Original-Cin TIFF 2020 Picks: Saturday, September 12
By Jim Slotek, Liam Lacey, Kim Hughes, Karen Gordon, Linda Barnard, Bonnie Laufer, and Thom Ernst
Akilla’s Escape (Special Events, Planet Africa 25)
Sat., Sep 12, 9 pm, West Island Open Air Cinema at Ontario Place; Sun., Sept. 13, 9:15 pm Available online at Bell Digital Cinema from 6 p.m., Tues. Sept. 15.
Charles Officer (Nurse.Fighter.Boy) co-wrote and directed this emotionally self-assured crime drama about a veteran Toronto grow-op owner who was raised in Jamaica as essentially a child soldier in a politicized gang. Having mostly left politics and bloodshed behind him, his conscience is reactivated when he survives a murderous holdup by the very same Jamaican gang and captures a traumatized teen who clearly reminds him of himself. Musician/actor Saul Williams holds it all in like a pressure cooker as he negotiates with criminals and with his own past to find some kind of peace. One of the best Canadian movies on offer here. – JS
Under the Open Sky (Contemporary World Cinema)
Sat. Sept. 12, 8 pm, online at Bell Digital Cinema; Thurs. Sept. 17, 9 pm RBC Lakeside Drive-In at Ontario Place.
Under the Open Sky
Masao Mikami (Koji Yakusho) earned his Masao the Brawler nickname as a hot-tempered yakuza member in director Miwa Nishikawa’s often poignant look at life on the outside for a career criminal. Mikami spent most his life in jail and vows the gangster world is behind him on exiting prison after a 13-year stretch for murder. He finds delight and frustration in this new world, from making breakfast to trying to pass a driving test. Shamed by welfare, he looks for work, but Japanese society is reluctant to cut ex-cons a break and the daily struggle to find his place feels endless. His old life holds the temptation of acceptance. The power is in the gentle moments of this film. -LB
Inconvenient Indian (TIFF Docs)
Sat., Sept. 12. 4:45 p.m. TIFF Bell Lightbox. Sat., Sept. 12. 5:15 p.m. TIFF Bell Lightbox. Thurs., Sept. 17. 5 p.m. TIFF Bell Lightbox. Available online at Bell Digital Cinema from 6 p.m., Sun. Sept. 13.
Indigenous filmmaker Michelle Latimer makes some smart decisions in translating Thomas King’s wry and well-researched historical book into a documentary, skipping many details (so you still have a reason to buy the book) while re-creating the mood of centuries of Native people being “in the way.” Often trippy in its art-house presentation (with King himself taking part in a hallucinatory side-drama involving a coyote cab driver), it is an of-the-moment scan of everything from insulting cultural appropriation at an L.A. Halloween parade, to inaccurate “historical re-creations,” to a montage of the many resistance protests we’ve seen in the past generation alone. – JS
Lift Like a Girl (Ash Ya Captain) (TIFF Docs/TIFF Next Wave)
Sat. Sept. 12, 5 pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox; Mon. Sept. 14, 6 pm online at Bell Digital Cinema; Thurs. Sept. 17, 9 pm West Island Open Air Cinema at Ontario Place.
A dusty vacant lot in Alexandria, Egypt is the “factory of Olympic champions” where coach Captain Ramadan pushes young women to ascend weightlifting podiums in Egyptian filmmaker Mayye Zayed’s debut feature documentary. Shot over a four-year period, Ramadan’s makeshift outdoor gym is a far cry from slick Olympic training facilities. But the bow-legged coach gets results. It’s where he trained his daughter, Nahla Ramadan, to a world championship and quiet 14-year-old Asmaa (nicknamed Zebiba, “raisin” in Arabic, by Ramadan) shows the potential to be his next star. A former Olympic weightlifter, Ramadan says prioritizing boy athletes is outdated. He trains kids of all ages, many of them free of charge. He isn’t one for coddling. Zebiba is called a piece of shit — and worse — when she fails to lift 75 kg. Victory earns her his raspy chorus of a nursery song about a mother duck. Her devotion to Captain is sometimes tested, yet Zebiba is devoted to him and achieving her goals, even as she’s shaken by a difficult loss. - LB
Penguin Bloom (Special Presentations)
Sat., Sept. 12, 12:30 p.m. TIFF Bell Lightbox. Available online at Bell Digital Cinema from 6 p.m., Sat. Sept. 12.
And the award for best acting by a non-human at this year’s TIFF goes to an expressive magpie named Penguin, who inspires a paralyzed and previously athletically active mom Sam Bloom (Naomi Watts) to explore the limits of life in a wheelchair via kayaking. Depending on your mood, the first act may be tough going, full of guilt and despair as Sam mourns for her body and ability, and the unfairness of the accident that took that all away. The family’s decision to nurse a baby bird is the catalyst back. The real Sam Bloom’s triumph gets some short shrift from the filmmakers. She became a world-class kayaker, and some more of that story might have leavened the gloom nicely. But seriously, that bird! – JS
Preparations To be Together for an Unknown Period of Time (Contemporary World Cinema)
Sat, Sept. 12, TIFF Bell Lightbox, 9:30 pm; Fri, Sept. 18, TIFF Bell Lightbox, 12 pm; and Fri, Sept. 18, Online Bell Digital Cinema beginning at 6 pm.
Marta, played by the riveting Natasa Stork, is a gifted neurosurgeon who quits her job in the United States and returns to her hometown of Budapest in search of love. She and János, a fellow neurosurgeon, made a plan to meet up on the Liberty Bridge in Budapest, after a romantic encounter at a medical conference. When he doesn’t show she goes looking for him and finds that he claims he doesn’t know who she is. Instead of going back to the U.S., Marta follows her instincts and stays in Budapest, taking a job at a local hospital, and tries to figure things out. Is this madness? Intuition? Hungarian writer/director Lili Horvát plays this like a mystery, with a touch of Hitchcock, in this quiet and intriguing drama. -KG
Nomadland (Gala Presentations)
Saturday, Sept 12, Online Bell Digital Cinema beginning at 6 pm.
That there is a deep well of compassion at the core of her new film will not be a surprise to anyone who saw Chloé Zhao’s previous film The Rider. Zhao’s adaptation of Nomadland, a non-fiction book about older itinerant Americans in the years after the 2008 economic meltdown, mixes fact and fiction, and features non-pro actors along side of pros. Frances McDormand stars as Fern, a widow who fell between the cracks when the one-industry town of Empire was shut down, and becomes part of a loose tribe of seniors living in their vans and traveling from location to location working at menial jobs. Despite McDormand’s star power, Nomadland has an indie feel, which contributes to its emotional strength. It’s another superb, Oscar-bait performance from McDormand. And Zhao — who wrote, directed and edited the film — continues to prove she’s one of the best of the new crop of directors coming up from the world of American independent film. -KG
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