TIFF 50: Levers
In 2021, Rhayme Vermette’s debut feature Ste. Anne, a film about a woman’s (played by Vermette herself) return to her hometown in Manitoba, surprisingly won the Best Canadian Film Award at TIFF. I would call that a surprise, not because of its quality (which, let’s be honest, doesn’t usually have a solid correlation with awards),…
TIFF 50: The Season
Close to the beginning of Maureen Fazendeiro’s solo debut feature (given that a feature is >45 minutes long), The Seasons, a wide shot tracks a man pushing a wheeled land surveying device. As one would expect the camera to continue following the man and his equipment, it instead continues panning to the right and sets…
TIFF 50 Review: With Hasan in Gaza
When the end credits begin rolling for With Hasan in Gaza, a film entirely made of footage taken during Kamal Aljafari’s visit to Gaza back in 2001 – a tour he carries no memory of until rediscovering the footage over two decades later – we see him giving himself the “conceived by” credit instead of…
TIFF 50: Dry Leaf
Image: Courtesy of TIFF Chasing evanescence, on the search for someone, on the search for images, and a reunion through the realization that everything that you’re seeing has already been seen before, so basically, the realization of cinema itself. Dry Leaf, Alexandre Koberidze’s newest feature centring around a father’s effort to trace his sports journalist…
TIFF 50 Review: BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions
During the post-screening Q&A of BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions, director Khalil Joseph cited Godard as a major influence and stated his regret that the man’s passing means this film will never get seen by him. The reference makes a lot of sense, as it was Serge Daney who claimed Godard’s pedagogy turns cinema (the scenographic…
