Sadly, Friday finally came, and with it our last day of films. We extended our trip two days precisely so we could see a certain film on Friday night. Before that, however, we saw the Short Cuts 3 program, one of several collections of Canadian short films screened by the festival. This collection entitled, “The Making Of…” was of particular interest to us because is featured two shorts by none other than Don McKellar. His pair of films, “Phone Call from Imaginary Girlfriend: Ankara” and “Phone Call from Imaginary Girlfriend: Instabul” were commissioned by a cell phone company in Canada, and shot on cell phone. They are oddly funny and moving at the same time, something Don is adept at capturing. The rest of the shorts were mostly unsatisfying, with only two others being worthy of the Chlotrudis Short Film Festival: “Troll Concerto” and “At the Quinte Hotel.” We followed up the shorts with a quick trip to the Japan Foundation Toronto for their exhibition, Monstrous Visions: Horror and Destruction in Japanese Films. This exhibit of Japanese anime, horror and monster movie posters was a draw because it naturally featured posters of Godzilla and Mothra! Our afternoon film was from Russia and was called BED STORIES.
It was all a build-up to the evening screening of Tsai Ming-Liang’s THE WAYWARD CLOUD, of course, and we were rewarded not only with a personal appearance by the director, but by lead actor Lee Kang-sheng as well! Ned had sent a warning to me through Russ the night before that the film took a surprising turn toward the ending making Ned very angry. I wasn’t terribly concerned: this was Tsai Ming-Liang we were talking about. Still, I have to admit, days later, the ending of THE WAYWARD CLOUD is still haunting me unplesantly. It’s a strong film, powerfully done, with many of Tsai’s hallmarks: scant dialogue, static cameras, absurd humor, gorgeous musical numbers. It is also about a porn star and has several fairly explicit sex scenes. 
Most surprising is the shocking switch in tone from light-hearted and fun to ugly and disturbing. Like Michael Haneke’s CACHE, this film has me pondering the motivations of the director to present the story the way he did, although that doesn’t take away from my appreciation for it. After the film I considered asking Tsai about his decision during the Q&A, but once again, as with THE NOTORIOUS BETTIE PAGE, the audience hurled imbecilic questions at Lee Kang-sheng about what it was like to play the explicit scenes, etc. It was rather surreal to see Lee Kang-sheng standing up there on stage as he looked exactly as he does on screen in his many Tsai Ming-Liang films.
We wrapped the festival with something different, a rock and roll concert! More on that later today.