VOA标准英语2010年-Toronto Festival Becomes Center of Fil

Canada steals the spotlight¹ from Hollywood for 10 days every September when stars, filmmakers and audiences gather for the Toronto International Film Festival. This year's 35th annual film showcase concludes on Sunday.

As a major film production center, Toronto is no stranger to top stars; but at the Festival even publicity-shy Oscar-winner DeNiro submits - albeit² uncomfortably - to reporters' questions about his role in the new film "Stone."

"Uh, I mean the story ...in general, my character and what he goes through is something that I could empathize with a lot, to say the least, and I think a lot of it is a classic situation," he said.

As the tense prison drama "Stone" unspools, in another cinema audiences can chuckle³ through "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger," the new comedy from Woody Allen, also in town and fending⁴ off questions about the film's perplexing ending. "I didn't want the characters to neatly⁵ wrap up his or her story with a nice 'MGM' ending or something. I wanted the people to wander around in agonizing⁶ limbo⁷ ...you know, like in real life. Naturally, nobody is going to pay to see this," he said.

But audiences, indeed, do pay to see the films at the TIFF⁸, as the Festival is known locally. It's a terrific experience for directors like Andrew Lau, who arrived from Hong Kong just in time for the North American premiere of his martial⁹ arts drama "Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen". "I was very happy. When I jumped out of the car I saw all the people outside the theater and I said "oh, this is wonderful," because a director loves to see that kind of thing: a long queue ...we love that kind of things, so I'm so happy about that," he said.

Cameron Bailey, who is co-director of the TIFF, said "We have over 300 films at the Festival. About 260 of those are feature films, 122 of them are world premieres and they are from over 60 countries." Bailey heads a team of 20 programmers who scour¹⁰ the world every year for new films from veteran directors and first-timers. Bailey says they stress the "international" part of the festival title and it is something Canadian audiences welcome:

"I think we pride ourselves on being open-minded and curious about the rest of the world. We are not as inward looking as, maybe, some other countries ...partly because, I think, particularly Toronto is such a diverse city. The majority of the population is people who were not born in Toronto, so we are outward looking. We are curious to see what the world is bringing to us and I think we pride ourselves on being engaged with the world, being fair minded, having a kind of ironic¹¹ sense of humor about things (and) certainly never taking ourselves too seriously. I think you'll find that in the audiences at the movies here at the Festival," he said.

Irish writer-director Juanita Wilson was particularly moved by the audience response to her film "As If I Am Not There," a heartbreaking drama about women forced to be sex slaves during the war in Bosnia.

"There was a Bosnian couple who came up to talk to me. They had left because of the war and the woman was saying that she couldn't even listen to music from home because it was so sad and so upsetting. Yet she felt coming to this film was going to open a new chapter in her life. Things like that matter so much to me; and you make films for this reason, not for the awards and not for the reviews. You actually make it so that you can touch the hearts of real people and when you do it is such a privilege that you can do that when people are open to it. It just reaffirms the power of cinema," she said.

The early autumn dates position the TIFF as a major springboard for the annual awards season. Recent Toronto favorites like "American Beauty," "Juno," "Slumdog Millionaire" and "The Hurt Locker¹²" went on to win Oscars. However, it is also a chance to spotlight new, smaller films. South African-born German director Oliver Schmitz brought his powerful drama of a teenager's struggle to keep her family together, "Life Above All:"

Of course, whenever filmmakers gather, they 'do lunch,' as they say: hold informal business meetings that can lead to a film being picked up for distribution in markets around the world or, as Oliver Schmitz points out, also pave the way for new projects:

"I think the best scenario¹³ for any film festival is to have one film that is screening and another one which is ready to shoot and looking for that final financing. It is what happened this year in Cannes on a project that I'm shooting in Germany next year and Paramount¹⁴ is part of that project so that was fantastic. Now I'm concentrating on the movie, but already I've had meetings this morning, which will lead to other things," he said. "So the best thing, actually, is to have something that people can see and take note of and then say 'hey, I also have this other project.'

Festival official Bailey says the crowded theaters and backroom meetings are not his main measures of success for the film showcase.

"We do have quantitative¹⁵ measures we can look at: the number of pictures that are sold, the number of premieres that we have, the number of tickets sold, as well. But I think what I often do is I like to stand in the back of a theater with a filmmaker and just see how he or she reacts to the film. If they are watching the audience and the audience is into it and the filmmaker is pleased by that and this is an experience that they haven't had yet - this is the world premiere of their film and they're loving it and if they'll come back as a result with their next film, then that's success for me," he said.

Cameron Bailey is co-director of the 35th annual Toronto International Film Festival.
 

1 spotlight   

n.公众注意的中心，聚光灯，探照灯，视听，注意，醒目

参考例句：

• This week the spotlight is on the world of fashion.本周引人瞩目的是时装界。
• The spotlight followed her round the stage.聚光灯的光圈随着她在舞台上转。

2 albeit   

conj.即使；纵使；虽然

参考例句：

• Albeit fictional,she seemed to have resolved the problem.虽然是虚构的，但是在她看来好象是解决了问题。
• Albeit he has failed twice,he is not discouraged.虽然失败了两次，但他并没有气馁。

3 chuckle   

vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑

参考例句：

• He shook his head with a soft chuckle.他轻轻地笑着摇了摇头。
• I couldn't suppress a soft chuckle at the thought of it.想到这个，我忍不住轻轻地笑起来。

4 fending   

v.独立生活，照料自己( fend的现在分词 )；挡开，避开

参考例句：

• He is always spending his time fending with the neighbors. 他总是与邻里们吵架。 来自互联网
• Fifth, it is to build safeguarding system and enhance the competence in fending off the risk. 五是建立政策保障体系，提高防范和抵御风险的能力。 来自互联网

5 neatly   

adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地

参考例句：

• Sailors know how to wind up a long rope neatly.水手们知道怎样把一条大绳利落地缠好。
• The child's dress is neatly gathered at the neck.那孩子的衣服在领口处打着整齐的皱褶。

6 agonizing   

adj.痛苦难忍的；使人苦恼的v.使极度痛苦；折磨(agonize的ing形式)

参考例句：

• I spent days agonizing over whether to take the job or not. 我用了好些天苦苦思考是否接受这个工作。
• his father's agonizing death 他父亲极度痛苦的死

7 limbo   

n.地狱的边缘；监狱

参考例句：

• His life seemed stuck in limbo and he could not go forward and he could not go back.他的生活好像陷入了不知所措的境地，进退两难。
• I didn't know whether my family was alive or dead.I felt as if I was in limbo.我不知道家人是生是死，感觉自己茫然无措。

8 tiff   

n.小争吵，生气

参考例句：

• They patched up their tiff again.他们平息了争执，又和好如初了。
• There was a new tiff between the two girls.那两个女孩之间有一场新的吵嘴。

9 martial   

adj.战争的，军事的，尚武的，威武的

参考例句：

• The sound of martial music is always inspiring.军乐声总是鼓舞人心的。
• The officer was convicted of desertion at a court martial.这名军官在军事法庭上被判犯了擅离职守罪。

10 scour   

v.搜索；擦，洗，腹泻，冲刷

参考例句：

• Mother made me scour the family silver.母亲让我擦洗家里的银器。
• We scoured the telephone directory for clues.我们仔细查阅电话簿以寻找线索。

11 ironic   

adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的

参考例句：

• That is a summary and ironic end.那是一个具有概括性和讽刺意味的结局。
• People used to call me Mr Popularity at high school,but they were being ironic.人们中学时常把我称作“万人迷先生”，但他们是在挖苦我。

12 locker   

n.更衣箱，储物柜，冷藏室，上锁的人

参考例句：

• At the swimming pool I put my clothes in a locker.在游泳池我把衣服锁在小柜里。
• He moved into the locker room and began to slip out of his scrub suit.他走进更衣室把手术服脱下来。

13 scenario   

n.剧本，脚本；概要

参考例句：

• But the birth scenario is not completely accurate.然而分娩脚本并非完全准确的。
• This is a totally different scenario.这是完全不同的剧本。

14 paramount   

a.最重要的，最高权力的

参考例句：

• My paramount object is to save the Union and destroy slavery.我的最高目标是拯救美国，摧毁奴隶制度。
• Nitrogen is of paramount importance to life on earth.氮对地球上的生命至关重要。

15 quantitative   

adj.数量的，定量的

参考例句：

• He said it was only a quantitative difference.他说这仅仅是数量上的差别。
• We need to do some quantitative analysis of the drugs.我们对药物要进行定量分析。