Pretty strong weekend to finish the festival, but before I begin I want to acknowledge the Mississaugas of the New Credit, the Huadenosaunee (had to Google that one) and the Huron-Wendat for being such good sports.
Hands down the most striking, memorable leading performance that I saw at Tiff is Véro Tshanda Beya Mputu (a non-actor making her debut no less) in the title role of
Félicité. It's a love story, but calling it a "romance" may be a stretch…maybe because she's too tough of a cookie, a back-alley diva, or maybe because all that lovey-dovey tenderness is more of a first-world frill. In Kinshasa love is as much a survival strategy.
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Short Cuts Program #6 was a disappointment. Was expecting to see new talent showing off their chops, new ideas getting test runs, got passable displays of competence instead. A few highlights though:
The Tesla World Light...eye-popping National Film Board animation in the style of Norman McLaren...the Quebec mini-drama
Crème de Menthe, and
Jodilerks Delacruz, Employee of the Month, which took me back to the real-life nightmare world of
Dark Is The Night. The Philippines are looking pretty grim these days.
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Short Cuts Program #8: Now we're talking! Do the Short Cuts programmers save the cream of the crop for the last show? Seems like it. I dare anyone to watch these seven mini-masterpieces and tell me there's a full-length feature at TIFF which runs the gamut of emotions and styles as deftly as these. Must it really take two hours to break your heart?
Waiting For Hassana, which confronts Boko Haram, will do that in ten minutes. They're all gold but my faves were
Death: Dad & Son, the funniest thing I saw at TIFF, a kind of netherworld Wallace & Grommit;
Shadow Nettes could a worthy opener for an
Eraserhead showing, and
Bonboné which celebrates the optimism--and resourcefulness--of Palestinians behind Israeli bars.
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Faces Places: was expecting to be wowed, settled for charmed and delighted instead; and after a week of mainly pessimistic and bleak visions of a modern world backsliding into the medieval, "charmed and delighted" is probably what I needed most. Funny, warm and optimistic…make this an ongoing reality TV series!
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