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UNFORGETTABLE SAGAS, SCOOPS AND SCANDALS
from Toronto Life’slong-form archives
Dear Reader,
There are traces of Toronto all over this year’s list of Oscar nominees. Women Talking, Sarah Polley’s adaptation of Miriam Toews’s novel, is up for two awards: best picture and best adapted screenplay. Domee Shi’s Turning Red will go head to head with honorary Torontonian Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio for best animated feature film. Fearless director Daniel Roher’s Navalny, about the Russian opposition leader, is up for best documentary. Plenty of other nominees, including Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, premiered at TIFF. In this edition of The Vault, we revisit some of Toronto Life’s best silver-screen coverage, including a delightful profile of Shi, an engrossing feature about provocateur David Cronenberg and a glitzy package of pieces celebrating the rising superstars bound to snag Oscars in the years to come.
—Luc Rinaldi, features editor
She was a storyboard artist at Pixar when she pitched an idea about a sentient dumpling and won an Oscar. Now she’s releasing Turning Red, a film about a Toronto teen who morphs into a giant red panda—and it’s going to be huge
BY EMILY LANDAU | MARCH 8, 2022
Toronto has long had a hangdog self-image about its place on screens big and small. The city’s $2.2-billion film and TV industry is thriving, yet Toronto rarely appears as itself. Turning Red is a refreshing exception. To see the city translated into a lush Pixar landscape, all stretched, squished and gleaming, is a pure dopamine hit. In this long-read from last year, Emily Landau tracks Scarborough-bred director Domee Shi’s rise through the ranks of Pixar. The piece is as fun and colourful as Shi’s Oscar-nominated flick.
David Cronenberg’s creepy obsessions say as much about us as they do about him
BY KATRINA ONSTAD | DECEMBER 3, 2013
Before Eastern Avenue was lined with film and TV studios, before Atom Egoyan, Don McKellar and Sarah Polley were making movies, and before TIFF turned Toronto into a cinematic epicentre, there was David Cronenberg. For decades, the so-called Baron of Blood has been leading us—finger crooked and grinning—to confront our grimmest fantasies and fears in films shot almost exclusively in Toronto. In this masterful profile from 2013, Katrina Onstad gets inside the mind of Canada’s most famous, controversial and downright weird director.
The actors, directors, showrunners, producers and other Toronto talent making waves right now
BY PATRICIA KAROUNOS, SIMON LEWSEN, SARAH LISS, JASON MCBRIDE, SORAYA ROBERTS, MATHEW SILVER, CAITLIN STALL-PAQUET AND CAITLIN WALSH MILLER | AUGUST 17, 2022
It’s impossible to avoid the tidal wave of film and TV talent flowing from the GTA, wowing critics and enchanting audiences. This package of profiles and Q&As from 2022 features a selection of brilliant local stars: Marvel heroes, sitcom leads, queer icons, teen prodigies and irresistible bad boys. The average age among them is 26, which means that, for all their successes, they’re only getting started.
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FEBRUARY 2023: SECOND CITY, THE EARLY YEARS
Fifty years ago, the launch of Second City Toronto catalyzed a big bang of Canadian comic talent. Its star-studded cast redefined what’s funny, won back-to-back Emmys for their spin-off television series, SCTV, and cemented Toronto’s image as a comedy capital. Our February issue features exclusive interviews with early cast members—Martin Short, Catherine O’Hara, Rick Moranis, Joe Flaherty, Dave Thomas and Robin Duke—about the group’s lasting influence. If you’re still not receiving Toronto Life at home, what are you waiting for? Subscribe today.
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