TIFF 2025: “Aki”

You won’t hear a word of spoken dialogue in Darlene Naponse’s Aki, an observational documentary depicting life in the indigenous Atikameksheng Anishnawbek territory of Northern Ontario. But the movie is far from silent. Naponse— a native of the region— uses her connection with the community to craft a sonically and visually rich story of the […]

TIFF 2025: “Ghost School”

At the start of Seemab Gul’s debut feature film Ghost School (Pakistan’s sole entry in this year’s Toronto International Film Festival), curious 10-year-old Rabia (Nazualiya Arsalan), backpack slung over her shoulders, sets off for school like any other day. But what awaits her there is a far from average sight: a guard standing outside the […]

TIFF Review: “Querido Trópico”

Fractured mother/daughter relationships make ripe stories for some of the most compelling cinema, even when they are versions of the same tale we’ve seen time and time again. That statement certainly applies to Querido Trópico (Beloved Tropic), a Panamanian drama that is the first narrative feature from director Ana Endara (who has four feature-length documentaries […]

TIFF Review: “Seagrass”

The long toots of the ferry horn have a lilting, almost musical sound, one that emphasizes the playful mood of the two little girls running around the boat deck. There’s not a cloud in the sky. The calm blue water seems to stretch into infinity. The girls pester their dad for a dollar for some […]

TIFF 22 Female Filmmaker Roundup

When I attended the Toronto International Film Festival for the first time this year, I really wanted to prioritize watching films by female filmmakers, of which the festival seemed to have a great slate this year. Out of the 31 movies I saw at the festival, 11 of them were by female directors—a decent number, […]

TIFF Review: “Chevalier”

Toronto International Film Festival 2022 Special Presentations World Premiere “Chevalier” introduces its subject in spectacularly dynamic fashion: Joseph Bologne (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) walks into a concert held by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart like he owns the place, and challenges the famed composer to a duel, their violins their weapons. The resulting face-off, during which Joseph and […]

TIFF Review: “The Whale”

Toronto International Film Festival 2022 Special Presentations North American Premiere There’s a parallel to be found in Brendan Fraser’s recent career trajectory and the life of the character he plays in “The Whale,” Charlie, albeit a tangential one. After stepping away from Hollywood after being a top box office draw in the 1990s and early […]

TIFF Review: “Corsage”

Toronto International Film Festival 2022 North American Premiere Romy Schneider made such an indelible impact playing Empress Elisabeth of Austria in the “Sissi” trilogy as a teenager in the mid-1950s that not only did the success of the films launch her into the celebrity stratosphere, but they have become a tradition in Austria and other […]

TIFF Review: “Pearl”

Toronto International Film Festival 2022 Midnight Madness North American Premiere It was perhaps about a minute into the end credits for “Pearl”—Ti West’s prequel to his film from earlier this year, “X”—that the audience at TIFF’s packed midnight madness premiere erupted into applause and cheers. The image that plays over those credits—an extended, live-action freeze […]

TIFF Review: “Daliland”

Toronto International Film Festival 2022 World Premiere and Closing Night Film A biopic of Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí sounds like the perfect fit for director Mary Harron, with her background in the arts—she started her career as a researcher for the British arts program “The South Bank Show,” and her first feature film “I […]