Everybody knows TIFF is the place to be for groundbreaking new content. This year they gave Michelle Latimer the chance to present two projects she’s worked on. The first one, ‘Inconvenient Indian’ – a documentary that explores the cultural colonization of Indigenous peoples in North America – was previously reviewed by us (review can be …
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TIFF20 Review – ‘Enemies Of The State’
For our final film at Toronto International Film Festival 2020, we decided to check out the world premiere of Sonia Kennebeck’s documentary, ‘Enemies of the State’. TIFF20 has had a couple of standout documentaries this year, such as Inconvenient Indian, which felt urgent and should be mandatory viewing. Kennebeck’s film however, watches like a film-version …
TIFF20 Review – ‘True Mothers’
Naomi Kawase’s melodramatic adaptation of a novel by Mizuki Tsujimura, is directed with finesse, but relies too heavily on PSA-style storytelling that rather explores the past than the present with situations that miss their mark in trying to establish a real emotional force. After trying to conceive for a while, a Japanese couple undergo tests. …
TIFF20 Review – ‘Another Round’
Mads Mikkelsen is one of the most reliable actors. You can bet your bottom dollar on it that when his name is attached to a project, you’ll get quality. So it’s obvious he’d collaborate again with the director of their Oscar-nominated film ‘The Hunt’, Thomas Vinterberg. This time he plays a teacher who’s seen better …
TIFF20 Review – ‘Spring Blossom’
First love hurts. Especially when it consumes and overtakes your day dreams, just like Suzanne’s in ‘Spring Blossom’. First time writer, director and actress Suzanne Lindon directs herself in her feature debut, in which she plays a 16-year-old school girl who’s bored with people of her age. Obsessed with a man, they find the answers …
TIFF20 Review – ‘Shadow In The Cloud’
The first half of Roseanne Liang’s first feature in almost a decade, plays like an atypical World War II movie with a serious The Twilight Zone-vibe. WAAF officer Maude Garrett (Chloë Grace Moretz – ‘Greta’) gets assigned to a dodgy B-17 Flying Fortress carrying the name “The Fool’s Errand”, where she is custodian of a …
TIFF20 Review – ‘Underplayed’
Music documentaries usually focus on one artist’s career or get made posthumously, putting a spotlight on their fandom and personal struggles, because that’s what attracts the majority of viewers who want to see some inside scoops, they could otherwise just google. Stacey Lee’s first feature Underplayed is not that kind of film. Instead she celebrates …
TIFF20 Review – ‘Fireball: Visitors From Darker Worlds’
Werner Herzog makes documentaries for the general public. You may be unfamiliar with them, but his way of directing and narrating makes it easy to understand even the more scientific ones, that coming from someone else might seem a bit too “out of your league”. That’s both his strength and weakness, and might have those …
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TIFF20 Review – ‘Bandar Band’
Bandar Band is a melodious road trip, and director Manijeh Hekmat wants us to experience it as if we’re part of it. Floods in Iran’s Khuzestan Province have turned everything into a sodden landscape, making it look like a wondrous dreamscape in which three musicians dare to conquer the drenched roads, not knowing where this …
TIFF20 Review – ‘Good Joe Bell’
Good Joe Bell deals with the subject of bullying and homophobia. The based on a true story father-son drama has some problems depicting the psychological trauma of getting bullied for being yourself and not having the support system necessary to get through the constant fear and intimidation. The reason for that is just like the …