After having merely a taste last year, TIFF21 saw me returning to the in-person film festival experience for the first time since 2019. Despite continued concerns about COVID-19 and the Delta variant and few reported cases at festival screenings, I was ultimately satisfied with the safety measures put into place, which required proof of vaccination […]
On a planet occupied entirely by women, a mother and daughter are sent to assassinate a dangerous criminal in After Blue (Dirty Paradise). Far into the future, humanity has left Earth for the planet After Blue, with the male population dying off early on. Roxy (Paula Luna), nicknamed Toxic by the village girls, is a lonely
After Blue (Dirty Paradise) – TIFF21
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Female members of an evangelist Christian church violently try to convert other women to their ways in Medusa. Mari (Mariana Oliveira) and her best friend Michele (Lara Tremouroux) are members of an evangelist Christian temple in Brazil, who sing as part of “Treasures of the Lord” choir, while at night don white masks and stalk sinful
The life and career of the famous underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau is revisited in Becoming Cousteau. Jacques-Yves Cousteau began his fascination with the underwater world going freediving with his friends Philippe Tailliez and Frédéric Dumas in the 1940s French riviera, with the three helping to develop a breathing regulator that helped to negate the need for
Becoming Cousteau – TIFF21
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A young man with Species Identity Disorder is sent to a clinic with controversial methods in Wolf. Jacob (George MacKay) is a teenager who believes himself to be a wolf, who is admitted to a clinic meant to cure those with similar species dysphoria. While Dr. Angelie (Eileen Walsh) uses very optimistic methods in her therapy
A Métis woman returns home after a multi-year absence in Ste. Anne. Following a four-year absence, Renee (Rhayne Vermette) unexpectedly returns to her young daughter Athene (Isabelle d’Eschambault), who has been raised up until this point by Renee’s brother Modeste (Jack Theis) and his wife Elenore (Valerie Marion). This sudden return causes tension in this
Ste. Anne – TIFF21
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A group of mercenaries end taking refuge in a mysterious region of Senegal in Saloum. Guinea-Bissau’s coup d’état of 2003, the mercenary group Bangui’s Hyenas consisting of Chaka (Yann Gael), Rafa (Roger Sallah), and Minuit (Mentor Ba), extract cartel member Felix (Renaud Farah) and his cargo of gold and drugs, with the group boarding a plane
Reports of demonic possession send a remote village into near-hysteria in Zalava. Masoud (Navid Pourfaraj) is a Gendarmerie sergeant, who does not believe in the reports of demonic possession from the nearby gypsy village of Zalava, to the point where he confiscates the villagers’ firearms, which indirectly leads to a tragic death. Relieved of his
The horrible accident mars a Polish couple’s Italian vacation in Silent Land. Adam (Dobromir Dymecki) and Anna (Agnieszka Zulewska) are a bourgeois Polish couple, who arrive at their vacation home near an Italian island town. One of the first things that the couple notices is that the house’s pool is empty and their landlord Fabio (Marcello
Silent Land – TIFF21
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The inhabitants of a small Indian village begin to worship the motorcycle of a recently deceased man in Dug Dug. While riding his motorcycle through the Indian countryside, local drunk Thakur (Altaf Khan) crashes near a billboard for a magician and is promptly bisected by a passing truck. Thakur’s motorcycle is recovered by the three local
