Toronto filmmakers David Weaver, Sudz Sutherland, Aaron Woodley and Sook-Yin Lee are putting the finishing touches on their ensemble feature Toronto Stories, for distributor Christal Films, and have set their sights on the Toronto International Film Festival to launch the project.

‘We’ve all had films at TIFF, so we’re hopeful that might happen on this movie,’ says Weaver (Siblings, Century Hotel).

He says the idea for Toronto Stories – divided into four different chapters with each screenplay shot and directed by a different filmmaker – came to him following a first-time meeting with Woodley, at a party for his feature Rhinoceros Eyes.

‘The next day I was on the subway and thought it would be great to do something with him, and I looked around and thought ‘Why don’t we make a movie about Toronto,” Weaver recalls, adding that Toronto often plays other cities in American movies, but rarely itself.

The film ties together four different storylines as seen through the eyes of a young immigrant boy, who ends up lost in the city after his arrival at Pearson International Airport. It stars Gil Bellows (Ally McBeal), Lee (Shortbus), Carly Pope (Young People Fucking), Lisa Ray (Water) and Tygh Runyan (Snakes on a Plane). Weaver coproduces with Jennifer Jonas (Childstar, Monkey Warfare) through her Toronto shingle New Real Films.

Each director was encouraged to shoot in the style they’re most comfortable with, according to Weaver, while the same crew was used throughout the entire production to ensure a certain degree of unity. The $1-million Toronto Stories shot over four weeks from October to November in areas including Union Station, the Royal Ontario Museum and Kensington Market.

Weaver says DOP and relative newcomer Sammy Inayeh (Ninth Street Chronicles) and editor Kathy Weinkauf (Monkey Warfare) were ‘the glue that held everything together,’ adding that they had the biggest task of adjusting to each director.

The feature is in its final stages of post-production at New Real’s offices in Toronto, and will likely be completed in the next couple of weeks, according to Weaver.

The director says Christal Films and Tony Wosk, its director of acquisitions and development for English Canada, have been ‘phenomenally supportive.’

‘They’re relative newcomers to the [English Canada] market…but they got it right from the beginning what we wanted to do with the film,’ he adds.

Weaver is currently working on a pair of new scripts and says he’s close to financing a feature version of his 2000 short film Moon Palace.