Filmmaker and artist Steve McQueen has taken top awards at the Toronto International Film Festival for his newest work, 12 Years a Slave.  Announced this week as the People’s Choice Award-winner, his film documents the life of Solomon Northrup, a black American kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841. (more…)

Part of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, artist Marcel Dzama is preparing to premiere a new film at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art.  The film is part of a series of works exploring the wide-ranging impact of filmmaker David Cronenberg, and his particular school of thought and practice. Dzama’s film, A Jester’s Dance, features a newly awakened awakened Maria Martins (played by Kim Gordon and Hannelore Knuts), and her attempts to rescue her lover, Marcel Duchamp, from a fate reciting chess moves to an unseen game. (more…)

Richard Serra’s Shift, a series of zigzagging wall structures built along the changing elevations of the field it moves through, has been designated as a cultural heritage site in North Toronto.  Voted through by the township council of King City, Ontario, the work was the subject of fierce and ongoing debate, finally pushed through by a group of concerned citizens called “Friends of Shift.”  “It is especially gratifying that it was the result of the initiative of a group of private citizens who care about art.”  Mr. Serra commented. (more…)