After much traffic and strange ego battles on street corners (of which neither I nor Sage were a part) we made our way into the Isabel Bader theater for the 4:45PM tribute to Norman McLaren, the person who created the animation department at the National Film Board of Canada back in the 40’s. The Governor General of Canada as well as Fest director Piers Handling were both on hand to introduce the tribute – a series of stop motion and animated shorts beautifully restored by contemporary animators at the NFB for a 7 DVD collection being released later this year.

Standouts were Blinkity Blank which won the Palme D’or some years ago – a peppery color on black short reminiscent of a Mentos in a bottle of Pepsi experiment or a winsome fireworks display. A Chairy Tale was also both highly entertaining and stood out for the ingenuity and emotion with which McLaren was able to imbue an ordinary wooden chair as it interacted with the male actor. Also a beautiful work set to the Oscar Peterson Trio that was very reminiscent of Stan Brakhage. Highly inspiring.

Also bought a pair of tickets to see “Sharkwater” – the doc about diminishing shark populations around the world and the repercussions of losing the top level predator to an ecosystem, and “I Don’t Want To Sleep Alone”, which received 5 stars in eye weekly’s roundup.

I am off to be a true Canadian and visit the beautiful nothern forests Barry’s Bay this weekend; nothing realigns one’s energy so well as a weekend on the Canadian Shield (for those not in the know, it is one of the largest concentrations of quartz crystal rock in the world).

Be back Monday for more observations on TIFF 2006. Have a good one, and stay cool!