Finding Vivian Maier TIFF Docs Directors: John Maloof, Charlie Siskel Heralded as a masterful street photographer of the 20th Century after her death, Vivian Maier’s exquisite snapshots of human life brimmed with beauty, compassion, and sometimes the subtle ugliness of human nature. Her work would have never been discovered had it not been for Maloof’s […]
Afflicted Midnight Madness Directors: Clif Prowse, Derek Lee Afflicted can be easily dismissed as simply being a more supernatural-than-superhero take on the found footage origin story that Chronicle attempted last year, but it’s still a fun and innovative low budget bit of meta-horror. The directors more or less play themselves as Clif follows his buddy […]
Under the Starry Sky Contemporary World Cinema Director: Dyana Gaye The lives of several Senegalese ex-pats and travellers around the world are brought together in this compact, but very enriching drama in Gaye’s feature debut. It accomplishes more in 88 minutes that many more celebrated filmmakers have trouble accomplishing in more than two hours. Sophie […]
Blue Ruin Vanguard Director: Jeremy Saulnier Somewhere between a coal black American pastoral and the restrained brutality of a Nicolas Winding Refn film, Saulnier’s sophomore effort is a chilling, minimalist, and bloody revenge thriller and cat and mouse game taking place in bucolic rural and suburban settings. Dwayne (Macon Blair) has been driven mad after […]
Asphalt Watches Vanguard Directors: Shayne Ehman, Seth Scriver An animated head trip full of laugh out loud offbeat and surrealist comedy, this one defies any sort of expectations or categorizations. It’s assuredly not to everyone’s taste, but those clued into the Adult Swim kind of mentality will get behind it immediately. Loosely based on a […]
Ilo Ilo Discovery Director: Anthony Chen Terry, a young Filipino mother (Angeli Bayani), leaves her child behind to take a job as a live in maid for an upper middle class family in Singapore whose livelihood is on the rocks in this well written and directed debut feature from Chen. The kid Terry is tasked […]
The Devil’s Knot Special Presentation Director: Atom Egoyan Egoyan takes on the mishandling and traumatic feelings behind the infamous West Memphis Three trial in this fictionalized courtroom dramatization of the events that comes in the wake of four separate theatrically released documentaries on the issue and countless TV takes. While there’s absolutely nothing new to […]
Cold Eyes Gala Directors: Cho Ui-seok, Kim Byung-seo Although technically a remake of 2007’s Eye in the Sky, this fast paced and entertaining South Korean cops and robbers thriller owes a lot more to Ben Affleck’s The Town and Michael Mann’s Heat than it does other films from the country. Ha Yoon-ju (Han Hyo-joo) has […]
When Jews Were Funny TIFF Docs Director: Alan Zweig Zweig (I, Curmudgeon, Vinyl) delivers his second film this year with a personal look at his desire to reconnect with the more openly comedic aspects of his heritage and upbringing, partially for the benefit of his young daughter who he wants to have an awareness of […]
Rush Gala Director: Ron Howard With a great attention to detail and a pair of exceptional leading performances, Howard’s period piece set against a historic, high speed Formula One racing rivalry in the 1970s surprises and thrills, both dramatically and visually. Hard living and reckless Brit James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) works his way up through […]
Don Jon Special Presentation Director: Joseph Gordon-Levitt While Levitt’s first effort behind the camera showcases that he at least knows what to do on a visual level, his tale of a porn addict trying to come to terms with the priorities in his life is entirely misconceived and sloppy. A lothario (Levitt, doing a grating […]
Siddharth Contemporary World Cinema Director: Richie Mehta A deeply resonating look at an uneducated, poor street labourer in India searching for the missing son he essentially sold into child labour, Mehta’s film offers a lot of questions but thankfully never tries to make sense out of a situation that’s unanswerable from the start. Mahendra (Rajesh […]
Sarah Prefers to Run Discovery Director: Chloe Robichaud The feature length debut from Robichaud is nothing short of a revelation for both her and her star Sophie Desmarais. It’s the rare kind of coming of age story that captures the first year of university and everything leading up to it as a scarring sort of […]
Le Demantelement Contemporary World Cinema Director: Sebastien Pilote A subdued Quebacois drama divided into two parts, the second film from Pilote (The Salesman) follows a 53 year old, long since divorced farmer (an excellent Gabriel Arcand) coming to terms with having to leave his family’s profession behind to help his eldest daughter (Lucie Laurier) get […]
Metallica: Through The Never SPECIAL EVENT Director: Nimrod Antal Trip (Dane DeHaan) is a young roadie living the dream: working on the road with Metallica. During a show he gets summoned to head out on an urgent mission for the band. What at first seems like a simple errand ends up being a trippy and […]
