Canadian Film Fest: Elbows Up Goes to the Movies
By Liam Lacey
The dictum to “buy Canadian” during the current trade war with the U.S. is easy when it comes to picking Black Diamond cheese or Red Rose tea, but where can Canadians vote with their dollars for our alternative homegrown movies?
One important touchstone of new Canadian cinema is the Canadian Film Fest, on now through March 29. It’s the annual Toronto showcase for independent homegrown films, which merits special attention at a time when the country is facing a critical test of its cultural strength.
This week, Scotiabank Theatre has gone all-Canadian with 16 new domestically made feature films, 50 shorts, and lots of industry panels. And while, at press time, a handful of films have already screened as part of the Festival, all are highly recommended. Keep an eye out for future screenings in the coming weeks and months.
The Opener
The festival kicked off on Monday with its most high-profile entry, Naomi Jaye’s Darkest Miriam, with breakout star Britt Lower of the hit AppleTV+ series, Severance, and executive produced by filmmaker, Charlie Kaufman, adapted from Toronto novelist Martha Baillie’s The Incident Report.
An impressionistic psychological study about mental health, love and grief follows a socially isolated librarian Miriam Gordon (Lower), who works in the fictional branch of the Toronto Public Library dealing with various eccentric patrons, while she engages in a gentle affair with a Slovenian cab driver and artist, and receives ominous messages from a library patron. The film opens in theatres in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver March 28. For more, read our review.
Reality Check
The content warning for Crocodile Eyes announces: “There is real death and real birth in this film” which is another way of saying it’s a film about life.
Toronto-based filmmaker Ingrid Veninger’s social, cinematic experiment is both comforting and unsettling. A flurry of “100 real moments” follow scenes of her family life, through some both extreme and ordinary experiences. Crocodile Eyes — the title could be a metaphor for the consuming camera lens — might be considered the ultimate home movie, or an example of reality television with a conscience.
Throughout, the director participates with her mother, musician son Jacob, and daughter Hailie, as they share intimate life experiences including the death of her father, the birth of a new grandchild, and newly framed relationships between the three mothers. All of this is done in the context of thoughtful family discussions and a sense of a collective mapmaking mission without a defined goal. The film screens Friday, March 28 at 4:30 pm.
The Wanderers
In a country where immigrants and permanent residents make up almost 25 percent of the population, there are no shortage of migrant tales. Rob Michael’s comedy Please After You is an atypically playful take on the experience through a kind country mouse/city mouse fable.
The film follows young Iranian engineer Ali who, while working as a security guard in a parking lot and living in a rooming house full of fellow immigrants, is about to land a coveted internship, when his bumbling cousin Omid shows up, seeking asylum and raising mayhem.
Conceiving Clara, by Afghan-Canadian director Tarique Qayumi, takes a darker view of the weight of the past, featuring co-writer Tajana Prka in a harrowing performance as a woman pressured by her family, and especially her immigrant mother-in-law, to have a baby, even at risk to her own life.
Meelad Moaphi’s His Father’s Son is another well-acted drama about immigrant parents’ expectations. Amir is an aspiring chef bridling under his father’s criticism. Meanwhile, his Canadian-born younger brother Mahar enjoys a free ride. A sudden inheritance from the family’s former family doctor opens up secrets about the parents’ past. (Already screened).
Movies with Issues
A #MeToo drama with a specific focus on intimacy and exploitation in the theatre world, Sarah Galea-Davis’ The Players, set in 1994, follows a 15-year-old aspiring actress (Stefani Kimber) who is cast in an avant-garde production of Hamlet. There, she finds herself the disturbed target of the director’s fixation. Fellow women cast members act as both enablers and protectors in what is depicted as an entrenched abusive system. Catch it Saturday, March 29, 6:30 pm.
Actor Sean Dalton took home a best actor prize at last year’s Atlantic Film Festival as the star of Nick Sexton’s social-realist drama Skeet, a St. John’s-set, Ken Loach-style, black-and-white drama about a recently released prisoner trying to find a fresh start who befriends a Syrian immigrant (Jay Aldo) while trying to shake the shackles of the violent past. See it Saturday, March 29, 1 pm. Skeet then plays theatres nationwide April 11 through 23.
Lighter Takes
Also in black and white though more in the Ed Wood line is Michael Stasko’s Vampire Zombies — From Space!, a knowing tribute to B-movies past that covers all the supernatural invasion scenarios in one tidy package, with both deliberately cheesy and sophisticated visual effects cameos from Judith Odea (George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead) and director Lloyd Kauffman. Screening Friday, March 28, 9:15 pm and Saturday, March 29, 9:15 pm.
Kevin Hartford’s To The Moon is an ensemble comedy about a sassy high school student (Phoebe Rex), her closeted dad (Jacob Sampson), and the blocked woman writer (Amy Groening) who lives next door. It’s a frisky comedy with some warm performances and clever dialogue. Check it out Friday, March 28, 7 pm.
And please do keep an eye out for the droll The Legacy of Cloud Falls, from first-time feature director Nick Butler conjuring a David Lynchian-lite tone.
The film is set among the residents of Niagara Falls apartment complex, wryly narrated by the superintendent (Susan Berger) who sees all and comments on the residents, while basking by the communal pool. The characters include an uptight gay man infatuated with a young drifter, a YouTube influencer dedicated to exposing psychic frauds, and a cheerfully compulsive liar. The film is scheduled for release this June.