TIFF 2024

The TIFF Lowdown: Fusing rigorous reportage with innovative cinematic subjectivity, this bold documentary from veteran war photographer Olivier Sarbil is a uniquely intimate portrait of a Deaf person’s experience of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Elegantly fusing rigorous reportage with cinematic subjectivity, this bold documentary from filmmaker and veteran war photographer Olivier Sarbil offers a […]

Another part of TIFF Docs, YOUR TOMORROW is one of the very best documentaries I saw at the Toronto International Film Festival this year, and even though it’s about a cultural landmark in Toronto this doc will work for anyone who loves a place that is going to be shut down. Read on for more! […]

Part of the Centrepiece section of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, THE SWEDISH TORPEDO hit my radar pretty quickly as I really like female swimmers going on a massive cross-channel journey for some unknown reason! The TIFF Lowdown: Southern Sweden, summer 1939. World War II is looming. 30-year-old single mother Sally Bauer can’t tear […]

Featuring two favourites in Gillian Anderson & Jason Isaacs, THE SALT PATH was one of the most anticipated pictures at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. About: After losing their home and livelihood, a middle-aged couple impulsively set out on a 630-mile walk along the southwest English coast, a walk complicated to no small degree […]

One of my favourite Canadian movies at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, VILLAGE KEEPER is a movie to keep on your radar when it eventually gets a release in our country! The TIFF Lowdown: After a massive loss, an overwhelmed Toronto mother discovers a very unusual way to process her grief. With her first […]

The TIFF Lowdown: In Montreal, twentysomething Léo (Pier-Luc Funk) delivers pizza and gets drunk, and that’s pretty much it. He’s alone and he’s sad, and doing nothing about it … until he meets Rita (Marianne Fortier), a sweet-natured musician who thinks he might be a keeper. The thing is, Léo is already taken; he’s just […]

Another solid part of the TIFF Docs lineup, SO SURREAL: BEHIND THE MASKS was one of the most anticipated documentaries of the Festival this year! About: SO SURREAL: BEHIND THE MASKS is a feature documentary that traces the storied journey of Indigenous masks from the far reaches of Turtle Island (North America) into the hands […]

Another title in the Centrepiece section of the Toronto International Film Festival, this little hidden gem was one of my favourites that I saw at TIFF 2024. Sometimes I call this as part of my own “Throw A Dart & See a Random Movie” series where I go in knowing nothing about what I am […]

Always a fan of the National Film Board of Canada and feeling like more people at TIFF need to see the NFB content, I am always trying to go out of my way to see their latest movies and shorts at the festival, and LIVING TOGETHER did not disappoint. The TIFF Lowdown: Halima Elkhatabi’s disarming […]

The TIFF Lowdown: Matthew Rankin’s second feature is a lovingly detailed, charmingly impossible story of a Canada where Persian and French are the two official languages, and loneliness is the common currency. Winner of the inaugural Directors’ Fortnight audience award at Cannes this year, Matthew Rankin’s follow-up to his eccentric, surreal The Twentieth Century (TIFF ’19) is […]

The TIFF Lowdown: Eliza is an unassuming and beloved member of a small fishing community in Newfoundland who sees all of her relationships put in jeopardy after her secret social media persona is exposed.  In director Melanie Oates’ second feature, people in a bucolic coastal town turn quickly on their own when the status quo […]

More Canada represent at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival! Another movie that I felt was overlooked at TIFF this year is the Toronto feature YOUNG WERTHER which has a really cool concept. The TIFF Lowdown: Inspired by the popular 1770s novella The Sorrows of Young Werther, this modernization stars Douglas Booth and Alison Pill in […]

Trust me, this movie is more funny than sad! I was so happy to see SAD JOKES at TIFF as part of my “Throw A Dart, Take A Chance” portion of watching movies by attending a screening knowing NOTHING about it going in. The TIFF Lowdown: Set in Berlin, this tender, tragicomical second feature from […]

Part of the TIFF Docs section of the Toronto International Film Festival, I was excited to see Marah Strauch’s new doc, after wowing me many years ago with SUNSHINE SUPERMAN, a doc that opened TIFF Docs back in 2014. The TIFF Lowdown: You may not know the name Joe Jennings, but you’ve surely seen his […]

The TIFF Lowdown: The debut feature from Fredericton filmmaker Arianna Martinez is easier to experience than describe. It’s a multiverse picture without a single visual effect, unless you count the actors. Several years after their meet-cute — at a wedding, of course — Olive (Caroline Bell) and Benny (Ian Ottis Goff) are spending an entirely […]