James Franco and Gus Van Sant set to contribute an installation at this year’s TIFF

James Franco has collaborated with Gus Van Sant on a film project that can be viewed as an installation at TIFF 2011 in the TIFF Bell Lightbox Atrium. Dubbed Memories of Idaho, it serves as a meditation in multiple parts on My Own Private Idaho, focusing on Van Sant’s experiences with River Phoenix. The duo has created two new films (with elements from original work), which are the main pull factors of this artistic installation—the first part, My Own Private River, is a chronological reassemblage of excised scenes and alternate takes from the original shoot of My Own Private Idaho, while the second part, Idaho, comes from one of the three scripts Van Sant used to create the original film. Both films were shot using Super 8 film to create a  “ghost” of Van Sant’s original conception and will be projected in a dark space, which just sounds cool, even for those unfamiliar with Phoenix’s work or life outside of the Viper Room.