Letters to Max Wavelengths “What does the diplomat for a country that isn’t recognized do when he comes to the office in the morning?” This question is one of many posed by French filmmaker Eric Baudelaire in his latest essay film, Letters to Max, and sets the theme and tone for the film. This story […]
Wild Tales Special Presentations Wild Tales, an anthology film, has a mixed definition of what makes something wild. It begins with something that’s easily considered its wildest element, an massive EC Comics-style revenge plot that begins and ends in a few joyfully sadistic minutes. Other times, and for a bulk of its duration, the tone […]
Rosewater Special Presentations As a first time feature director, television personality Jon Stewart still has a bit to learn. As a writer, however, he has constructed a taut and thoughtful drama based on the true story of imprisoned British journalist Maziar Bahari. Bahari (played here in an understated and dignified turn from Gael Garcia Bernal) […]
The Connection Gala For those of you who ever saw The French Connection and wondered, “hey whatever happened to the French side of that connection?” then TIFF has a movie for you. The Connection (amusingly, the original title is La French) turns back the clock to a time when the country was one of the […]
Bang Bang Baby Discovery One of the most delightfully loony movies to come out of Canada in ages, this assuredly kooky, gorgeous, and surreal take on 1960s values is unlike anything you’ve ever seen. It’s a perfect example of a completely original film that has no comparison and throws everything at the audience including several kitchen […]
The Last Five Years Special Presentations One of the festival’s biggest surprises is Richard LaGravanese’s sparsely staged, but lushly orchestrated and perfectly acted adaptation of Jason Robert Brown’s tightly constructed off-Broadway musical. Jumping back and forth through time between ages 23 to 28 for a pair of young lovers – budding novelist Jamie (Jeremy Jordan) […]
Corbo Discovery With a breakout performance by its young lead, Corbo follows sixteen-year-old Jean Corbo as he explores his own ideals and beliefs about the future of Quebec, breaking away from his political family and joining a militant cell of the FLQ in the decade before the October Crisis. Already a troublemaker at school, Jean […]
The second program in the Short Cuts International program features films that revolve around desire and the lengths some will go to fulfil them, from looks at forbidden love to the quest for an elusive ice cream cone. Kaveh Ebrahimpour’s debut short from Iran, A Ceremony for a Friend drops us in the middle of […]
The first program for the brand new Short Cuts International program this year at TIFF looks largely at the perceived rules and attitudes that we as humans aspire/adhere to within social contexts and how easily that bond can be manipulated. The Warren deals with a nighttime Israeli Defense Force raid into the titular refugee camp, […]
An Eye For Beauty (Le règne de la beauté) Special Presentations An Eye for Beauty marks the return of Quebec’s Denys Arcand after a seven year layoff, and it proves that even the greatest of filmmakers can take a simple premise and screw it up beyond belief. It’s an unmitigated disaster. Luc (Éric Bruneau) is […]
All the latest news, reviews and interviews from TIFF 2014, right here.
Leviathan Masters Leviathan is a well acted, beautifully shot film that highlights the best of mother nature and the worst of human nature. Kolya (Alexey Serebryakov), a proud patriarch with a gorgeous Russian seaside property, is rendered helpless when a corrupt city official decides he would like the land for himself. Kolya enlists the help […]
Guidance Discovery The Discovery programme at TIFF is meant to showcase emerging directors with promising futures, which is the perfect place for Pat Mills’ Guidance. Mills not only wrote and directed the film, but also plays the lead, David Gold, a down and out actor who lies to get a job as a high school guidance councillor […]
Two Days One Night Special Presentations Two Days, One Night, the latest film by Jean and Luc Dardenne, has one of those tidy premises that lends itself well to a concise pitch: a woman has one weekend to convince coworkers to give up their bonuses so that she may keep her job. To expand on […]
Pride Special Presentations The true story of a group of queer folks from London setting out to help a Welsh village during the miner’s strike of 1984-85, Pride is a mash of odd couples and triumphs over oppression that satisfies, but predictable archetypes and glossed-over challenges are a drawback. Mark (Ben Schnetzer) forms Lesbians and […]
