In a flash Day 5 (of ten) has already arrived and the fest is already half over, although it seems like it just began. Like it or not what really makes a festival like Berlin second only to Cannes --besides the 400 or so films from around the world shown --is the St***ar power it generates, and festival director Dieter Kosslick makes no bones about this. He goes all out to invite as many big name stars as possible and even claims that the worst nightmare of his ten year posting as festival dire...

 Wednesday, September 3--------Music documentaries and special music events are taking center stage at the Toronto International Film Festival, which opens tomorrow evening with the world premiere of the Canadian epic Passchendaele. Following last year's docs on the Rolling Stones and U2, this year's crop looks at the worlds of rock music, international rhythms and Broadway showtunes.One of the hottest tickets in town is for the film It Might Get Loud, which features the likes of Jimmy Page (L...

Music documentaries and special music events are taking center stage at the Toronto International Film Festival, which opens tomorrow evening with the world premiere of the Canadian epic Passchendaele. Following last year's docs on the Rolling Stones and U2, this year's crop looks at the worlds of rock music, international rhythms and Broadway showtunes.One of the hottest tickets in town is for the film It Might Get Loud, which features the likes of Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), the Edge (U2) and J...

"U-CARMEN eKHYELITSHA" is an extremely unusual version of the opera Carmen set in a squalid shanty-town "Township", Khyelitsha, near Capetown, South Africa --and sung entirely by African singers in the "click language", Khosa! This black Carmen is a light year beyond the light brown "Carmen Jones" of 1954 which starred Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge and seemed so sucy and racy at the time. For one thing, Pauline Malefane (Carmen) is not a slender Hollywood mannekin type like Dandridge ...