two throat singers kick off the screening of Arctic Defenders. Their music and rhythms are beautiful and unique; it is exhilarating to hear and miraculous to be reminded that we are all part of the same country…
– Schuster Gindin
I Thought the Gift Shop was an Ai WeiWei Installation
A friend invited me to the members’ preview of the monumental Ai Weiwei: According to What? exhibition at the AGO. In a refreshing departure from gallery policy you can take pictures of his work. Ai Weiwei wants you to…
– Elizabeth Cinello
Night Visions at the Ex
Toronto photographer Alex Ioannou captures nocturnal scenes at the CNE.
Why I Like to Fringe
The Toronto Fringe Festival is a non-juried festival of plays and dance pieces of diverse genres ranging from 50 to 75 minutes in length at various venues in the city from July 4th to the 13. There are 148 shows in 35 venues to choose from: musicals and dramas and adaptations, comedy and stand-up. How much fun is that?
NOW Magazine provides constant updates with reviews of the performances so if you’re planning to go, you must act quickly. Continue reading…
Toronto Fringe Festival – July 4th to the 13th
SummerWorks Theatre Festival – August 8th to the18th
– Debbie Nyman
Kim’s Convenience
My first shopping destination with my brother and sister was our local convenience store to buy milk and to choose with great difficulty penny candy or chips. Now I live almost across the street from a convenience store. Over the years the store has saved me and my neighbours late in the evening when there was no milk for breakfast or scotch tape for a last minute school project. I have come to know the different owners and sometimes I have been fortunate to learn their stories and how they came to this place. One such story is currently being told through the play Kim’s Convenience on stage at Soulpepper Theatre at the Distillery. It is in part the playwright’s story, his parents’ story and the composite story of an immigrant child and his family. Ins Choi, the playwright, states in the introduction, “Kim’s Convenience is my love letter to my parents and to all first generation immigrants who call Canada their home.”
– Debbie Nyman
Out of joint with the crowd – our TIFF evening
It’s Saturday night and we are on our way to the TIFF Bell Lightbox. We love seeing movies there – the theatres are all beautifully designed and apart from the Festival in September it’s usually so sparsely attended that it feels like our private club. We arrive at 4:30 for a 4:45 screening of an old French movie, and the line-up is out the door and half a block down the sidewalk. My god, Toronto really is a film town! We’ll never get in. Turns out …
– Schuster Gindin
Seen these or anything else you like? Send us a note about your experience.
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