Original-Cin TIFF 2020 Picks: Wednesday, September 16

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

Fauna (Wavelengths)

Wed, Sept. 16, TIFF Bell Lightbox, 9:15 pm; Fri, Sept. 18, TIFF Bell Lightbox, 12:30 pm; Fri. Sept. 18, Online at Bell Digital Cinema, starting at 6 pm.

Mexican-Canadian director Nicolás Pereda’s feature is, in its very deadpan and cryptic way, often funny and often dark, especially in its first 40 minutes, which unfold like a Mexican version of a Harold Pinter play. Paco (Francisco Barreiro) is an actor who is travelling with his girlfriend Luisa to visit her parents. They arrive at the same time as Luisa’s brother, Gabino (Lázaro Gabino Rodríguez). Things get awkward when Paco recognizes Luisa’s father as a guy who recently ripped him off for a pack of cigarettes but decorum is maintained, at least until Luisa’s father and brother insist that Paco perform a scene from his recent TV series, Narcos. (Actor Francisco Barreiro actually did play in Narcos: Mexico). Then things get strange. Gabino starts telling his sister the plot of a paperback thriller he’s reading and it’s as if the film suddenly nods out and goes into a dream. The same actors in new wigs, in a no-budget film noir set in a drab motel and adjacent cantina and the search for a mysterious stranger. - LL

I Am Greta (Special Events)

Wed, Sept. 16, Online at Bell Digital Cinema starting at 6 pm.

When 15-year-old Greta Thunberg parked herself and a hand-drawn sign reading “Skolstrejk För Klimatet” (school strike for climate) in front of Sweden’s Parliament in August 2018 — vowing to remain until election day — no one could have predicted she would become the face of a youth-led global movement fighting climate change. But like her soul sister Malala Yousafzai, Thunberg is a new kind of activist, one whose future clearly cannot be trusted to the reigning powers. Nathan Grossman’s documentary takes a conventional approach to chronicling its subject, shadowing Thunberg from country to country, meeting to meeting, capturing her frustrations (she flatly rejects star treatment, grasping that that kind of coverage obfuscates the point) while her patient and very supportive father Svante tries to keep the balance… while keeping his dynamo daughter fed. Little here is revelatory but the film serves as a powerful reminder of what’s at stake, and how one person can ignite the hearts and minds of many. Let’s hope this is merely volume one in the Thunberg story. -KH

Limbo (Discovery)

Wed, Sept. 16, 9 pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox; Fri, Sept. 18, Online at Bell Digital Cinema starting at 6 pm.

Every film festival contains a gem that arrives with zero fanfare but exits with ecstatic word of mouth. Limbo is that film... or should be. Sad, hilarious, maddening, timely and just so real, the story follows Omar, a pensive, doe-eyed Syrian refugee and musician awaiting status in a remote and ethereal corner of Scotland. Alongside his refugee flatmates from Nigeria, Ghana, and Afghanistan, Omar attempts to integrate with the vaguely hostile locals while pacifying his fractured family abroad via the town’s only payphone. Winking pop culture references to everything from Friends to Freddie Mercury underscore both the differences and similarities between the townspeople and the newcomers, who are well aware that their presence — which instantly balloons the local population by 25 percent — is fraught in ways that aren’t always visible. Director Ben Sharrock explores pathos without sacrificing his characters’ humour or humanity. A genuine, heart-swelling must-see. – KH

The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel (TIFF Docs)

Wed, Sept. 16, 11:30 am, TIFF Bell Lightbox and Online at Bell Digital Cinema starting from 6 pm.

A sequel to the hit 2003 documentary that took court rulings declaring corporations to be “persons” and applied the human diagnoses of “sociopath” and “psychopath” to their willfully harmful actions. With the 2008 global meltdown, a pandemic, and myriad malfeasance in the books since then, there’s obviously lots to cover. Unfortunately, there’s no similar neat gimmick for directors Joel Bakan and Jennifer Abbott to wrap their narrative around (they come up with a “corporate playbook” as a framework). But there’s still plenty of gob-smacking audacity on offer (like BP, perhaps the world’s foremost environmental criminal, promoting its commitment to the planet) and even a hopeful note in the crusades of Greta Thunberg and U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. – JS

Pieces of a Woman (Gala Presentations)

Wed, Sept 16, Online at Bell Digital Cinema from 6 pm and at Visa Skyview Drive-in at CityView, 9 pm; Fri, Sept 18, TIFF Bell Lightbox, 9 pm.

Vanessa Kirby won Best Actress at the just-wrapped Venice Film Festival for her role in this movie. Kirby plays Martha. She and live-in boyfriend Shawn (Shia LaBeouf) are a young couple whose plan for home birth with a midwife, played by Molly Parker, ends in tragedy. This is the first English-language film from Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó who makes movies about people navigating their way through incredible pressure. Mundruczó knows how to do intensity, but after that peters out, the film’s focus meanders. Still, the fine cast, which includes Ellen Burstyn, rises to the occasion. -KG

Wildfire (Discovery)

Wed, Sept. 16, 9 pm, West Island Open Air Cinema at Ontario Place; Thu, Sept. 17, Online at Bell Digital Cinema starting at 6 pm; Fri, Sept. 18, 12 pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox.

After being AWOL for a year, troubled Kelly lands on responsible sister Lauren’s doorstep. Anger and recriminations quickly give way to powerful filial love, and Kelly and Lauren are soon living and playing together like the kids they once were even as the spectre of their dead mother looms. But Kelly’s issues run deep and before long she, and Lauren by association, run afoul of the locals in their small town. First-time director Cathy Brady leverages Ireland’s long-standing troubles (also the Troubles) to mirror the sisters’ myriad battles as their similarities and differences become ever starker. Strong performances from leads Nora-Jane Noone and Nika McGuigan — who died last year of cancer age 33 — make this bleak story sparkle. -KH

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