Reflecting on the 2018 Stratford Festival Season

Michael Walton and Bretta Gerecki's light and set design
for later scenes in The Tempest.

This was a particularly strong season for the Stratford Festival, visible in the extension of at least four shows into the beginning of November and in the case of Rocky Horror, even to the end of November (which I don’t think has happened before). With today’s performance of Julius Caesar, I have now seen every show. Here is how it has settled for me, as the season winds into its autumn days, and the gold light and leaves along the river remind us that all glorious things must transition on. I don’t believe in “bests” because all criticism is subjective. I choose to use here “Favourite” instead.

Favourite Opening:
The opening sequence from Music Man, where more than a dozen performers simulate the movement of a train with its passengers, and the train itself, while involved in very complex repetitive song/dialogue. This was my first show and a knockout way for me to begin my season. Donna Feore has become increasingly formal, to my mind, in her quest for perfection, but this is an amazing example of what can be achieved by it.

Favourite Production Design Moment:
The Tempest, in which a catastrophic storm reveals an impressive webbed net of tree roots to be swarming the balcony and its passthrough underneath. This moment formed part of an opening that was a beautiful combination of both lighting (Michael Walton) and production design (Bretta Gerecki) and one of the only times in a production of this play that I truly felt the terror that we are meant to have. Without that terror, the magic of the island and the capacity for transformation cannot happen.

Favourite Ensemble Acting Work:
Hands down, Long Day's Journey Into Night. The torturous realities of the addictions which both mask and stimulate family dynamics has never been (to my viewing) more beautifully realized by a company of actors: Seana McKenna, Scott Wentworth, Gordon S. Miller, Charlie Gallant and Amy Keating, directed by Miles Potter. Without meaning to really single anyone out, this was a moment of awakening for me about the gifts of Miller. James Jr. is a thankless role that he brought a capacious and broken heart to. (As a note: for me Coriolanus and Long Day's Journey are opposite ends of the spectrum of what theatre can be: exhiliratingly innovative and traditional in the very best sense.)

Favourite Subversive Moments:
The Rocky Horror Show in about ten places. This incredibly tight and beautifully realized production opened the lid on all of the subversive undercurrents of the play and the film, while losing none of the playfulness. In an era when gender identity and the malevolence of inappropriate human sexual behaviour are in the public discourse, this production marvellously freed us from the strain of that, to laugh at the ‘horror’ that exists within us all and perhaps, as a result, making us a bit more in touch with it. Runner up on favourite ensemble work.

Favourite Supporting Performance & Overall Set Design:
I was moved by Tom Rooney’s quiet beautiful indignation as Riccardo Spasiano in Napoli Milionaria, the physician who is oppressed by the family matriarch and suffers deeply at her hand, but offers redemption later. This set by Julie Fox was also my favourite design of the season, ranging from the exquisite clotheslines of the opening to the cave-like home of the family which changes over time but never quite loses its sense of humble beginnings. I loved the presence of the street behind the door, with its votive Mary alcove always visible.

Favourite Unexpected Pleasure:
An Ideal Husband belongs to a genre of theatre that typically I don’t enjoy as much as others: the drawing room comedy. I was compelled to it by the Oscar Wilde factor and Wilde himself is mocking the form here — gently and with affection. The use of doors opening and closing, secrets concealed and exposed reminded me of the best of Ernst Lubitsch films, and Lezlie Wade’s production underscores the idea that revelations of plot are as much about character depth as they are about the webbings of intrigue. I sat very close at this show, and was also enchanted by production design — such a strong year for design at Stratford!

Favourite Innovation:
Coriolanus was astonishing in its scope and vision, its desire to re-invent a very complex and challenging piece of the Shakespeare canon into a multi-layered (and not just multi-media’d) revelation on the escalating and rapidly dangerous consequences of ambition. Loved the rolling sets, but in particular the moment where Coriolanus’ son plays with army soldiers while we see a projection, video game style, of what such ‘play’ truly represents. Robert Lepage also made the play remarkably contemporary, not just through modern settings, but modern contexts and cultural idioms. A sports bar will never be the same for me again.

Favourite Iconic Moment:
The death of Julius Caesar is one of the most telegraphed scenes in all of Shakespeare and yet in today’s production, it took me completely by surprise. The sudden cascade of rose petals in an otherwise spare production design, and the subsequent dipping hands in blood by the murderers isolated this event from its surroundings exactly as it should be. It is not just a plot point but an upheaval, a shifting of tectonic plates. The casual anger with which the men have planned it is disrupted by the event itself, ramping up the sense that we are in for ’consequences’. The ‘Et Tu Brute?’ had an unusually subtle pathos, as staged by Scott Wentworth and acted by Seana McKenna and Jonathan Goad. A tip of the hat to the large number of understudies in play today — but for the programme notice, we would not have known.

Favourite Non-Traditional Casting:
Comedy of Errors. I personally find the Studio at the Avon quite challenging to make work well for all audience members. The absence of the Patterson this year caused the festival to rely on this atelier space more than it might have usually. It is often highly priced as well, reflecting the production values that have been squeezed into its dynamics. Productions have to climb a higher rope to succeed there, to my mind, and this year I thought that only Long Day's Journey and Comedy of Errors made the space work. Keira Loughran’s direction in the latter, and particularly the use of levels, and the pacing of her production, allowed us to let go of some of the baggage of expectation with this old warhorse comedy of Shakespeareanna. The non-traditional casting seemed less intentional than in other productions (like Caesar and Paradise Lost) and somehow more natural and effective. We were allowed to just revel in the absurdities of relationships. I was particularly illuminated by this production in understanding that the play is indeed about relationships and how we perceive each other, in our close bonds, more than anything else. I believe the casting was a big part of that illumination.

Favourite Explorations:
Theatre should be about trying things on that are difficult and new, and not everything can work fully, or right away. We live in a thumbs-up and thumbs-down era, in which we seem to need to judge art immediately, tweet out our opinions, and be conclusive. Criticism needs to learn to be more constructively encouraging and reflective. Productions do not fail audiences, they challenge us to think about what has been unsatisfying and why. Audiences are not consumers, they are upholding their end of the bargain of being patient listeners and investors, people who still walk away thinking, even when not fully happy. This was my experience of Paradise Lost, Brontes: A World Without and To Kill A Mockingbird, though I have had conversations with individuals this summer who passionately loved each of these shows for good reasons. There were good ideas being explored by them all. I appreciated the desire to illuminate the nature of darkness and light in Paradise Lost. I loved the desire to make the Bronte sisters feel more like people we know and recognize and not just suffering geniuses. I thought the desire to keep vivid for us the historical context of Mockingbird was worth exploring, in contrast to the presence of the storyteller in the drama. All of these ideas were important to investigate.

The Stratford Festival offers us a chance to play in the imagination of contemporary creative artists. I am so grateful for how much this year they have educated my own imagination.

#tiff18 review: Vita & Virginia

Arterton and Debicki shooting Chanya Button's Vita & Virginia

I was a student in my late teens in the early 1980s when I first came to know the novels of Virginia Woolf. Over my undergraduate years, I would eventually specialize in all of Woolf's writing, though more through a creative obsession than formal academic discipline. While studying at McGill, I once interviewed Nigel Nicolson (Vita's son) for a literary journal and striking up a kind of friendship, visited him in 1988 at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, Vita and Harold's long-time home they made together. I stayed there as a guest, and during that time Nigel enjoyed playing games with how much I knew, once standing with a copy of printed poems of Vita's with the title concealed and telling me I could have it if I could name what it was. I spoke my guess, and he handed it to me in a kind of delight.

Vanessa Redgrave and Eileen Atkins in Atkins' play
Vita & Virginia. 

None of this makes me an expert, but it certainly adds to my appreciation for Chanya Button's beautifully crafted adaptation of the deep love and some time romance between the great Bloomsbury writer Virginia Woolf, arguably the foremost literary voice of feminism in the early twentieth century (though she would have hated any label), and Vita Sackville-West, a poet, novelist and eminent gardener. The relationship between the two women has preoccupied many. There is Edna O'Brien's play Virginia in which Vita appears, and there is Eileen Atkins' play, also called Vita & Virginia. Atkins co-wrote this screenplay with Button and the film may owe a lot of its depth to the years of work she has spent on the relationship. I saw Atkins perform in her own play as Virginia on Broadway, with Vanessa Redgrave as Vita -- and that was in the 90s. While I can hear the play in the screenplay, it is also re-invented and different: in some ways the film is more distilled than the play was. The addition of locations and camera language absorbing faces and contexts liberates the relationship from its literary cage and also forces it into a kind of kaleidoscope viewer. The biographical lens is longer but turns in beautiful colours and shapes, with sharp bold edges.


Those edges are defined from the start by wonderful performances. When Elizabeth Debicki's Virginia is first introduced to us -- a much more bold and taciturn version than the Nicole Kidman incarnation in The Hours -- she is sitting at her writing table working and listening to a radio interview between Vita and husband Harold Nicolson (diplomat and writer) as they debate what makes a good marriage. Both women are therefore seen immediately in their element. Woolf is seen in her best self: writing without illness or affliction. Sackville-West is speaking from her deep independent spirit. Best selves are of course not always possible: the headaches that led to episodes of psychosis and delusion in Virginia are given wonderful visual life in this film through momentary powerful and unobtrusive use of effects. In that opening sequence, Harold Nicolson describes marriage as being analogous to a plant that is nurtured by love, and Vita wonders aloud, disparagingly, if he is implying a trope that a wife is the 'soil'. Later Virginia will walk into the room where her own husband Leonard is reading her novel Mrs. Dalloway, and in her fear and exposure waiting for his verdict she has a vision of an unbridled plant unfolding and creeping along the ground between them. In this way, the moments of struggle are not portrayed as a weakness or 'madness' but as a constant challenge and manifestation of the way in which Virginia reflected on all images, sounds and ideas in her orbit.

At the same time, Vita's striding elegance is commanding and viscerally powerful. The casting reverses their physical size (Vita was very tall and thickly built while Virginia was much smaller) and also presents Vita as more Mayfair than she was -- she was an aristocrat but she was too tall and awkward to have real glamour. Her power came from her unabashed assertiveness of inner formidable strength. One moment missing from the film is Virginia's own naming of the moment she fell in love with Vita, watching her order fish in a fishmonger's in Kent, solid, beautiful and in full control of her aristocratic demeanour but not glamourous; she describes Vita's bearing in that moment instead as being like a Spanish galleon on the high seas. In this film version Debicki towers over Gemma Arterton's Vita, but it doesn't matter. In every other way Arterton captures Vita's heart beautifully, and the film rightly focuses instead on who they were. In a way Debicki's height helps to emphasize Woolf's claim that Vita taught her how to believe in her own strength.

Vita; Virginia and Vita; Virginia

I once interviewed filmmaker Anthony Minghella in which he said that adaptations must always have some compression and reinvention. In this storytelling, many years have been compressed inside the primary years of mutual influence among the women, which technically was 1922-28, but which in the film includes events or contexts that were in truth well into the 1930s. Victoria Glendinning has enumerated in detail Vita's many love affairs of this period, and scholars like Louise De Salvo have tried to break down and calculate the sexuality of Virginia. There are wide-ranging opinions of whether they were lovers or not, and for how long, and how often. Such detailed listing misses the point: they were profoundly influential to each other; they loved each other body and soul but that love was always at odds within their lives, married as they both were to men whom they also loved and who, despite the professed desire of both men for them to have independence, in the end often put strong constraints on the women. Their love survived numerous separations and gaps of connection and visit. When Virginia finally killed herself in 1941, Vita was devastated. Nigel Nicolson himself drew my attention to the fact that Vita locked herself up in the tower at Sissinghurst and spent two years writing spiritual biographies of the saints. Even though their physical relationship had been ended for more than a dozen years, there was no question in her letters to Harold and to others that Virginia had owned a corner of Vita's heart uniquely her own. When I visited Vita's writing room at Sissinghurst, there were three portraits left on her writing table: a drawing of Emily Bronte, a photo of Harold and a photo of Virginia.

Cathryn Harris playing Violet Trefusis and Janet McTeer playing
Vita in the BBC's 1990 series Portrait of a Marriage

The film opens with a lot of talk about Vita's previous relationship with Violet Trefusis, a socialite who believed herself to be an illegitimate child of royalty and who so captured Vita's heart that they went away together for an extended period in the late 1910s, not long after Nigel was born. It was a kind of existential lived-out fantasy, but also extremely real. Nigel Nicolson wrote about it in his book Portrait of a Marriage which is in turn based on an extended diary of Vita's recounting that affair. Button's film minimizes this passion, perhaps to allow Virginia more impact on Vita and it is perhaps a bit unfair: Violet was unmistakably the great passion of Vita's life to that point, and was based on an entire life time of knowing her. It was not just an extravagant fling. In the BBC mini-series of the 90s, which was an adaptation of Portrait of a Marriage, and in which Vita is played by Janet McTeer, there are at least three hour-long episodes that outline how deeply connected the two women were.

Atkins, now joined by Penelope Wilton as Vita

Yet, what Vita and Violet did not have and which Vita and Virginia had in spades was an intellectual and spiritual appreciation for who the other was, at her deepest heart. They understood each other in ways that eluded the rest of the world. And it has taken a half-century of scholarship mostly by women to unravel this truth. So it makes sense that a twenty-first century young female filmmaker would find her own way of diving in and bringing out this truth. In scholarship, there was always the presumed contextual points of view of the first men who chronicled the women's lives: Harold's diaries; Leonard's diaries, the biography of Woolf by Clive Bell, the biography of his parents' marriage by Nigel Nicolson. This is one of the very real achievements of the film: it bursts free of the male gaze on this relationship and completely captures the essence of its complexity. I still can't quite absorb how well it does so. Although the two women characters say often during their extended early romance that they cannot quite understand the other, the net effect is one of blindness: they see each other so truly that they doubt they have seen at all. When Vita accuses Virginia of treating everything in her life as 'copy' for her writing, she says it plainly without meaning any deep insight or insult. But Virginia is staggered by it, because its deeper truth feels to her on the surface like something that should not be true. At the end of the film, in a beautiful scene in which they are effectively laying the romance to rest, Virginia now unwraps Vita's character, lovingly, and with full acceptance of her many contradictions.

As the two women, Arterton and Debicki (almost unbelievably) nail it. As deeply as I respected Kidman's portrait of Woolf, it never quite jived with the jocular, robustly witty and even (at times) sparkling Virginia of the letters. Virginia's letters have been called (by Nigel Nicolson) among the very best of her writing and he's right. In the film, a measure of deep credibility is Vita's mentioning her love of Virginia's essays -- so lovely that fact is in. The essays, like the letters,  vibrate that deeper intellect that Vita adored. Debicki's characterization embodies the frailness of Virginia in a completely unusual way: the inconfidence, uncertainty about her own work becomes the place of greatest vulnerability. Her capacity to engage others and also hide away from them is beautifully balanced here, and I was moved quite frankly to tears by how well that very painful balancing act on Woolf's part was brought to life. Gemma Arterton, whom I so deeply enjoyed in Lone Scherfig's Their Finest for her capacity to bring an urgent desire for independence to an otherwise passive female character, here shows her capacity for range. As Vita, she goes from idolizing the Bloomsbury crowd to becoming somewhat captive to their artistic caprices. Arterton's range is most vivid in a scene where Vita is posing effectively as herself at Charleston, Vanessa Bell's home, while Woolf and her sister orchestrate a perfect picture of her, who will be fictionalized with as much of the truth as possible in Woolf's Orlando. In this scene, the agency has been upended and art has won: Woolf stands behind the camera in full command of her vision, while Vita is rendered helpless and objectified by her lover's gaze. It was a view/angle I had not considered before but it resonates. I also loved Arterton's wonderful nuancing of emotion in the final scene between them, still in more love than she had realized or taught herself to believe and also in wonder at Woolf's insightful understanding. That scene is one for the ages: for performance, for the beautiful lighting and cinematography, for the filmmaker's instinct not to get too close with the camera so that the two of them are always in frame together.

As the film rightly portrays, it would take the novel Orlando to bring Woolf to this place of strength. Vita's sexual appetite moved her on from Virginia to other relationships and Orlando brought her squarely back. Beneath both of these possessions is a deep and cherished admiration for each other's gifts. This is not new territory for director Chanya Button, whose 2015 film Burn, Burn, Burn was a testament to the enduring friendship of two women. In Vita & Virginia, as a writer and a director, Button favours medium and wider shots over more intimate close-ups, allowing us an equality and distance that always keeps in mind the women's contexts. The love scenes feel almost detached, while clearly the result of their mutual hypnosis. These prerogatives of direction felt like wise and right choices to me, dreading as I was, a more lurid kind of depiction. Vita and Virginia loved the gifted other, the brilliant soul. "I have a million things not so much to say, as to sink into you," Virginia once wrote to Vita. And we can be grateful that now at least a hundred of those things have been sunk into us.

The 98 most intriguing films at #TIFF18!

Elizabeth Dobicki and Gemma Arterton in Chanya Button's
Vita & Virginia

It has begun.
Over the last few weeks, the full programming for TIFF18 has unfolded like a jubilant waterfall, soaking us in pearls of light. The festival's commitment to a leaner and more artistically focused programming began last year and I felt really worked to make TIFF less overwhelming and more thematically embodied by its principals. Even two weeks ago, the films announced to date might have been enough, as their overall quality appears to be quite high. But as the remaining titles have dropped in, it has only become more and more apparent that this could be one of the best TIFF years ever. In a separate blog, I profile some of what I feel is the most promising collection of shorts I've ever seen programmed at TIFF, in terms of breadth of subject matter, international presence and the early signs of strength from trailers and images. Is there any relationship between the sense of increased quality and the addition of a number of new programmers? Who knows. The TIFF programmers are the very best there are. Although I didn't plan it this way, nearly all of them are represented here somewhere.

Juliette Binoche and Masatoshi Nagase in Naomi Kawase's Vision

If you are like me and the programmers matter, you will find each film's programmer at the end of each entry. I have my favourites, who seem to programme right into my soul, and when it comes to a last minute choice, programmer wins over subject matter. (No I won't reveal the favourites.) A Canadian premiere means the film has been largely seen by industry folks and likely to have only two or three screenings, meaning films especially sought after have to be carefully planned. And finally the programming area of the given film might help to group other films of the same kind. Therefore categories such as Discovery and Platform are also noted. In some cases (notably Galas and Platform), the programmers are not indicated and so there is no name given. Film titles which start with "The" are grouped together under "T".

In the end, these selections are extremely subjective as all selections are. You will find only one Midnight Madness title here only because it's not my thing. Debut feature filmmakers are -- I'm more willing to take a risk on a new voice than go with something less compelling from an old master. Therefore, take these choices with those very specific grains of salt. After more than thirty years of attending the festival, I have a system and a set of priorities -- but with those years also comes experience.

So bookmark and keep checking back! There are close to a hundred sure bets here for an engaging and unique experience at TIFF18!

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22 July
Stories of terrorist episodes are being reconstructed in a number of TIFF18 films (see Hotel Mumbai below). At a time when the phrase 'soft targets' is entering worldwide vocabulary, we can hope for some insight into why these horrifying moments occur and their deep and longlasting impact. If anyone can do it, Paul Greengrass can (he directed most of the Bourne films). Here he reconstructs the events surrounding the mass murder of youth on a Norwegian retreat island in 2011. Special Presentations. North American Premiere. Cameron Bailey.

3 Faces
A Jafar Panahi film should automatically be on everyone's shortlist. The Iranian filmmaker who has been banned from making movies has used every imaginable cover in order to do what he loves anyway, sometimes smuggling the finished films out of the country on a flash drive baked into a loaf of bread (This is Not a Film) or by making his car his studio and shooting entirely within its cramped quarters (Taxi). But mostly his films should be seen because they are so good. 3 Faces won the screenplay award at Cannes and follows an Iranian actress as she attempts to investigate a video made by a fan who killed herself. North American Premiere. Masters. Dimitri Eipides.

A Star Is Born
There seems to be a tradition with this movie story that has been around for decades and decades -- of casting an extraordinary performer as the female small-time singer or actor character who eventually eclipses in fame the big-time superstar character of the story --- often played by men who can't sing or act as powerfully. There was Janet Gaynor and Frederic March in 1937. (Watch the trailer for that one.) Then there was Judy Garland and James Mason in 1954. Who can forget James Mason's penetrating performances in North by Northwest and Heaven Can Wait; but no question who the real focus of attention is here (watch how the trailer for that version focuses entirely on Garland). It is ihere that the woman's profession shifts: Garland plays an aspiring singer; Mason plays an actor. Then there was the Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson version in 1976, where both characters are singers. (Trailer.) So, it makes complete sense that now, in 2018, we have come full circle in this fourth version, once again casting an actor as a singer (Bradley Cooper), and once again featuring an actress who is already an established international superstar (Lady Gaga). The new spin in this version is that the actress is acting for the first time. All of Gaga's predecessors had acted prior to the Star Is Born they played in. Although the new stars look more like their 1976 counterparts physically, as I watch this trailer I am more reminded of the Garland/Mason one in terms of the dramatic tension between personalities. I will definitely see this, but not sure if it will be at TIFF. An October release is scheduled. Galas. North American Premiere.

Angelo
Colonialism has many guises. Markus Schleinzer’s feature follows the odyssey of an African boy as he is abducted into 18th century Vienna and transformed into a performer for court society. The boy becomes a man and identity must be freed. Platform. World Premiere.

Angels Are Made of Light
I am drawn to this documentary by American filmmaker James Longley which profiles a boy's school in Kabul and the specific lives and dreams of some of its students. It reminds me, by association, of the short film by Samira Makhmalbaf embedded in 11'9"01, in which an Afghan teacher struggles to explain the 9/11 event to children who can comprehend bombs and terrorism but cannot really imagine tall towers. Schoolroom stories from this part of the world offer chastening realities and glimmers of hope and this film promises both. Tiff Docs. Canadian Premiere. Thom Powers.

Asako I & II
Once again, the simple clip/trailer for this film has sold me. Ryusuke Hamaguchi's dreamy realism reminds me of Kore-eda's more family-centered stories. Reminiscent also of the Double Vie/Sliding Doors stories of double identity, it follows a young woman whose lover disappears and whose doppelgänger turns up two years later, as irresistible as the first man. Contemporary World Cinema. North American Premiere. Giovanna Fulvi.

Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner
All four Cinemathèque films are an exciting and rare opportunity to see these great classics projected in optimum conditions. I am thrilled to be able to see Inuk filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk's Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner in full screen projection at TIFF. The first of a trilogy of films made by Inuk and Inuit filmmakers, and shot entirely in Inuktitut language, Atanarjuat was voted by a TIFF poll in 2015 as the greatest Canadian film of all time. Retelling an ancient Inuit legend, it follows the story of a man with two wives, and the complex unravelling of relationships that occurs when his rivals attempt to limit his great capacity as a fast runner. Not to be missed. Cinemathèque. Originally released in 2001. Brad Deane.

Anthropocene
As a diehard follower of Jennifer Baichwal's collaborations with Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, there is no way I would miss this third and ultimate chapter in her exploration of human activity and the planet. Here joined by both Burtynsky and a third creative influence in producer/cinematographer Nicholas de Pencier, Anthropocene continues the almost essay-style consideration of human domination of the planet begun with Manufactured Landscapes and continued with Watermark. I was at the premiere of Manufactured Landscapes at TIFF and remember vividly Baichwal's description of returning home from shooting that film and clearing her house for all objects "Made In China". Since that moment, I have appreciated the unswerving and essential focus of her commitment in creative connection with Burtynsky's aesthetic. I have taught in my own classes many times the memorable opening shot of Manufactured Landscapes, which tells us so much about whose hands we're in. (Watch the trailer on the link.) Special Presentations. World Premiere. Danis Goulet.

Baby
I don't know the work of filmmaker Liu Jie but I'm looking forward to encountering it in this film about a woman striving to prevent a baby from suffering a fate that was almost her own. Executive Produced by Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-Hsien, it reads like an emotional ropewalk with a simple and profound premise. Special Presentations. World Premiere. Giovanna Fulvi.

Blind Spot
I was immediately drawn in by the trailer for this film about a family that is devastated by a daughter's unexpected actions. There is a Run, Lola, Run subjective camera feeling about a lot of the films this year. Sometimes these style trends do manifest. Very keen to see this first feature as a director by Swedish actress Tuva Novotny. Discovery. International Premiere. Steve Gravestock.

Boy Erased
A high-profile cast is brought to what is effectively this year's Miseducation of Cameron Post, Joel Edgerton's portrait of a young man who is sent by his Baptist pastor father and mother to a conversion therapy camp when it comes to light that the son is gay. Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe and Lucas Hedges star. Someone dear to me lived something close to this story's premise, so I may prefer to watch it one quiet night in the winter on Netflix; however, buzz is strong and the trailer is promising. Special Presentations. International Premiere. Kerri Craddock.

Bulbul Can Sing
Rima Das's Village Rockstars was a hit at last year's festival, so I am keen to see this coming of age story of a young girl in a small Indian village trying to figure out who she is with two friends. Contemporary World Cinema. World Premiere. Cameron Bailey..

Burning
Although he has been making movies since the nineties, there has not been a film from Lee Chang-dong since his exquisitely beautiful Poetry -- about a woman who becomes a poet while grapplng with Alzheimers. Like Terrence Malick (with whom Chang-dong shares some affinities), the films are few and far between so this is a rare window. I am not generally drawn to the thriller genre, but will see Burning, about two childhood friends whose world is turned upside by an interloping stranger. Special Presentations. North American Premiere. Giovanna Fulvi.

Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Marielle Heller turns her keen eye for the female psyche to the story of Lee Israel, arguably the only writer who has been more famous for her crimes of literature than her own unique gifts. It's hard to tell from the trailer, but I hope the film is looking to reveal a more human and more writerly side of Israel. A reason to see it is the ever-unfolding incredible brilliance of Melissa McCarthy, whose capacity as a character actor has been revealing itself in recent years in astonishing ways. If you haven't been convinced, look up her SNL Sean Spicer impersonations. I think she is an actor of our times, though I am never very interested in or engaged by the projects she chooses. Let's hope this is the turning point and that McCarthy starts to become a heavy contender for more innovative dramatic film projects. Special Presentations. International Premiere. Cameron Bailey.

Capernaum
Capernaum is a heavy-hitter for me. I have followed the films of Lebanese filmmaker Nadine Labaki since she began and have been so grateful for each one. This is her first feature film since 2011's People's Choice Award winner, Where Do We Go Now?, which is a powerful indictment and also hopeful vision of religious difference -- and a musical! Caramel followed the intimate lives of women hairdressers in Beirut whose individual dreams and ambitions are only possible through them all coming together, despite differences. This quality of diverse and divisive communities who somehow overcome their challenges is a continuing theme. Capernaum won both the Jury Prize and the Ecumenical Jury prize at Cannes. Shot again in Beirut, it follows a twelve-year old boy's quest to sue his parents for having given birth to him without the capacity to raise him. Special Presentations. North American Premiere. Cameron Bailey.

Cities of Last Things
The full program note is not out yet for Ho Wi Ding's Cities of Last Things, but I am drawn to this story of one man's relationships with women told over three eras, three relationships and three seasons, in reverse chronology. I really enjoy taking a narrative from its end to its beginning without flashback -- I am reminded of François Ozon's 5 x 2 which worked so well in reverse order in showing us the heart of the relationship. I am intrigued to find out about this Taiwanese director whose Pinoy's Song received numerous awards. Platform. World Premiere.

Cold War
Pawlikowski is back. And there are few films that I am more breathlessly anticipating than this one. Fresh from his director's prize at Cannes, the trailer of this film (watch from the link on title) did in fact take my breath away with its contrasting energies and Pawlikowski's black and white aesthetic that recall his Oscar winning Ida, one of my top films of all time. I cannot stop watching this trailer and like any addiction, I want more. His capacity for putting the camera exactly where it should be -- emotionally -- is unlike any other filmmaker I know. Special Presentations. Canadian Premiere. Piers Handling.

Colette
Of course I am going to see Colette, and yes at TIFF. I was so deeply moved by what Wash Westmoreland did with Still Alice and besides, the producing team are Christine Vachon, Elizabeth Karlson and Stephen Woolley, the inspiring minds and legendary producers that allowed Carol to have the creative space it needed and the loving attention it required to become the jewel that it is. Those are the reasons I would see it, right there. But I also grew up on the Claudine novels, came to the story of Colette as a young lesbian and am prepared to follow the increasing depth I'm finding in the work of Keira Knightley. Special Presentations. Canadian Premiere. Kerri Craddock.

Edge of the Knife
Many reasons to be excited about this first feature from Helen Haig-Brown and Gwaii Edenshaw which follows a traditional Haida Gwaii tale of a nineteenth-century survivor of a sea storm whose life in a deep forest brings about a transformation into the Gaagiixid/Gaagiid (the Wildman). Shot entirely on Haida Gwaii in two dialects of the Haida language, it is the first in a series of projects that the filmmakers hope to make. This would be an amazing public screening to attend, to listen to the filmmakers and those associated with the making of this film. The Facebook page often profiles the participants. Discovery. World Premiere. Danis Goulet.

Emu Runner
One of the things that TIFF does best is provide a showcase for first-time feature filmmakers of promise. Australian Imogen Thomas bows in with this coming of age story of a young Brewarrina girl who forms a bond with a wild emu while trying to cope with the sudden loss of her mother. Discovery. World Premiere. Jane Schoettle.

Fahrenheit 11/9
Michael Moore returns to TIFF where his career began with Roger and Me (I was there!) to bring us a new doc that spins the title of his 2004 film Fahrenheit 911 to Fahrenheit 11/9. Even the title is cunning because it also calls to our mind the events of 9/11 and the profound shift in American politics that it ushered in. The first film investigated the Bush administration war on Iraq. The new film refers to the election date of the current American president and the shift in American culture and values that it signified. Moore rarely disappoints, and if you stand in a public line-up you might find him wandering down and chatting with you, coffee in hand. Tiff Docs. World Premiere. Thom Powers.

Falls Around Her
Writer, filmmaker and video artist Darlene Naponse has been making films for a long time, and was also a 2017 Writers’ Trust/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize finalist. She lives and works in her home community of Atikameksheng Anishnawbek in Northern Ontario. Falls Around Her features Tantoo Cardinal as a world famous singer whose return home to her birth community brings reckonings all around. Contemporary World Cinema. World Premiere. Danis Goulet.

Fig Tree
Again, I love a feature debut. I then get to follow that filmmaker through the years to come and watch them turn into festival favourites. Aäläm-Wärqe Davidian’s first feature film is set in Civil War Ethiopia c 1989, as a young Jewish girl hatches a plan to save her Christian boyfriend while the family plans to move to Israel. While there are a number of coming-of-age stories this year, this one offers an unusual perspective on an area under-represented in cinema. Discovery. World Premiere. Jane Schoettle.

Firecrackers
Programmer Danis Goulet is comparing Jasminn Mozaffari's first feature Firecrackers to the work of Lynne Ramsay and Andrea Arnold for its social realism and raw human characters. This Canadian film follows two small town girls, whose plan to move to New York is thwarted by their home community's tenacious grip. Discovery. World Premiere. Danis Goulet.

Freedom Fields
UK filmmaker Naziha Arebi returns to her native Libya for this documentary about an all-female soccer team's passion for the sport and crusade to be taken seriously in the post-revolutionary uncertainty of contemporary Libya. No trailer yet, but the visuals on the website are compelling as is Arebi's promise that it reflects the struggles of all women in Libya. Tiff Docs. World Premiere. Kiva Reardon.

Ghost Fleet
We've all become at least aware of the massive slave labour that is the garment industry. But how familiar are we with seafood slavery? Shannon Service and Jeffrey Waldron's documentary follows activist Patima Tungpuchayakul, as she attempts to bring even basic rights to an industry staffed by migrants and the poor at less than minimum wage. She also helps to reunite those who never leave the ocean, with their families. Who employs these workers? We do, with our expectation of a constant availability of fish foods. An important light on an under-appreciated crisis. Tiff Docs. International Premiere. Thom Powers.

Girl
Winner of the Camera D'Or at Cannes, Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont's first feature based on a true story follows a trans girl whose deepest dream of becoming a ballerina is slowly becoming true. While we expect the obstacles from outside -- the programme note suggests more obstacles within. Discovery. Canadian Premiere. Kerri Craddock.

Girls of the Sun
Eva Husson's newest film received a very mixed response at Cannes, though the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw liked it and that is always a bellwether for me. There have been a number of films and video games that have profiled the all-women troop of Yazidi soldiers whose desire is to kill ISIS fighters, since being killed by a woman dishonours them and condemns them to hell, in their view. Here the story is fictionalized and based on real life characters. Girls of the Sun promises to be a female action film, with powerful political bite. Special Presentations. International Premiere. Kerri Craddock.

Gloria Bell
Many of us were first introduced to the work of Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Lelio with his 2013 film Gloria and actress Pauline Garcia went on to an Oscar nomination. It is rare (and wonderful) when a filmmaker can remake their own project, instead of seeing it "translated" into an English idiom by others. Lelio returns to TIFF after last year's A Fantastic Woman and my personal favourite Disobedience, to showcase this story of a divorcée (this time played by Julianne Moore) whose desire for a life larger than the one she has leads her into new relationships. Special Presentations. World Premiere. Diana Sanchez.

Graves Without a Name
Rithy Panh has been bringing us stories of life in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge for the last decade, including the Oscar-nominated The Missing Picture. This year's story is a documentary, following a thirteen year old as he tries to find the graves of his parents. The film will debut at Venice so there are no reviews yet, but Panh's storytelling about this epoch of his life will undoubtedly make compelling viewing. Tiff Docs. Canadian Premiere. Giovanna Fulvi.

Greta
Echoes of Clouds of Sils Maria abound for me this year (see High Life note below) and this includes the casting of Chloë Grace Moretz (who was in Sils Maria) in Neil Jordan's latest about a woman whose gradual and increasing obsession with the young woman who returns her handbag, takes a challenging turn for the girl. In Sils Maria, the older actress becomes attached to her young assistant -- and here the older woman is played by the always-provocative Isabelle Huppert. However, Greta seems more like a thriller than the philosophical journey of the Assayas film. Special Presentations. World Premiere. Piers Handling.

Heartbound
The trailer for this feature by Danish collaborators Janus Metz and Sine Plembach seems like it might be a more compelling profile of what love is in our contemporary world than Love, Itself, whose trailer left me cold as it seemed more artificially inspired. Profiling three generations of Thai women who have married Danish men, the film addresses some fundamental themes of our world that get less significant media attention than they deserve: loneliness, and the agency of impoverished women in determining their own choices for remedying their situations. Plembech is an anthropologist and so there is that lens as well. The trailer moved me, and it's hard for trailers to do that these days. Tiff Docs. World Premiere. Thom Powers.

Her Job
The write-up of Nikos Labôt's first feature film reminds me of something the Dardenne Brothers might have produced in the simplicity of its premise: an Athenian housewife who has found a wonderful new freedom through taking a job as a cleaner, faces the possibility of that open door closing when layoffs are announced. Here I am also trusting programmer Dimitri Eipides who has been with the festival for decades and with whom I nearly always agree. Discovery. World Premiere. Dimitri Eipides.

High Life
There is a scene in Olivier Assayas' Clouds of Sils Maria in which Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart, playing the two lead characters, argue about the merits of a serious actress doing sci-fi films. It is a complex scene in which the emotions of the characters and their own relationship overlay the question of what is 'serious' or not as drama. So now we have the twist of Juliette Binoche teaming up again with visionary French director Claire Denis (after last year's Let The Sunshine In) to tell a story of a group of cons who are sent beyond the solar system as part of a research experiment around human reproduction. Binoche's co-star this time is Robert Pattinson, Stewart's former partner. And meanwhile, Assayas has his own film out this year, also starring Binoche (see Non-Fiction below). My focus is on the actress here. As brilliant as I know Denis is, her gifts are a hit or miss thing for me personally and the premise doesn't appeal to me. But I'm curious always about her work, and also curious to see how that other screen conversation about serious actresses in space bears out in real life. Gala Presentations. World Premiere.

Hotel By the River
I loved Hong Sang-Soo's Right Now, Wrong Then of a few years ago and there has been a flush of glowing reviews from Locarno for this latest film by the Korean master which focuses on several residents in a hotel whose lives begin to interweave. The black and white visual style seems to have almost a patina of glimmering lines and yellowish tones which may help to illuminate the life of the poet main character. Masters. North American Premiere. Giovanna Fulvi.

Hotel Mumbai
I was transfixed by the events of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, in part because at the time I was spending time with people who were part of a Chabad Orthodox Jewish community. One of the most horrendous parts of that attack was the raid on the Chabad community in Mumbai, that left just one survivor, a child rescued by his nanny. So I am already drawn to this first feature from Australian director Anthony Maras. Also starring Dev Patel and Armie Hammer and Nazanin Boniadi from Homeland. Special Presentations. World Premiere. Jane Schoettle.

Icebox
What could be more timely than this extended feature-length version of his own short film of the same name, by Daniel Sawka, about a Honduran boy who tries to enter the US, only to find himself detained indefinitely with other kids, in a human cage known as the Icebox. Told from the boy's point of view, here is a unique chance to experience what happens when migrant children are isolated and prosecuted. Discovery. World Premiere. Jennifer Barkin.

If Beale Street Could Talk
I don't think anyone will want to miss this next film from Moonlight Oscar winner Barry Jenkins. I am already anticipating the long Industry line-up. But line up I will. The trailer for this film (which is not currently on the TIFF page but you can find it here) is emotionally and visually stunning in its non-linear and atmospheric and emotion narrative that called to mind for me immediately Wong kar-wai. Not sure why this isn't a Gala. Not to be missed. Special Presentations. World Premiere. Cameron Bailey.

In Fabric
I don't generally end up at Midnight Madness films but I am very keen to see Peter Strickland's latest, about a cursed dress and its impact on a series of people who have it. I was knocked out by Strickland's The Duke of Burgundy and like that one, this film also features Danish actress Sidse Babett Knudsen (Borgen) who I would follow almost anywhere. Strickland's capacity for emotional strength underlies the worlds he ushers us into. Looking forward to this. Midnight Madness. World Premiere. Peter Kuplowsky.

Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy
Laura Albert, the real life author who wrote for years in the 90s and early 00s was more famously known as JT LeRoy, a figure who to the public was a young male teen hustler from West Virginia. Eventually, through a NYT expose, the real JT was revealed to be Albert and her sister-in-law was the person who posed as the male JT figure. There has been a doc about this and numerous articles. Shaping up to be a kind of cross between Can You Ever Forgive Me? also playing at TIFF (see above) and I, Tonya, the film directed by Justin Kelly boasts the cool-crazy casting of Laura Dern and Kristen Stewart. Closing Night Gala. World Premiere.

Jirga
A former Aussie soldier seeking redemption for his role in the war on Afghanistan returns to Kandahar to try to reconcile with the community he helped to destroy in Benjamin Gilmour's film. While this looks from the trailer like a challenging ride, in this age of 'ghost robots' and 'killer drones', it is very important to have movies that seek to underscore the human significance and cost of taking responsibility for what you have done. Even if it is insanely dangerous to do it. Discovery. North American Premiere. Jane Schoettle.

Kursk
It's been a few years since we've had a new film from Danish director Thomas Vinterberg and I for one have been waiting! Always fascinated by the intersection of human choices and consequences, this director of The Hunt takes on the Kursk naval tragedy of 2000, in which an explosion on board a submarine imprisoned a number of men in one compartment waiting for help. But where is the help and what is holding it up? Featuring Matthias Schoenaerts, Colin Firth and Léa Seydoux. Special Presentations. World Premiere. Cameron Bailey.

L. Cohen
American experimental documentary filmmaker and all-round visual artist James Benning has been challenging our sense of landscape and bringing us the landscape of human emotion for more than forty years. This short feature film (45 minutes) explores a Cohen verse that describes the sun's rays as plunging what it sees in love, by setting his camera down in a rural field in Oregon. Screened with short film Arena. Wavelengths. Canadian Premiere. Andréa Picard.

Les Salopes or the Naturally Wanton Pleasure of Skin
I am enjoying the new range of films being selected by the newer programmers like Danis Goulet, who has been in the programming department for a few years but who seems to be programming features now for a wider range of festival programme categories. Québecoise Renée Beaulieu brings us the story of a happily married woman and mother whose private life of pleasure becomes vulnerably subject to exposure when a related scandal is uncovered. Looking forward to seeing the work of this unknown-to-me director. Contemporary World Cinema. World Premiere. Danis Goulet

Look at Me
Migrants and refugees and their shocking treatment in all parts of the globe, fills our news feeds. But what about the stories of those who have made the change and a life for themselves, only to be pulled back to their place of origin by those they left behind? What does it mean to have a dual or double identity? A man has made a new life for himself in Marseilles but is pulled home to Tunisia to help resolve a family crisis. After a while, where does he really belong? Contemporary World Cinema. World Premiere. Kiva Reardon.

Manta Ray
Who can be unaware of the extraordinary plight of the Rohingya, commonly considered the world's most oppressed peoples? Unwelcome in any of the surrounding countries to their native Rakhine (now considered part of Burma/Myanmar), they live almost universally in horrific conditions under one suppression or another. Therefore, this first feature by Thai director Phuttiphong Aroonpheng is an important work, sheerly for being a witness from within the neighbouring countries. The story of a fisherman who finds a left-for-dead Rohingya man in a mass forest grave, it portrays a friendship built on compassion and kindness. Discovery. North American Premiere. Giovanna Fulvi.

Maria by Callas
Tom Volf's biopic documentary of the legendary coloratura soprano is unique in its reliance on only the singer's words and what she herself had to say about her life. Primarily a writer and author of several Callas biographies, Volf has now turned to film to extend the reach of his audience. Includes rare or never-seen-before clips and correspondence. Tiff Docs. North American Premiere. Thom Powers.

Maya
Few filmmakers of the last eight or ten years have captured public imagination and a new generation's passion for film than French filmmaker, Mia Hansen-Løve. This time her narrative is set in India, where a journalist has retreated with PTSD after having been captured and held in Syria. Hansen-Løve's characters don't just move through environments, they inhabit them; allowing us to dwell with character until they are under our skin without our knowledge. Special Presentations. World Premiere. Piers Handling.

Monrovia, Indiana
Many of us were shocked by the results of the 2016 US presidential election whose consequences continues to be felt around the globe. While some of us may feel contemptuous of the man who won that day, veteran filmmaker Frederick Wiseman went into the heartland of America to try to capture and understand why it happened. The result is Monrovia, Indiana, a profile of a small town that helped bring about the election outcome. Wiseman is almost an essay-style filmmaker, preferring to give us a kind of portrait of what his own experience and interests and explorations have been. Last year's three hour Ex Libris -- The New York Public Library was a quiet hit among festival goers. Tiff Docs. North American Premiere. Thom Powers.

Monsters and Men
Reinaldo Marcus Green’s first feature follows three separate black male characters whose lives are disrupted by a single act of police violence recorded on the phone of one of the men. As events unfold and people are implicated, impossible choices are put in front of those who are simply trying to bring the events to justice. A strong trailer that speaks provocatively to an issue that is painfully a part of the fabric of North American life. Special Presentations. Canadian Premiere. Cameron Bailey.

Mouthpiece
I remember some of the earliest films of veteran Canadian filmmaker Patricia Rozema from the earliest days and years of the film festival, including the premiere of the iconic I've Heard the Mermaids Singing and White Room. Now Rozema brings us this new feature about a woman trying to come to terms with who her traditional mother was in contrast to her own fiery spirit. Special Presentations. World Premiere. Danis Goulet.

Non-Fiction (Doubles Vies)
Olivier Assayas has been doing wonderful work in the last few years, with the film circuit and digital platform successes of both Clouds of Sils Maria and Personal Shopper, but he has been a festival favourite long before them. Summer Hours (L'Heure d'Été) is my own personal favourite Assayas film and this new one reunites Assayas with Summer Hours and Sils Maria star Juliette Binoche. The programme note tells us it is a whimsical tale of a publisher who is drawn to the social media age but struggles to make those around him accept its possibilities. Special Presentations. Canadian Premiere. Piers Handling.

One Last Deal
Once again, a trailer has taken me from an 'unsure' to a keen interest for this film by Finnish director Klaus Härö about an art dealer fallen on hard times who is given one last chance to make a deal while also trying to reconnect with his family. Trailers don't usually have this impact on me -- only during TIFF! Contemporary World Cinema. World Premiere. Steve Gravestock.

Orange Days
It's nice to become familiar with new-to-me Iranian filmmakers as the giants of that cinema have always been auteurs who celebrated and fostered new talent. Into that tradition comes Arash Lahooti, with a film about a woman manager determined to have the best orange harvest with an all-female crew, amid a fierce and male competition. Discovery. World Premiere. Dimitri Eipides.

Our Body
Obsession is a surfacing theme of this year's crop of cinematic reflection and South Korean Han Ka-Ram has put it plainly in view in this story of a young woman who is suddenly brightened from her sense of self-defeat, by a woman who seems in every way ideal. We all know what happens when obsession takes on too much life. Discovery. World Premiere. Giovanna Fulvi.

Our Time
I remember vividly Carlos Reygadas' Post Tenebrae Lux of a few years back at TIFF and it is definitely time for another esoteric and reflective offering from this Mexican filmmaker. Described as 'hypnotic' and 'soulful' in the programme note, we have every reason to assume it will be so, in this tale of an overwhelming jealousy in one man of the man his wife has fallen for. Masters. North American Premiere. Diana Sanchez.

Out of Blue
Who can resist Patricia Clarkson as a detective, but then who can resist Patricia Clarkson doing anything at all. Not me. Here she is featured in Carol Morley's film based on Martin Amis' Night Train, about a female detective whose sense of self is challenged as she unravels the details of a homicide. Platform. World Premiere.

Persona
Bergman's 1966 masterpiece is being screened as part of a series at TIFF that will continue on past the festival into the fall. There is also a documentary about Bergman playing in the festival. See Searching for Ingmar Bergman below. A mainstay of film history studies, Bergman's delicate story of a woman and her caregiver whose lives slowly become one has been labelled and assigned to all kinds of genres. For me it remains primarily a psychological essay on how human beings project into each other and how quickly that reality can achieve a power over others. If you haven't seen it yet, make use of this moment of TIFF-quality projection and see it now. Tiff Cinematheque. James Quandt.

Peterloo
Anything by Mike Leigh is a festival must but especially true this year, since it's a been a while since we've had a film. The lavish setting and period detail of Mr. Turner may be in play in Peterloo, which follows the lesser-known (to North Americans) story of a political clash among working class textile workers and authorities and nobility at St. Peter's Field in Manchester, England in 1819. Leigh is always primarily interested in the human experience, the day-to-day stuff of life that is endured and then can be endured no longer. And the storyline certainly speaks to contemporary life! Masters. Canadian Premiere. Piers Handling.

Prosecuting Evil: The Extraordinary World of Ben Ferencz
It is hard to imagine anyone in the world who has not heard, studied and reckoned with the Holocaust in Europe before and during the second world war which killed more than six million Jewish people as well as many dissidents and those who protected them. But one of the premises of veteran Canadian documentary filmmaker Barry Avrich is that we do forget. And certainly the subject of his film, Ben Ferencz is afraid we will forget. Ferencz was involved in the Nuremburg war trials and continues to be committed to bringing those who committed atrocities to justice. Tiff Docs. World Premiere. Steve Gravestock.

Putin's Witnesses
I would never in a million years believe that I could be drawn to a documentary about Vladimir Putin's rise to power, but contemporary politics being what they are, and the profound influence of Russia on the US federal election of 2016 and all that has fallen apar.... er, occurred since then, combined with an intriguing trailer, have me likely to see this. From Vitaly Mansky, a Ukrainian filmmaker who had moved and was working in Russia at the time much of this footage was shot in 2000 but who now lives in Latvia. Because. You know. This film could not have been made now in Russia. Grand Prix winner at Karlovy Vary. Tiff Docs. International Premiere. Thom Powers.

Rafiki
A vibrant lesbian love story out of Kenya! I mean, where does the line form, because I'm there. Wanuri Kahiu's feature played in Un Certain Regard at Cannes. From a country where it is still illegal to be gay and where the death penalty is not uncommon as a penalty, this brave film bursts forth in colour and light. Discovery. North American Premiere. Kiva Reardon.

Ray & Liz
At a glance of the trailer, I'm not sure why Ray & Liz is Wavelengths and not Discovery but it seems to be a fusion of Terrence Davies and Mike Leigh, crossed with -- as the programme note names too -- early Ken Loach. Photographer Richard Billingham returns to the roots of his famous Thatcher-era photographs of his family to dramatize them on film. Wavelengths. North American Premiere. Andréa Picard.

Red Joan
Based on the story of British KGB spy Melita Norwood, Judi Dench plays Joan Stanley, a fictional character who is discovered, late in age, to have been a spy for the Soviets. Trevor Nunn directs this story of how an average English girl revealed the British atomic programme to Russia during the world war, the cold war and longer. Special Presentations. World Premiere. Michèle Maheux.

Roads in February
Even without a trailer I'm drawn to this debut feature by Canadian Katherine Jerkovic about a woman grieving her late father who travels to find his estranged family in rural Uruguay. As someone who has not known much about her father's family til very recently, I'm curious to see how another person's journey unfolds. Contemporary World Cinema. World Premiere. Danis Goulet.

Rosie
Irish screenwriter Roddy Doyle was inspired to write this tale of a woman and her family who are rendered suddenly homeless when he heard a woman on talk radio describing how she had spent a day in her car looking for a place to spend the night. Veteran Irish filmmaker Paddy Breathnach brings the story to life, aiming to show how love and family can survive even a housing crisis. Contemporary World Cinema. World Premiere. Michèle Maheux.

Searching for Ingmar Bergman
In this year of the centenary of the birth of Sweden's most famous filmmaker, TIFF is screening the masterpiece Persona (see above) and now we also have a documentary about Bergman from brilliant German filmmaker Margarethe von Trotta, one of the most important voices of feminism in western cinema and among its first. It is definitely time for an honest and searching profile of a director who has influenced countless filmmakers. Tiff Docs. North American Premiere. Thom Powers.

Shoplifters
No festival would be complete without a Kore-eda film and I am looking forward to this Cannes Palme D'Or winning film about a family of shoplifters who adopt a girl who appears to have been abandoned and abused. A master of the family drama that walks the line of comedy, Kore-eda always gives us something to root for, even when we know we are on morally shaky ground. Special Presentations. Canadian Premiere. Giovanna Fulvi.

Sibel
Guillaume Giovanetti and Çagla Zencirci bring us a story of a young mute woman living in rural Turkey who finds herself caring for a fugitive who in turn leads her toward a more fully lived life, in spite of the treatment she receives from the community. Winner of the Prix Oecuminique at Locarno. Contemporary World Cinema. North American Premiere. Kerri Craddock.

Splinters
Any new film by Nova Scotian Thom Fitzgerald gets a highlighter going in my house. A sensitive filmmaker with an affinity for stories of disaffected relationships in environments that are part of the heartbeat of the people, I am looking forward to this story of a young woman who comes home for her father's funeral and is challenged by the conservative values of her mother. Contemporary World Cinema. World Premiere. Danis Goulet.

Styx
Very drawn to this story of a German doctor/first responder, intent on sailing her small yacht from Gibraltar to Ascension Island. When a storm throws her off course, she is confronted with a boat full of refugees and must decide what happens next. Contemporary World Cinema. North American Premiere. Kerri Craddock.

Sunset
Two years ago, Hungarian filmmaker László Nemes came out of nowhere with a film called Son of Saul which went on to win the Oscar for foreign Language film. Now he is back with a story set in pre-Great War Budapest about a young woman who confronts her past by returning to the town and the store where her parents and her family suffered incalculable losses. Special Presentations. North American Premiere. Piers Handling.

Teen Spirit
It seems hardly possible that there is a new generation of Minghella filmmakers -- Anthony Minghella (the father of Teen Spirit director Max Minghella) who directed The English Patient and Truly, Madly, Deeply among others is among my very favourites. But son Max who is an actor is now set to take the reins with this story of a young woman on the Isle of Wight who sings her way through her private daily chores and is noticed by someone who thinks she is a pop star. Special Presentations. World Premiere. Jane Schoettle.

That Time of Year
I love Danish actress Paprika Steen in everything I've ever seen her do. Now I get to watch her first film as a director -- a look at families in the holiday season and the impact of a prodigal daughter's return on those who had long ago lost faith in her. Contemporary World Cinema. World Premiere. Steve Gravestock.

Tell It To The Bees
Postwar Britain is the setting for this story of two isolated women who form an essential bond when they come together out of necessity and find a deeper connection than they could have hoped for. Annabel Jankel directs and starring Anna Paquin and Holiday Grainger. Special Presentations. World Premiere. Kerri Craddock.

The Crossing
Border crossings of many kinds seem to offer promising layers in Bai Xue's story of a young Chinese girl going to school in Hong Kong who slowly submits to the pressure to be smuggling across the border. A compelling trailer on the link. Discovery. World Premiere. Giovanna Fulvi.

The Day I lost My Shadow
Thank God there are now starting to surface films made by Syrians about the Syrian experience of the last six years. Soudade Kaadan's first feature follows a mother trying to keep house and home in the early days of the war, who accidentally becomes stranded away from her son at home by uncontrollable events. Discovery. North American Premiere. Kiva Reardon.

The Death and Life of John F. Donovan
Québecois filmmaker Xavier Dolan is returning to the festival with his first film since having been excoriated at Cannes with  It's Only the End of the World (which I thought one of his finest to date). Death and Life has already had the notoriety of being a film in which a leading actress was completely cut from it for the sake of story (in my books, that is such a good sign ofthe integrity of the filmmaker). Dolan's film is about a relationship of influence: a scandal-marked actor maintained a correspondence with a boy and years later the boy now a man has his own story to tell. Special Presentations. World Premiere. Cameron Bailey.

The Fall of the American Empire (La chute de l'empire américain)
Arguably the most accomplished living Canadian filmmaker, Denys Arcand continues his piercing investigation of Quebecois society that was begun with le déclin de l'empire américain more than thirty years ago and continued with les invasions barbares in the early part of this century. His films are more than relevant and often very witty storytelling; they provide us with the image / reflection of the tensions of our times. Special Presentations. Toronto Premiere. Piers Handling.

The Fireflies Are Gone
A few years ago, Sébastien Pilote blew me away with his quiet and very moving feature The Auction, about a farmer who decides to let go of what he has in order to support those he loves. This new film seems very different, but I'm curious to see what he can do with a story that appears to have more coming of age and comedy elements: a small town Québecoise teenager longs for another life at a time when everyone seems to know what's better for her than she does. Contemporary World Cinema. North American Premiere. Danis Goulet.

The Grand Bizarre
Shot on 16 mm, this first feature by British/American animator Jodie Mack brings us an exploration of the global production of textiles and fabric. In the words of the programmer: "Buoyant and trippy, The Grand Bizarre explores fabric production and consumption alongside reflections of cultural appropriation and grand systems of visual and spoken language." Wavelengths. North American Premiere. Andréa Picard.

The Grizzlies
Canadian Miranda de Pencier brings us a first feature about the community that is formed in an Inuit school in Kugluktuk, Nunavut and the teacher who inspires them to learn lacrosse. Check out the trailer on the link for the promise of a high-spirited view of life in a place that had at one point one of the highest suicide rates in the country. Special Presentations. World Premiere. Danis Goulet.

The Hate U Give
George Tillman Jr. brings us an extremely relevant story of a friendship between a teenaged boy and girl that is violently disrupted when the young man is unnecessarily shot by white police officers. The young woman is stirred to speak up for justice and must stare down the risks of standing up for what is right. Gala Presentations. World Premiere.

The Kindergarten Teacher
This film first drew my attention at Sundance, where director Sara Colangelo won the Best Director prize. A remake of Israeli Nadav Lapid's film which has played at TIFF Lightbox this summer, it features Maggie Gyllenhaal as the eponymous teacher whose desire to encourage and support a young poetry prodigy pushes the bounds of her profession. Gala Presentation. Canadian Premiere.

The Load
An unusual kind of road movie, Ognjen Glavonic’s story set in Kosovo at the time of the 1999 NATO bombing follows a man who has agreed to carry an unknown cargo (thus the load of the title) across war torn countryside to Belgrade. Mystery and an interesting visual style emanate from the trailer. Discovery. Dimitri Eipides. North American Premiere.

The Other Story
I really enjoy the way that Israeli filmmaker Avi Nesher observes the Jewish experience. His film The Secrets I continue to remember vividly. A man comes home to Israel from the US and becomes complexly involved in two different family upheavals -- discovering himself as he goes. Contemporary World Cinema. World Premiere. Jane Schoettle.

The Passion of Joan of Arc
Some critics have called Carl Theodore Dreyer's 1939 classic the greatest film ever made (sorry Orson Welles). Based on the actual transcript of the trial of the great fourteenth century female warrior and disciple of Christ, Dreyer employs dramatically ahead of his time a shooting style that both alienates and embraces Joan while separating her from her accusers and judges. A staple of my faith and film courses, and a rare chance to see it projected. My only complaint: the live piano score. While this sounds appealing, it is actually not how the film was meant to be seen -- its power is greatest in pure silence. Tiff Cinematheque. James Quandt.

The River
There is something beautiful even about the visuals for Emir Baigazin's The River and then there is the opportunity of seeing a film set in Kazakhstan, a country with a small emerging film industry. The story of five brothers held strictly to their father's rules, the discovery of a river provides a welcomed and unexpected place of freedom. Platform. North American Premiere. Piers Handling.

The Third Wife
The dream-like and pastel/pastoral sensibilities of the short clip on offer give me a strong sense that this Vietnamese feature by Ash Mayfair about a late nineteenth century woman who becomes the third wife of a rich man and has new desires awakened, will be both moving and poetic. Discovery. World Premiere. Giovanna Fulvi.

The Wild Pear Tree
Turkish master Nuri Bilge Ceylan returns to TIFF with a story of a young man who returns home from college to face complex family dynamics while he tries to write a novel in the place he has always believed he belongs. From the director of the critically acclaimed Winter Sleep. Masters. North American Premiere. Piers Handling.

Through Black Spruce
A dream cast of Indigenous Canadian actors, Don McKellar's latest reflects on the impact on a family when an Indigenous woman goes missing or is murdered, as still too many are in our country. A woman searches for her sister in Toronto but slowly is drawn into the world her sister disappeared from. Special Presentations. World Premiere. Steve Gravestock.

Transit
Both an adaptation of a WWII refugee novel by Anna Seghers and a contemporary story of what it means to be always on the run as a migrant, this newest film by luminous German filmmaker Christian Petzold promises insight into the lives of more than fifty million people who are globally displaced. And be gripping in doing so. Masters. North American Premiere. Andréa Picard.

Twin Flower
Italian newcomer Laura Luchetti spins what seems to be an almost essay-like film about two unlikely traveling companions: a young woman escaping a human trafficker and a young man from Ivory Coast headed for northern Europe. These stories may have faded from our feeds but the issues faced by migrants and refugees have not. A promising human story. Discovery. World Premiere. Piers Handling.

Vision
Did I dream that Juliette Binoche decided to work with Naomi Kawase? or the other way round? Apparently I did not. And the result is this film about a French researcher who travels to Japan to find a rare herb and is taken under the wing of a forest prophet in this mystical sounding newest film from the Japanese master. I love how philosophical perspectives weave their delicate way through Kawase's work and her particularly gifted way of showing human relationships that are vulnerable and tender. Special Presentations. International Premiere. Cameron Bailey.

Vita and Virginia
I myself was personally completely obsessed by the literary and romantic relationship between Bloomsbury-era writers Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf. So this adaptation by British newcomer Chanya Button, executive produced and starring Gemma Arterton, is a very top seed for me. Special Presentations. World Premiere. Kerri Craddock.

Viper Club
Few of us may still remember a 1980s era film by Costa-Gavras called Missing, starring Sissy Spacek and Jack Nicholson, about a man who tries to find out what happened to his activist son in Central America. Now we have Maryam Keshavarz's film only this time the disappeared is a war correspondent and his mother, played by Susan Sarandon, disenchanted with government process, seeks help from alternative groups willing to help her. Special Presentations. World Premiere. Jane Schoettle.

What You Gonna Do When The World's On Fire
I was very moved and taken by Roberto Minervini's Stop the Pounding Heart which played at TIFF a few years ago. That film profiled fundamentalist gun-toting Christians of the deep south and did it with integrity and without falling into stereotypes and tropes. Therefore I am very intrigued to see Minervini's latest, which follows four different stories of black experience in Louisiana and Mississippi. Wavelengths. North American Premiere. Andréa Picard.

Where Hands Touch
While we are very familiar with the Jewish stories of the second world war, Amma Asante's newest film looks instead at what it meant to be both black and German. A young black German girl falls in love with a Nazi youth causing them both to make bold decisions in a desire to control their futures. Special Presentations. World Premiere. Cameron Bailey.

Wildlife
Carey Mulligan is said to give one of the best performances of her career in this feature directing debut from actor Paul Dano about a midwestern woman in the 1970s who finds her life filled with new choices when her husband moves away from home. Special Presentations. Canadian Premiere. Kerri Craddock.

Woman at War
You have to have at least one Icelandic feature in your TIFF playlist and what better choice this year than Benedikt Erlingsson's story of a woman torn between her commitment to eco-terrorism to protect Iceland from corporate development and exploitation of the land, and the chance to finally adopt a child from the Ukraine. Which kind of life is more significant to save? Discovery. North American Premiere. Steve Gravestock.

Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema
There is no better way to end this long list than with one of the most exciting films on offer. Cinema historian/filmmaker Mark Cousins has been single-handedly telling the story of how cinema has unfolded from its earliest roots and to its most worldwide breadth. His anthologies are long but always worth it. Clocking in at four hours, this first section of his study of women in film focuses on artistic perspective and is organized by film idiom such as 'opening scenes' and camera language. With Tilda Swinton doing voiceover, it is not to be missed. Tiff Docs. North American Premiere. Thom Power.