The Toronto After Dark Film Festival unveils its International Shorts programme today. With an all virtual format this year, the Festival is not presenting a short before each feature, but is bundling them into two separate viewing packages, the International and the Canadian Shorts. Both collections feature a wealth of talent, and storytelling styles, and…
Category: Film Festivals
TAD 2021: Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It dir. Yernar Nurgaliyev
Kazakhstan delivers Toronto After Dark’s Opening Night Gala Film, Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It, and it sets up perfectly what to expect from TAD if this is your first time. There is going to be blood, wild on-screen deaths, laugh out loud moments, uncomfortable humour, and a lot of cross genre entertainment. Datsan (Daniar Alshinov)…
TIFF 2021: Saloum dir. Jean Luc Herbulot
The frenetic, genre jumping Saloum from Jean Luc Herbulot combining action beats with a revenge thriller, and dancing on the line of supernatural horror. Three bad-ass mercs, Chaka (Yann Gael) Rafa (Roger Sallah), and Minuit (Mentor Ba) who each exude a laconic cool in their own ways, are guns for hire, and getting a drug…
TIFF 2021: Where is Anne Frank? dir. Ari Folman
Waltz with Bashir directot Ar Folman delivers a poignant animated feature, that touches on some important concepts, and ideas. Kitty is the imaginary friend that Anne Frank wrote to in her diary, pouring her thoughts and feelings, while documenting the events of her life, including two years of living in hiding from the Nazis during…
TIFF 2021: Lakewood dir. Phillip Noyce
Naomi Watts stars in Phillip Noyce’s white knuckle thriller, Lakewood. Even though there is a melodramatic bent to the film, the movie personifies every parent’s nightmare, and shows that even on personal days, you’re still a parent 24/7. With the one year anniversary of her husband’s death approaching, Amy (Watts) is doing her best with…
TIFF 2021: The Devil’s Drivers dir. Mohammed Abugeth and Daniel Carsenty
Shot over the course of eight years, The Devil’s Drivers is a fascinating documentary that ends up feeling incomplete. Revving and running between the borders of Palestine and Israel, the film feels constrained by its 90 minute time. Brushing gently against the political and religious situations that permeate the area, the narrative elects to follow…
TIFF 2021: Jagged dir. Alison Klayman
Alanis Morissette. Heralbum Jagged Little Pill is practically synonymous with the 90s. And so many of us can’t help but remember where we were when we heard it, bought it, played it over and over. Critics talked about how angry it sounded, while I remember thinking how human it sounded, how relatable, and how it…
TIFF 2021: Belfast dir. Kenneth Branagh
Kenneth Branagh delivers a stand out event at TIFF with his beautifully and lovingly made, Belfast. Featuring a gorgeous score by Van Morrison, this cinematic jewel is something to behold. Equally awash in nostalgia as it is with the realities of the time, Belfast guides us to a little street that is the midst of…
TIFF 2021: The Eyes of Tammy Faye dir. Michael Showalter
Jessica Chastain harnesses an effervescent, electrical whirlwind in her transformative, new career best role of Tammy Faye Bakker. Bringing to life the eccentricities, the faith, and the person behind those permanently made up features. Using the documentary film of the same name as its launching point, Showalter’s film, laced with humour, and drama guides us…
TIFF 2021: The Guilty dir. Antoine Fuqua
Jake Gyllenhaal leaves it all on the screen when he steps into the role of Joe for Antoine Fuqua’s North American remake of the Danish thriller. On screen for almost all of the film’s hour and a half runtime, we are trapped with Joe as he serves as a 911 operator while his performance in…
The Mind Reels 