Original-Cin TIFF 2020 Picks: Tuesday, September 15

By Jim Slotek, Liam Lacey, Kim Hughes, Karen Gordon, Linda Barnard, Bonnie Laufer, and Thom Ernst

Bandar Band (Contemporary World Cinema)

Tues, Sept. 15, 9 pm, West Island Open Air Cinema at Ontario Place; Wed, Sept. 16, 12:30 pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox; Sat, Sept. 19, Online at Bell Digital Cinema starting at 6 pm.

It’s often hard to even see the submerged road in Iranian director Manijeh Hekmat’s music-filled road trip saga of a spirited trio trying to make it to Tehran for what could be their big break in a battle of the bands. Set in Iran’s Khuzestan province amid devastating 2019 floods, pregnant singer Mahla, her husband Amir, and their bandmate Navid are sidetracked by quests (including picking up Navid’s beloved guitar, nicknamed David Gilmour) and are often turned back by the disaster as the clock ticks down on their gig. “I’m not famous yet, but soon you’ll want a photo with me,” Navid tells a cop who doubts their story. Small moments, like an impromptu dance from villagers who celebrate successfully building a levy by singing taunts to the flood, add up to a compelling road story that speaks to resilience. Scenes of the van seeming to float as it motors along water-covered roads create a surreal atmosphere, with rising waters appearing to meet the sky. -LB

The Best Is Yet to Come (Discovery)

Tue, Sept. 15, TIFF Bell Lightbox, 4:30 pm; Wed, Sept. 16, Online at Bell Digital Cinema starting at 6 pm; Fri, Sept. 18 TIFF Bell Lightbox, 4:15 pm and 4:30 pm.

A crusading journalist tale set in Beijing in 2003, The Best Is Yet to Come is the debut film from Wang Jing. Wang is best known as the assistant director to the revered Jia Zhang-ke (Ash Is the Purest White) who also produces here. But anyone expecting the master’s meditative slow burn will be in for a surprise in this genre thriller. Determined young Han Dong (Bei Ke, better known as social media star, White K), visits a Beijing job fair, eager to find work as a journalist and set up housekeeping with his hometown girlfriend. As a high-school dropout, he’s laughed at, but by chance and his writing talent, he lands an internship at Jingcheng Daily under the tutelage of investigative reporter Huang Jiang (Zhang Songwen) who advises him, “You’ll be a reporter when you’ve worn out five pairs of shoes.”

Shortly after starting his job, Han Dong uncovers a black market for forged health certificates for Hepatitis B carriers, who have been made social pariahs on the mistaken belief the disease, transmitted by body fluid, may be airborne. Motivated by a friend’s illness and encounters with shamed and fearful marginalized strangers, Han Dong turns a story into a mission of compassion. It’s unexpected to see such a paeon to the press from a country with tight censorship rules, but fans of bustling newsroom dramas (Spotlight, The Post) will feel at home in this heartfelt story. -LL

MLK/FBI (TIFF Docs)

Tue, Sept. 15, TIFF Bell Lightbox, 5 pm and 5:15 pm and Online at Bell Digital Cinema starting at 6 pm; Fri, Sept. 18, 4:30 pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox.

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a powerful enemy in FBI head J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover’s obsessive attempts to destroy King’s growing influence led him to cross boundaries that disturb some FBI veterans today, including James Comey. Inspired by the work of historian David Garrow, director Sam Pollard uses the “relationship” between Hoover and Dr. King to cover a remarkable amount of territory: from the state of race relations in the 60s civil rights era — and how Hoover was able to manipulate even the most liberal politicians — to the development of Dr. King’s activism, from civil rights, to Vietnam War protester to poverty fighter across racial lines. MLK/FBI arrives at a perfect historical moment. King’s assessment of the racial issues in the U.S. in the sixties inform the present moment, and his belief in a non-violent, unifying message is as powerful today as it was then. - KG

New Order (Contemporary World Cinema)

Tue, Sept. 15, TIFF Bell Lightbox, 9:15 pm and 9:30 pm; Wed, Sept. 16, TIFF Bell Lightbox, 9:15 pm; and Online at Bell Digital Cinema starting at 6 pm.

From Mexico via the Venice Film Festival where it won Silver Lion, comes director Michel Franco's searing, relentlessly grim indictment of class division set in a chaotic Mexico City more real-seeming than is comfortable to admit. It’s Marianne’s wedding day, and while she and her family toast the pending nuptials in their posh, guarded home, fierce protests rage in the streets. A former servant comes seeking money for his ill wife. When Marianne can’t immediately gather cash, she sets out for the hospital. Quickly ensnared in the protests, Marianne — and others seen as easy targets — is kidnapped by the military, who attempt to ransom victims back to their families while framing the protesters for their misdeeds. What follows is a brutal look at Marianne’s imprisonment, echoing the horrors endured by many poor Mexicans, and the nefarious class divide fomenting the kind of corruption that makes a dystopian scenario such as this possible. Horrifying and heartbreaking, Parasite this is not. – KH

Notturno (Masters)

Tue, Sept. 15, TIFF Bell Lightbox, 9 pm; Thu, Sept. 17, Online at Bell Digital Cinema starting at 6 pm; Fri, Sept. 18, TIFF Bell Lightbox, 9 pm and 9:15 pm.

The images in filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi’s Notturno are so beautiful that they often look like paintings or art photography. But the stories they tell are the opposite. Rosi spent two years shooting Notturno on the borders between Syria, Iraq, Kurdistan and Lebanon. But Rosi ’s focus isn’t war or politics. Instead, he turns his careful eye on the daily lives of a range of people, including a squadron of Kurdish women soldiers, patients at a psychiatric facility rehearsing a play, a woman who appears to be running an orphanage. Most heart-wrenching are the stories of Yazidi children using art therapy to work through the trauma of being held by Isis. One boy with a slight stutter looks over his drawings that cover a wall and talks about the unimaginable horrors he witnessed. Rosi doesn’t use music, doesn’t explain where we are for the most part, and allows long sequences to be silent except for natural sound. The result is a movie that leaves space for the viewer to have their own emotional reaction. Many of the people we meet have suffered greatly, but what sticks is a feeling of resilience. -KG

Trickster (TIFF Next Wave)

Tues, Sept. 15, 12:30 pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox; Wed, Sept. 16. Online at Bell Digital Cinema starting at 6 pm.

It’s not often TIFF includes television in its programming. But Michelle Latimer, who’s already had an impact here with her documentary Inconvenient Indian, is on to something special with her CBC-produced mini-series adaption of Eden Robinson’s novel Son of a Trickster (two episodes of which are airing together here). Like a young-adultish Twin Peaks, the story takes place in an isolated community in the Northwest (Kitimat), a down-on-its-heels place where a teen named Jared (Joel Oulette) endures life with his dysfunctional family, while discovering a supernatural lineage with a straight line through Indigenous folklore. The series has atmosphere, mood, and an engaging young cast. Two episodes left me wanting more. – JS

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