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| Sofia Bohdanowicz's Veslemøy's Song |
Shorts at TIFF are programmed into shorts programmes, collections bound around a theme or idea. Some shorts play on their own in front of a feature film. Wavelengths curated shorts programmes are often as fascinating for how the individual films stand next to each other, as they are in their own right. The playground of new voices and visions, the shorts at TIFF also reflect seasoned talent committed to the format, which can be even harder than feature-length format to plan and execute because of the absence of a standardized specific time limit. How do you know when a desire or idea has been sufficiently captured? Well, take in any of the gifted filmmakers below and find out.
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What better way to begin than with something from Wavelengths! Toshio Matsumoto's film offers us a posthumous glimpse of the master in a work that has not yet been seen. This screening will most likely come with some interesting and background into the filmmaker whose work has influenced directors like Stanley Kubrick.Wavelengths. International Premiere.
A New Year
The trailer for George Sikharulidze's film is so compelling that I am immediately hooked. A child walks the length of a Turkish subway car crying for help and is met only with a series of blank and unresponsive faces. Except perhaps one. A man makes a decision that will deeply impact his family at the season that marks a new year in the Christian story -- Advent, before Christmas. From the director of 2016's Red Apples. Short Cuts. World Premiere.
The brilliance of Canadian cineaste Guy Maddin, here collaborating with Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson, brings us a short film that does an ironic-iconic take on the 'Rear Window' conceit of an apartment block's residents concealing a murder. Playing on a loop, the action is repeated many times. This ten minute short has had a fair bit of exposure already, playing in both Berlin and Cannes. Watch the trailer to get a great sense of the vibe. Short Cuts. North American Premiere.
Ada Kaleh
Helena Wittmann (Drift) returns to TIFF with a reflection on the spaces we live in and the spaces we might wish or imagine for ourselves, and the time that runs under both. Loved the excerpt/trailer and its evocative poetic reverie. Wavelengths. World Premiere.
Altiplano
The troubling crossroads of geography, climate and human activity preoccupy a number of filmmakers announced so far. (See also Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky's Anthropocene below.) Installation, performance and cinema artist Malena Szlam reimagines the landscapes of the Altiplano/Andes areas of Chile and Argentina within her unique and formalist aesthetic. I have not seen this film but hoping that like Szlam's Lunar Almanac it will continue to challenge our sense of perspectives. Wavelengths. World Premiere.
A natural companion to Altiplano above, Colombian-Canadian filmmaker Lina Rodriguez reflects on myth and legend in relation to Lake Guatavita in her native Colombia. In an issue of The Review which she guest edited about a year ago, Rodriguez describes herself as being forever 'split' between her two identities. The 'dislocated sense of self' that she describes becomes the frame of her cinematic exploration. I don't know her work but have heard much about her and am excited to begin the journey now. Wavelengths. World Premiere.
Arena
Screening with James Benning's short feature L. Cohen, Björn Kämmerer's 70mm short takes a look at an empty stadium and considers what it means to be a transient spectator. Wavelengths. International Premiere.
Birdie
In this year of Me Too, and the movement it has unleashed, we can expect to see more films that depict the nuanced and precarious experiences of average women in average lives. Shelly Lauman's Birdie appears to be such a film. The trailer shows a woman who exchanges a smile with a stranger while entering the subway and then finds him dogging her every move. Power can be frightening even when there is no physical contact. Short Cuts. International Premiere.
Festival (and Wavelengths programmer Andrea Picard) favourite Apichatpong Weerasethakul returns to TIFF's Wavelengths programme with a short film that promises "a choreographed dance of scrolls and a portrait of feverish slumber." (Picard remains my favourite programme note writer.) Not to be missed. Wavelengths. International Premiere.
*Brotherhood
Like filmmaker Lina Rodriguez above and Ian Harnarine below, Tunisian-Canadian filmmaker Meryam Joobeur feels the call of two countries deep in her soul. Another voice I have wanted to get to know, what better opportunity than TIFF! Shot entirely in rural Tunisia, this short film follows the story of a man brings home a new wife to his estranged family and sets in motion a series of family reckonings. Short Cuts. World Premiere.
Caroni
It's a good sign for me when a trailer is an excerpt or an image that does not seem to make a direct connection with the film's write-up. The extraordinarily beautiful Caroni is a bird that is indigenous to Trinidad and Tobago, the site of New York-based Canadian filmmaker Ian Harnarine's short film. Harnarine, who teaches at NYU and is collaborating next with Spike Lee, takes time out to send us this story of a New York nanny who "tries new ways to connect with her young daughter at home in Trinidad". (Program note.) Short Cuts. World Premiere.
The two minute trailer for this short documentary by Britain-based filmmaker Jayisha Patel reminded me so much of some of the ethnography work done by filmmakers like Stephanie Spray and Pacho Valese in its simplicity of visual aesthetic and complete naturalism of style. First shown in Berlin, Circle documents three women in the same family and the seemingly unbreakable circle of abuse that affects them all. Short Cuts. North American premiere.
Colophon (for the Arboretum Cycle)
Veteran American experimental short filmmaker Nathaniel Dorsky has been gifting us with his poetic elegies for many years. His beautiful monograph Devotional Cinema is a standard read in my faith and film courses. This latest is best left in the words of the programme note: "A coda to a recent suite of films, as much as a singular work in itself, Nathaniel Dorsky's Colophon (For the Arboretum Cycle) is a stunning, stirring triptych that gestures to Chinese landscape scrolls." Wavelengths. World Premiere.
Dulce
I am very drawn to the premise of this short documentary about a young girl who learns how to swim in order that she can participate and survive in the economy of the coastal Colombian community she belongs to. The webpage for this film from co-director/cinematographer Angello Faccini offers more vivid visuals. A simple premise is the backbone of a good short film. The second short film to draw on Colombian culture for inspiration (see ante mis ojos above). Short Cuts. International Premiere.
I fell in love with Algonquin French filmmaker Caroline Monnet's short Tshiuetin, which poetically chronicles the only Indigenous-owned railroad (and the only railroad) in Québec to run north from Sept-Îles to Schefferville. I have watched it many times. Emptying the Tank profiles Chippewa mixed martial artist Ashley Nichols. Thrilled to see a new offering from this important and unique Indigenous voice. Short Cuts. World Premiere.
Facing North
The unusual image of a fairly white Western male doll as the groom in the wedding of a Ugandan bride is enough to catch our attention in Tukei Muhumuza's short film shows us what happens to culture and tradition when a man in an arranged marriage has chosen to seek a fortune in another part of the world. What defines our sense of what it means to be married? Great trailer (linked in title). Short Cuts. World Premiere.
Fainting Spells
Last year, Sky Hopinka brought his own experience to the screen with Dislocation Blues, a meditation on joining in on the Standing Rock resistance. This year he explores the culture of a traditional plant of the Ho-Chunk Nation and its transforming properties. Wavelengths. International Premiere.
Every single short trailer I've seen this year seems so promising, including for Jérémy Comte's Fauve. Winner of a Special Jury Award at Sundance, it follows two Québecois boys playing around an abandoned mine, whose challenges to each other in power begin as a game and soon develop high stakes. This film has already been widely exposed so it is surprising it is in the TIFF line-up but I'm glad as it means we can see it too! Short Cuts. Toronto premiere.
Feathers
Shot in Louisianna, A.V. Rockwell's short Feathers imagines the institutional world of a young boy on the cusp of manhood trying to adjust to his new life. Rockwell's other films have earned her impressive support from grant-giving foundations and she has been awarded a Sundance Feature film fellowship. Short Cuts. World Premiere.
Hoarders Without Borders
I love the visual whimsy of Jodie Mack's work, so this playful meditation on a mineralogist's collection and the hands that cradle the rocks will likely make me smile. Wavelengths. World Premiere.
Interior
American Reed van Dyk's short film has a poetic and also thriller-style trailer about a boy whose life at home is a confluence of challenging realities. Short Cuts. World Premeire.
Set in his native Philippines, Raymund Ribay Gutierrez tells the story of one woman's desire to seek justice on the man who physically abused herself and her daughter. A compelling trailer on the link. Gutierrez won the TIFF Short Cuts award for best short film in 2016. Short Cuts. North American Premiere.
L'été et tout le reste
There's an Eric Rohmer kind of pace and charm to the trailer for this story by Sven Bresser set on the island of Corsica, about two friends who find it hard to give each other up for the other life opportunities that await them. Short Cuts. North American Premiere.
Lou
Young filmmaker Clara Balzary brings us the story of a "teenage tomboy" (programme note) whose visit with her father (played by Joaquin Phoenix) causes her to leave in the night, exploring the world of unknowns around her. Short Cuts. World Premiere.
I am intrigued by the premise of this film by young Canadian filmmaker Sophy Romvari about a woman obsessed by Barbra Streisand and by the possibility of cloning her own ailing dog, as the great singer has also apparently done. That's all I know, but it's enough. Short Cuts. World Premiere.
Paseo
Canadian Matthew Hannam follows a woman whose visit to Barcelona becomes extended when she cannot seem to let go of a deep inner desire to find a fulfilment she can't have at home. Short Cuts. World Premiere.
Please step out of the frame
Karissa Hahn's prolific work is playing around the world this year, but I am keen to see this four minute film that appears to be experimenting with the idiom of black and white and its capacity for nostalgia while exploring ideas of the body and film form. Wavelengths. Toronto Premiere.
Filmed during the solar eclipse of last summer, Kevin Jerome Everson's short appears to explore our atmosphere and its meteorological phenomena in pastel colours. Wavelengths. Canadian Premiere.
Prologue to the Tarot: Glenna
"Described by the filmmakers as a "cinematic tarot card", Brittany Gravely and Ken Linehan's twice-exposed Prologue to the Tarot: Glenna is a shimmering portrait of the titular Glenna, accompanied by drapes and opulent crystals worthy of Kenneth Anger or Josef von Sternberg." -- programme note too good not to just reproduce as is. Wavelengths. World Premiere.
Love the animation style visible in the trailer for this whimsical philosophical journey of self-discovery from Amercian Renee Zhan. Short Cuts. North American Premiere.
Lucy Suess is an American who has studied and lived in New Zealand and her debut short is set there, about a young man and his best friend in a small town sharing plans for the future. Short Cuts. North American Premiere.
Shinaab: Part II
Lyle Corbin Jr.'s Shinaab played at TIFF17 and this follow up follows a young man seeking to pay tribute to his later father in the traditional customs of the Ojibwe. Short Cuts. Word Premiere.
Celia Perrin Sidarous creates still life collage compositions in her Montreal studio that she then photographs. Those photographs then become part of films. The films are therefore more like animated still life and beautiful colour compositions. Wavelengths. Toronto Premiere.
The trailer for Anca Damian's animation, also made up of still life elements, is stunningly beautiful with series of hand-drawn flowing figures whose watery world inhabits a woman's memory. Short Cuts. North American Premiere.
The Fall
Another intricately delicate animation, Boris Labbé's film combines more that 3500 ink and watercolour drawings to meditate simultaneously on heaven and hell. Short Cuts. North American Premiere.
A woman agricultural labourer follows the routine that is expected of her while considering a bold move that might change her life completely in this latest from Sandhya Suri. Short Cuts. Canadian Premiere.
The Foreign Body
A young Venezuelan man whose body is missing its nipples must struggle to figure out his identity amid the alienation of his community and culture. A film from Héctor Silva Núñez. Short Cuts. World Premiere.
The Orphan
Brazilian filmmaker Carolina Markowicz is returning to TIFF to bring us this story of a young boy coping with adoption and other realities of being on his own. Short Cuts. North American Premiere.
This Magnificent Cake!
Belgian filmmakers Emma de Swaef and Marc James Roels explore the colonization of the Belgian Congo: the cruelties of imperialism contrasted with woollen characters in animation. Watch the trailer (on the title link) for the feel. Short Cuts. Canadian Premiere.
Ben Rivers' latest explores the relationship between architecture and language at a University of Cambridge housing complex known as Cowan Court, innovative for its time in the 1960s. Complete with owl. Wavelengths. International Premiere.
Veslemøy's Song
Full disclosure. I have already seen rising Canadian indie filmmaker Sofia Bohdanowicz's latest, the journey of a young woman to explore an unknown Canadian violinist and teacher, which meets unexpected complications. Hard not to be uber-proud of my friend and former student whose work in shorts and features have had her criss-crossing the globe this year. Veslemøy's Song comes to TIFF from its debut at Locarno. Short Cuts. North American Premiere.
Viktoria
Icelandic filmmaker Brúsi Ólason's short film about a woman dairy farmer who struggles to maintain the life she enjoys in face of increasing odds, has a compelling trailer. This is his second short film. Short Cuts. International Premiere.
Words, Planets
Like other short films in this year's collection, Laida Lertxundi's short film integrates both landscape and another element, in this case portraiture. The Spanish born filmmaker shot the film in Cuba and California. Wavelengths. Canadian Premiere.
What better way to end this list than with a poetic reflection on the landscape of a French Atlantic island? Colleagues of the late David Dudouit completed his film with footage he shot, "patient and precise single-frame exposures" (Andréa Picard). Wavelengths. North American Premiere.
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