When my film friend Dale said she was going to the Toronto International Film Festival, I wanted to go too. And now I am! They turn 40 this year. I'll shortly after turn 48, so this is kind-of a birthday trip.
I've made all my film selections and just picked out the first 20 tickets. I have to wait until September 7th to get the remaining 12. I will absolutely try to get into one film through the rush line.
Here's what I'm seeing! I'm excited about everything in this list.
My comments in italics. Many are directed by a woman, and are marked with an asterisk* (22/30 films in my list).
Late addition: if you want to join me in Toronto, see my schedule at tiffr here. I wish I'd found tiffr like three weeks ago. Woulda made scheduling so much easier.
Have Tickets
Into the Forest*
Two sisters (Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood) struggle to survive in a remote country house after a continent-wide power outage, in this gripping apocalyptic drama from director Patricia Rozema (Mansfield Park, I've Heard the Mermaids Singing).Girls Lost*
Three outcast teenage girls get a new perspective on high-school life when they are mysteriously transformed into boys, in this skillfully crafted tale of sexual confusion with a supernatural twist.The trailer to this one is even more interesting than the description.
Parched*
Ninth Floor*
In her first feature-length documentary, director Mina Shum (Double Happiness) takes a penetrating look at the Sir George Williams University riot of February 1969, when a protest against institutional racism snowballed into a 14-day student occupation at the Montreal university.Miss Sharon Jones!*
Two-time Academy Award winner Barbara Kopple (Harlan County, USA) follows R&B queen Sharon Jones over the course of an eventful year, as she battles a cancer diagnosis and struggles to hold her band the Dap-Kings together.I really like Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings.
Five Nights in Maine*
Golden Globe nominee David Oyelowo (Selma) and Academy Award winner Dianne Wiest (Bullets Over Broadway) star in this intimate drama about a grieving widower who sets out to fulfill his wife’s last wish that he finally meet her irascible mother.The longer description, in the link above, includes a more detailed and subtle sense of this film. I'm excited to see another film with David Oyelowo (yes, Selma, but he was also extraordinary in Nightingale, on HBO).
Body*
The lives of a young woman with an eating disorder, her coroner father, and a physical therapist who believes she can communicate with the dead intersect in unexpected ways, in this absurdist dark comedy from the director of the 2011 Festival hit Elles.The Pearl Button
The great Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán (The Battle of Chile, Nostalgia for the Light) chronicles the history of the indigenous peoples of Chilean Patagonia, whose decimation by colonial conquest prefigured the brutality of the Pinochet regime.This one is interesting to me because I just saw the PBS series on the First Peoples that explored the possibility that Native Americans came from Asia not over the land bridge, but by boating along the shore of the bridge all the way to South America. Perhaps the indigenous people in this film are direct descendants of the first peoples.
Kind Words
Mustang*
Five young sisters living in a coastal Turkish village on the Black Sea are placed under the tyrannical regime of traditional morality by their guardians, in the poignant, award-winning first feature by Turkish director Deniz Gamze Ergüven.Thank You for Bombing*
Austrian filmmaker Barbara Eder’s latest fiction feature looks at the behind-the-camera lives of three international war correspondents on assignment in Afghanistan.Our Little Sister
After their estranged father's death, three twentysomething sisters discover that they have a teenaged step-sibling, in this gentle, deeply affecting family drama from Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-eda (Like Father, Like Son).3000 Nights*
Railroaded into an Israeli prison on a terrorism charge, a young Palestinian woman discovers that she is pregnant just as a group of her fellow inmates launch a revolt against the prison administration.Summertime*
In 1971 France, a young girl from a rural family moves to Paris and begins a life-changing affair with a feminist activist.Almost every time I see a French film at MSPIFF I swear I will never see another. Occasionally I find a decent French film and try to see it but I made Dale and Liz promise me they'll try to talk me out of French films. They tried for this one. But the trailer makes it seem like it has little ennui and an actual plot and story arc. Unlike most French films. Besides, it's a queer feminist film. I may regret it though.
Dark Horse*
Filmmaker Louise Osmond follows the story of a group of friends and neighbours in a small Welsh town who pool their modest resources to invest in a racehorse they dub Dream Alliance, and soon find themselves breaking social barriers by competing against some of the wealthiest horse owners in the UK.Looking for Grace*
A married couple (Richard Roxburgh and Radha Mitchell) embark on a road trip across West Australia in pursuit of their runaway teenage daughter, in the new film from Australian writer-director Sue Brooks (Japanese Story).Room
Escaping from the captivity in which they have been held for half a decade, a young woman and her five-year-old son struggle to adjust to the strange, terrifying and wondrous world outside their one-room prison.Loved this book. The TIFF description says the film stays in the child's POV just like the book, but it seems to extrapolate a little--most of the film focuses on post-emancipation.
Sky*
Fleeing from the scene of a terrible crime, a young woman embarks on a life-changing road trip across California and Nevada, in this drama starring Diane Kruger, Lena Dunham and Norman Reedus.
An*
Whispering Star
A humanoid robot deliverywoman muses on the mystery of human nature as she drops off parcels around the galaxy, in this playful sci-fi fable from Festival favorite Sion Sono (Why Don't You Play in Hell?).Need to Get Tickets
A Journey of a Thousand Miles*
Documentarians Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (the Academy Award-winning Saving Face) and Geeta Gandbhir follow the stories of three Bangladeshi policewomen who served with the UN peacekeeping mission to Haiti in the aftermath of the devastating 2010 earthquake.Fire Song
One of the first films by a First Nations director to deal with two-spirited people, the thoughtful and moving debut feature by Adam Garnet Jones focuses on a young Anishinaabe man who is forced to choose between staying in his community or exploring the expanded possibilities of the world outside.Angry Indian Goddesses
On the eve of their friend’s wedding in Goa, a group of women discuss everything under the sun — from their careers, sex lives, and secrets to nosy neighbours and street harassment — in this largely improvised and refreshingly frank depiction of contemporary Indian society from award-winning director Pan Nalin (2001’s Samsara).Murmur of the Hearts*
Legendary Taiwanese actress and filmmaker Sylvia Chang directs this magical story of estranged siblings whose shared memories of their mother’s fairy tales begin to draw their lives together once again.25 April*
Director Leanne Pooley (The Topp Twins) fuses documentary, fiction, and state-of-the-art digital animation in this astonishing recreation of the 1915 Gallipoli campaign, one of the bloodiest and costliest blunders of the First World War.Loved The Topp Twins film!
Disorder*
A young ex-soldier suffering from PTSD (Matthias Schonaerts) protects a beautiful woman (Diane Kruger) and her child from a brutal home invasion, in this masterfully engineered thriller from director Alice Winocour (Augustine).Granny's Dancing on the Table*
A young girl living under the heel of her tyrannical religious zealot father in the depths of the Swedish forests finds strength in the memory of her rebellious grandmother, in the searing new feature from director Hanna Sköld.
A Tale of Three Cities*
Journey to the Shore
A young widow undertakes an elegiac voyage with the spectre of her dead husband, in this delicate, touching ghost story from Japanese master Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Tokyo Sonata, Pulse).Campo Grande*
A wealthy middle-aged woman unexpectedly finds herself caring for two impoverished young siblings, in this subtle, touching and sincere study of class disparity from Brazilian filmmaker Sandra Kogut.Films I'm Not Seeing
Stonewall is premiering at TIFF. I hope to be part of a protest or action instead of attending. Any film about Stonewall needs to be centered around trans people-of-color. Not a white cis-gendered boy from Iowa.If the director had done the right thing and cast the transgender person in About Ray with a transgender actor, this film would be at the top of my list. Not now that they're getting played by a cisgendered person.
No Men Beyond This Point could be fantastic or fantastically horrible. I'm thinking that when women stop needing men for reproduction, you'll see a whole hell of a lot more bisexual women in the world. And transgender women. And gender queer women. Secret affairs with men would be few and far between.
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