Same-sex couples. Films reviewed: Unicorns, Solo, Rotting in the Sun
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Fall Film Festival Season in Toronto continues in October with ImagineNative — brilliant films and art by and about indigenous people in Canada and around the world from 17-22; and Planet in Focus, the International Environmental film festival, with features, docs and talks on nature, activism, and climate change, from the 12-22.
This week, I’m looking at three new movies about same-sex relationships, two of which played at #TIFF23. There’s a straight mechanic who unwittingly falls for a drag queen in a London pub; a Quebecois drag queen who falls for a French one in a Montreal bar; and a Chilean artist who meets an American influencer on a nude beach in Mexico.
Unicorns
Co-Dir: Sally El Hosaini, James Krishna Floyd
Luke (Ben Hardy) is a mechanic who lives in Essex, near London. He works at his father’s garage, and spends the rest of his time with his 5 year old son. His wife abandoned them when his kid was still a baby, but luckily his dad will babysit if he’s out on a date. For Luke dating usually means furtive sex and one-night stands with women he hooks with online. But one day, after leaving a London curry house, he stumbles into a nearby nightclub, and is riveted by the eyes of a beautiful woman performing an alluring dance on stage. Clearly, the feelings are mutual — Aysha seeks him out afterwards, for a snog and a grope at the stage door. Only afterwards does Luke realize the woman is actually a man in drag. He freaks and leaves. Aysha (Jason Patel) is disappointed — he thought Luke knew they were in a South Asian drag bar. But Luke is straight and almost sickened by what happened.
Still, there is something there. Luke agrees to act as a paid driver (and unpaid bodyguard) for Aysha and her fellow drag queens. They need transportation to get them safely to private “gaysian” (gay+asian) parties on the down low, in places like Manchester. 
The tips she gets at these parties pays her rent. Gradually, they get to know one another better. When Aysha really hits it off with his son, Luke starts thinking maybe she is just the woman he’s looking for. Problem is, he’s not trans, he’s a man named Afik. Aysha is just his drag name. Will the attraction still be there if Aysha goes away? And can a straight white man and a gay South Asian drag queen form a couple?
Unicorns is a poignant, romantic drama about two people from two sides of a deep divide. And while there is some shocking violence and unexpected plot turns, the filmmakers keep it real and subtle. This is co-director James Krishna Floyd’s (of mixed heritage) first feature, and does an excellent job of it. Ben Hardy is a well-known heart throb and soap star in the UK, while Jason Patel is a newcomer — this is his first role. Luckily, the two have amazing chemistry and are compelling to watch.
This is a good first movie.
Solo
Wri/Dir: Sophie Dupuis
Simon (Theodore Pellerin) is the youngest drag artist at a Montreal bar. He’s naive, trusting and sexually inexperienced. He performs elaborate acts dressed in outfits his older sister helps design. And he always looks forward to visiting his Dad, stepmother and sister for Sunday brunch. His mother is an internationally famous opera star, who left the family for greener pastures when he was a teen. But everything changes when Olivier (Félix Maritaud) a charismatic older guy in his late twenties shows up at the drag bar direct from Paris. Simon is blown away by his sex-centred drag performances, and wants to learn from him. Soon they are an item, in and out of bed, and onstage. Simon will do 
anything Olivier wants: moving in together, staying away from his family, even how Simon should perform his own acts.
But the concessions all seem to be one-way. Olivier sleeps with other men, insults Simon’s judgement, and plays mental tricks on him. Around this time, Simon hears some shocking news: his mother is coming to Montreal, back from a triumphant tour off Europe. He hasn’t seen her in years, so this will be the crucial reunion Simon has been longing for and waiting for for so long. How will their meeting go? What role will Olivier play? And will she come to watch his Solo drag performance?
Solo is a moving and tender portrayal — set within Montreal’s drag community — of a young man forced to face his demons and figure out who are his friends and who are his enemies. I know very little about the drag scene (I’ve never seen Rupaul’s Drag Race, for example) but it doesn’t require outside knowledge to understand what the movie’s trying to say. Theodore Pellerin is amazing as Simon, and — though much less sympathetic — so is Félix Maritaud. And for a movie about drag it’s surprisingly devoid of camp. If you’re looking for a tear-jerker with lots of musical performances, you’ll enjoy Solo.
Rotting in the Sun
Dir: Sebastian Silva
Sebastian Silva (Sebastian Silva) is a jaded Chilean artist and filmmaker who lives in an apartment in Mexico. He enjoys reading books about suicide and depression. When he’s not dodging work deadlines or dealing with construction noise in his minimalist apartment, he’s likely walking his dog Chima, doing pop art paintings of giant cartoony penises, or snorting bumps of pentobarbital. His beleaguered housekeeper Señora Vero (Catalina Saavedra, in a great performance) takes it all in, but never comments.
On the recommendation of a colleague he takes some time off to relax at a gay nude beach in Zicatela, but is non-plussed by all the body parts on display. When he almost drowns there, he meets Jordan Firstman (Jordan Firstman) an instagram influencer. Jordan thinks it’s Kismet — he saw one of Sebastian’s films just the night before, and here they both are washing up on shore. They must collaborate on a production. Sebastian is less 
enthusiastic, but Jordan insists. But when he arrives at Sebastian’s door in the city, he is nowhere to be seen. Is he ghosting him? Or has something really bad happened to Sebastian? And will Jordan ever solve this mystery?
Rotting in the Sun is a contemporary indie film in the style of a highly-sexualized comedy. It’s equal parts mystery, screwball comedy, and scathing social satire, with a fair amount of 
nonchalant, explicit sex. Silva reimagines Mexico as an uber-gay paradise, where the local park fountain has a statue of Michelangelo’s David, the beaches are packed with nude men, and every room in his apartment reveals an orgy behind closed doors. This constant decadence is contrasted with the panicky and naive Señora Vero desperately trying to hide Sebastian’s whereabouts. Silva and Firstman play exaggerated versions of themselves, to hilarious effect.
You know the expression “a bag of dicks”? This movie is a dump truck of dicks. But if you don’t mind looking at lots and lots and lots of penises, you’ll get a kick out of this shockingly subversive comedy.
Unicorns had its world premiere at TIFF; Solo had its Toronto premiere there and opens this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. And Rotting in the Sun — along with a selection of other films by Sebastian Silva — is now streaming on Mubi.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
MassachuTIFF! Films reviewed: Dumb Money, The Holdovers, American Fiction
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
TIFF23 is over but it has ushered in Toronto’s Fall Film Festival Season. Toronto Palestine Film Fest offers film screenings, live concert performances and museum installations, starting on Sept 27th. And you can catch eight short dance films, called “8-Count” at the Hot Docs cinema on the 27th and at York U on the 28th. But this week, I’m talking about three more great movies that played at TIFF, all from the USA, all set in Massachusetts. There’s a prep school student named Tully, a novelist with the nom de plume Studd, and an online investor known as Roaring Kitty.
Dumb Money
Dir: Craig Gillespie
Keith Gill (Paul Dano) is a investment analyst in Brockton, Massachusetts who posts his financial details daily online on a sub/Reddit. He works out of his basement. One day he notices a stock he likes is undervalued, so he buys 50,000 shares and posts the recerd on YouTube. It’s GameStop, a shopping mall chain that buys and sells video games and equipment. And when it goes viral, and everyone starts buying them, the prices climb. The chain doesn’t go bankrupt and ordinary people — the dumb money of the movie title — start making good money on sites like Robinhood. That’s good for everyone, right? No — not for short sellers. Those are the wall street tycoons who make their fortunes by betting on the future price of a stock being lower than the current price. But this one is soaring exponentially,
resulting in a short squeeze where the short sellers have to buy back shares at a much higher rate than they bet on. Can Keith — and all his followers — keep GameStop shares afloat? Or will Wall Street triumph once again?
Dumb Money is a simple but very fun movie — based on a true story that happened just two years ago — about ordinary investors trying to beat Wall Street at their own game. It follows Gill, his wife Caroline (Shailene Woodley) his bro Kevin (Pete Davidson), and the many small investors across the country: a nurse, some college students, even a mall employee of GameStop (played by actors including America Ferrera, Anthony Ramos). They’re pitted against the Wall Street short sellers (Vincent d’Onofrio, Seth Rogan). Most of the characters never actually meet one another, but somehow it all holds together. It’s a lot like The Big Short, but the heroes and heroines are regular people not just a bunch of rich guys playing the system. There’s a warm and rustic feel to this movie — a nostalgia for last year! — with nice characters you want to get to know. Nothing spectacular but Dumb Money is highly entertaining and a hell of a lot of fun.
For some reason, I really like this one.
American Fiction
Co-Wri/Dir: Cord Jefferson
Thelonious Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) known as “Monk” to his family and friends is an upper-middle writer and academic. He’s spending time with his family in Massachusetts after being unceremoniously put on leave from his college for displaying the “N word” in class — white students said it made them feel “uncomfortable”. Coming from a family of doctors (he’s a PhD), Monk has very high standards when it comes to literature. He sneers at pulp fiction. Unfortunately his novels aren’t selling. What is selling is We’s Lives in Da Ghetto, written by an equally upper-middle-class, college-educated writer, Sintara Golden (Issa Rae). Monk holds fast to his ideals: he’s a writer who is black, not a black writer. But his agent (Jon Ortiz) wonders why Monk can’t write more “black”. In a fit of pique, Monk churns 
out the trashiest novel he can imagine, full of dreadful stereotypes and contrived black slang, gangstas, single parent families and crack dealers. But to his surprise and disgust, there’s an instant bidding war for the book, finally offering him 3/4 of million dollars. (He wrote it under the pen name Stagg R. Lee, posing as a fugitive from the law.) He wants to come clean and call off the deal, but he does need the money to pay for a nursing home for her mom (Leslie Uggams). But as his mythical fame starts to grow, and Hollywood comes knocking at his door, he winders how long the truth comes out?
American Fiction is a scathing comedy about academia, literature, movies and white American attitudes toward Blacks. It’s also an interesting family drama — with his clever divorced sister Lisa, his incorrigible divorced brother Cliff (Sterling K Brown) and the family maid Lorraine (Myra Lucretia Taylor). It’s also a potential romance, when he meets Coraline (Erika Alexander) a neighbour to the family’s beach house. This is director Cord Jefferson’s first feature, but he makes a mature, clever movie. He takes what could have been a simple farce, and turns it into something bigger than that. Jeffrey Wright is perfect as Monk, never hamming or mugging, just honing his character to a sharp and pithy — but flawed — person.
Great movie.
The Holdovers
Dir: Alexander Payne
It’s December, 1969 at Barton Academy, an elite prep school in New England. Mr Hunham (Paul Giamatti) the hard-ass classics teacher, is put in charge of the kids who have nowhere to go over the winter holidays. Although its Christmas, he assigns the kids homework. These boys are troglodytes and its up to Hunham to whip them into shape, or at least try to. He’s the kind of guy who drops quotes in Latin and ancient greek to no one else’s amusement. He has a glass eye and smells like old fish. Cooking and cleaning is done by Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph). She works at Barton so her son can study there and go to University. But, unlike the rich kids he couldn’t afford to pay for college. So he got drafted and died in Vietnam. Mary is still at the school, because where else is she going to go? Then there’s the students — Jason, an heir to a aviation fortune but his hair is too long for his dad’s wishes; the class pot dealer, Kountse, and Alex and Ye-Joon two little kids, too far from home — their parents are in Salt Lake City and Seoul. But after an 
unexpected event, only one student is left with Mary and Mr Hunham.
Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) is the smartest kid in class, gangly and arrogant, but also a trouble maker. His divorced parents are rich but neglectful, so he’s been kicked out of a long list of prestigious boarding schools. If it happens again he’ll be sent to military school, a fate worse than death. Can the three of them, Angus, Mr Hunham and Mary, form a truce and act like a makeshift family? Or will they drive each other crazy first?
The Holdovers is a remarkably good coming-of-age comedy/drama with a compelling story and fantastic acting. It tugs at your heart without ever resorting to sentimentality. Paul Giamatti is always good, in this case as an unusual anti-hero, while the other two, Dominic Sessa and Da’Vine Joy Randolph, are totally new faces (never seen them in a movie before) but they’re both so good. They are three-dimensional and real, arrogant and vulnerable, and totally believable. I went into this movie with zero expectations, and was shocked by how good it is. I’m purposely not giving away the plot — no spoilers — but I can’t see anyone not liking this movie.
All three of these movies played at #TIFF23. with American Fiction winning the People’s Choice Award, and The Holdovers the runner up. Dumb Money opens this weekend across Canada; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Daniel Garber talks with Jamie Kastner about Charlotte’s Castle
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photo by Jeff Harris.
Spadina Gardens is a legendary apartment building in the Annex, of downtown Toronto. Stratford actors, opera singers and robber barons have lived there, publishing houses were spawned there, and writers like Salman Rushdie and Patricia Highsmith passed through its doors. But when a dutch real estate conglomerate bought it, and words like renoviction started floating down its hallowed halls, the tenants decided to fight back. But can even an apartment as legendary as this one stop the rampant explosion of Toronto’s housing crisis?
Charlotte’s Castle is a new documentary that looks at one Toronto apartment building — its history, aesthetics, architecture — and the plight of its tenants: the people who live there. It’s the work of award-winning Toronto documentarian Jamie Kastner. I previously talked with Jamie about The Secret Disco Revolution in 2012, A Skyjacker’s Tale in 2016, and There are no Fakes in 2019.
Charlotte’s Castle is having its world premiere tomorrow, September 24th, at Toronto’s Hot Docs Cinema, and on TVO beginning on Tuesday, September 26th.
I spoke with Jamie in Toronto, via ZOOM.
Some gems at #TIFF23. Films reviewed: The Movie Teller, Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World, The Promised Land
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
TIFF is coming to an end this weekend, but plenty of movies still playing, with free screenings of Peoples Choice winners, including the Midnight Madness and Platform series. But this week I’m talking about three gems that played the festival, from Chile, Romania and Denmark. There’s a performer in the Pampas, a driver in Romania and a would-be farmer in Jutland.
The Movie Teller
Dir: Lone Scherfig (An Education, The Riot Club, One Day, The Kindness of Strangers)
Based on the Chilean novel by Hernán Rivera Letelier
Maria Margarita and her three brothers Minto, Mauricio and Marcelino, live in a remote company- town in the Pampas where they mine saltpeter. Her mother is a beauty, obsessed with radio soap operas, her father a gruff man with a big moustache. Their biggest source of pleasure is their weekly trip to the local cinema. But when their dad is badly injured — but not killed — in a work accident, they are suddenly without income. And their father, now in a wheelchair, can’t go to the movies anymore.
So the four kids decide to take the movies to him, by describing what they saw. The three brothers were not very interesting but Maria Margarita blew them all the way with her renditions — the love scenes, the fights, the commentaries all perfectly reproduced. Soon word spreads and everyone in town wants to watch her perform. But will it solve their deeper problems? And can it bring their mother home again (she abandoned her family once her husband was injured)?
The Movie Teller is a magnificent, romantic coming-of-age story (each of the four kids are played by three different actors as they grow up). The main events of their lives — like Maria Margarita’s fight with with a dust devil, or her first date with the son of the union organizer — are played out against historical events in Chile, culminating in the US-backed coup that killed Allende and brought dictator Pinochet to power. (You can guess what year it is by the movies they’re seeing). Though a bittersweet story, it feels like a classic drama. Despite the fact they’re in the middle of a desert the film is rich, lush and colourful. And it’s filled with quirky, endearing — or hateable — characters. Danish director Lone Scherfig makes a movie about movies in a cinematic style.
Wonderful.
Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World
Dir: Radu Jude (Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn)
Angela (Ilinca Manolache) is an overworked PA working for a low-rent film studio in Bucharest. She has bleached-blonde hair and wears a dress covered in metallic sequins. She spends long hours driving across the city on minor assignments. Her latest? To interview people who were badly injured while working at a foreign-owned furniture factor. She sees people missing fingers, paralyzed, or in wheelchairs. But this is not an expose; the company wants this for a promotional campaign telling people to wear their helmets… though most of them weren’t injured on their heads.
Everywhere she goes, she pulls out her smart phone and records a short video she posts on Instagram or TikTok swapping her face with a cartoonish version of Andrew Tate’s. She calls her persona Bobito, who spouts a series of bawdy, obscene, misogynistic, and reactionary punchlines, told in the most offensive way possible. Later she picks up marketing exec Doris Goethe (Nina Hoss) from the Austrian furniture company they’re making the film for. Will Angela survive another gruelling day? Or will tiredness turn to a fatal traffic accident?
Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World is a 
biting satirical film about contemporary Romania. It mocks pop culture, government censorship, corporate greed, in a way sure to offend almost everybody. Thereme, Deloitte, KFC, Ukraine, Orban, Putin, Germans, American gun culture, nothing is off limits. This is an avant-garde film, not a conventional one, with very long takes — as long as half an hour — with no cuts. The scenes in her car are grainy black and white, while other scenes are brightly coloured. There are also clips from a 1981 Romanian movie about a female cab driver in Bucharest and the macho Transylvanian man she meets (the same actors appear in this film 40 years later.) And what Radu Jude film would be complete without a a seemingly endless montage of photos, almost like a slide show?
I think this film is brilliant, just like his previous one, but much easier on the eyes. If you’re OK with political satire and unconventional cinema, you should check this one out.
The Promised Land (Bastarden)
Co-Wri/Dir: Nikolaj Arcel
It’s Jutland in Denmark in the 18th century. Captain Ludvig Kahlen (Mads Mikkelsen) is trying to start a farm in an expanse of inhospitable heath land. He wants to make his fortune, live in a mansion, and be knighted by the king. He’s the illegitimate son of a nobleman and his maid, who served 25 years in the German army, but left with only a meagre pension. He has Royal permission to start a farm there — many have tried, none have succeeded — but faces unexpected obstacles. First, there are few people who want to work there. He ends up hiring a husband and his wife, Ann Barbara (Amanda Collin), fleeing servitude in a manor house at the hands of a noble. He was cruelly tortured, she was sexually assaulted.
Then there’s the noble, Frederik de Schinkel (Simon Bennebjerg) a snotty young man, who craves absolute power over all of Jutland. Just by existing on the land, Kahlen challenges his authority, and de Schinkel goes out of his way to stop him. It also doesn’t help that his beautiful cousin Edel doesn’t want to marry him — she only has eyes for Kahlen. Then there are the vagabonds who live in the woods attacking any passing visitors. That’s where he meets a foul-mouthed little girl named Anmai Mus (Hagberg Melina), who the thieves use as a lure. After much squabbling, and dramatic happenings, he, Ann Barbara and Anmai Mus form a 
makeshift family to face the elements as they attempt to produce the first crop ever grown on that land. Will he succeed or fail?
The Promised Land is an epic and novelistic historical drama, about a stubborn and driven man looking to fulfill his big dreams. It’s full of sneak attacks, and revenge plots. Mads Mikkelsen is marvellous as Kahlen, a man who risks his life for the sake of a title or rank, at the expense of the people he really cares about. The large cast is terrific (I mentioned only a few of the Dickensian characters) and the cinematography is panoramic.
This is a fantastic movie.
The Movie Teller, Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World, and The Promised Land all played at #TIFF23, which runs through tomorrow. Go to tiff.net for details.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Daniel Garber talks with Mehdi Fikri about After the Fire at #TIFF23
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photograph by Jeff Harris
Driss, Malika, Karim and Nour are close-knit siblings who live in the banlieux of Strasbourg, France, sworn by their late mother to stay together. When the black sheep, Karim turns to drugs and petty crime, Malika writes him off as a lost cause. But when he is arrested and dies in police custody, she decides to take action. And as she finds herself the main spokesperson for large scale protesters and rioters, she must learn to navigate the world of French politics, justice, media and police. Can Malika find justice for Karim after the fires have ended?
After the Fire is a stirring, dynamic, and hard-hitting look at immigrant communities — personified by one family — fighting back against an oppressive establishment. It’s exciting, surprising and deeply moving. It’s French writer and filmmaker Mehdi Fikri’s first feature, and it had it’s world premiere at TIFF.
Mehdi talks about the justice system, political films, BPM, La haine, Camélia Jordana, media training, Algerian music… and more!
I spoke with Mehdi in person at #TIFF23.
#TIFF23! Capsule reviews: The Nature of Love, Anatomy of a Fall, Dumb Money PLUS Aggro Dr1ft, Do Not Expect Too Much of the End of the World, The New Boy, A Boy and the Heron
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Have you been down to King st between Spadina and University lately? If not, get down there now, because, for the weekend it’s been transformed into Festival Street. The festival, of course, is TIFF, showing world premieres of some of the best movies out there. But there are also free screens, showing classics like Farewell My Concubine by Chen Kaige (who I interviewed on this show a while back), free outdoor concerts — including Nickelback, the band everyone loves to hate — and loads of celebrities and their fans, scrambling to see them up close. There’s also yummy food and drink samples for free, various red carpets, lots of booths and games and places to pose, with sponsors including the countries of Spain and Korea, promoting their burgeoning film industries. Everything is taking place around King St W, and in the nearby David Pecaut square.
So this week I’m going to talk about movies at TIFF: movies that I haven’t seen yet, but really want to see; and some movies I know more about, but promised to keep my capsule reviews short and sweet.
TIFF Movies I’m looking forward to
Here are a few movies which I haven’t seen yet but am very much looking forward to seeing.
Aggro Dr1ft is a movie I know very little about, except that it was entirely filmed using infrared light. Harmony Korine is one of the most brilliant experimental filmmakers out there, and I’ll watch anything he does. I’m especially pleased to hear of massive walkouts at the Venice Festival screening — all the more reason to watch it in Toronto.
Another one I can’t wait to see — and which probably won’t make it to commercial theatres anytime soon — is Do Not Expect Too Much of the End of the World, by Romanian director Radu Jude. If it’s as absurd and outrageous as his last one — Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn — I’m hopping to be as confused, shocked and surprised by this one.
I’m also looking forward to The New Boy about an indigenous kid
in Australia who walks into a remote monastery to perform miracles. The director, Warwick Thornton, brought us the great Sweet Country in 2017, so eager to see what he’s up to next.
There are other categories too. Don’t miss out on some of the excellent documentaries at TIFF. There’s Silver Dollar Road about a black family in North Carolina fighting a land developer, from French director Raoul Peck; The Pigeon Tunnel by Errol Morris looks really good: it’s about the spy and
spy novelist John Le Carre; and on the lighter side, a doc about a camp for trans and non-binary kids in Alberta! It’s called Summer Qamp and it’s directed by Jen Markowitz.
Finally, although I never review short films — never enough space — there are some fantastic programs 
set up for the festival. I’ve only seen one so far, Casey Lum’s Bloom (about one woman’s strange relationship with a potted plant) but I’m sure there are lots more fascinating films where that one came from.
And, finally, can’t wait to see A Boy and the Heron, Hayao Miyazaki’s latest — and possibly last — animated film. He did Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and so many others, and I’m sure this one will live up to Ghibli Studios very high standards.
Now, here are some capsule reviews of movies opening at TIFF:
The Nature of Love aka Simple Comme Sylvain, is Montreal’s Monia Chokri latest, about Sophia, a happily-married university prof (Magalie Lépine Blondeau) whose life changes when she meets Sylvain (Pierre-Yves Cardinal) a small-town contractor they hired to repair their cottage. She falls for him, hook, line and sinker… and he seems to feel it, too. Can this be love? Or is the life of a sophisticated Montrealer just too different from a skidoo-riding handyman? The Nature of Love is a wonderfully campy and touching sex comedy from Chokri.
Anatomy of a Fall
Dir: Justine Triet
Sandra (Sandra Hüller) is a renowned German novelist who lives with her husband in the French Alps. But when their blind son finds his Dad lying dead in the snow just outside of their chalet, no one knows whether he fell, jumped out a window, or was pushed. The Anatomy of a Fall, is a gripping courtroom drama about Sandra’s trial for a murder that might not have actually happened. This won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and I can see why.
Dumb Money
Dir: Craig Gillespie
Keith Gill aka Roaring Bunny (Paul Dano) is a small town dad who talks about and posts his stock market each night online, to an ever increasing audience. But things really take off when he tries to stop short-sellers on Wall Street from driving a shopping mall chain Game Stop out of business. And when tens of thousands of regular people join him to drive up its undervalued stock, Wall Street fights back… but can ordinary folk ever beat the bigwigs? Dumb Money is a very enjoyable comedy based on events that happened just a couple years ago.
The Nature of Love, Anatomy of a Fall, and Dumb Money — and many more — are playing at TIFF this week, and opening theatrically later this year.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Daniel Garber talks with MH Murray and Mark Clennon about I Don’t Know Who You Are at #TIFF23
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and
CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photographs by Jeff Harris
Benjamin is a talented artist, singer and musician in downtown Toronto. He has a new boyfriend after a messy break up, and is performing again after a long hiatus since his last tour. So why is he manic, frantic and at wits end? Because — after a night of drunken partying — he was sexually assaulted by a stranger, may have been exposed to the HIV virus, and has only 3 days to start taking PEP to stop a potential infection. And he doesn’t have enough money to pay for the prescription. And as the tension and panic grows, so does his sense of despair. Can he ever escape from this
spiral? And does he even know who he is anymore?
I Don’t Know Who You Are is a passionate drama about a gay black man in Toronto facing a seemingly unsurmountable obstacle. The film is M. H. Murray’s first feature, and stars Mark Clennon who also co-wrote the screenplay and performs his own music. MH Murray is a native Torontonian who graduated from York U with a degree in film studied, and created the web series Teenagers. Marc Clennon is a Jamaican-Canadian actor, musician and singer.
I spoke with MH and Mark at #TIFF23 at the Intercontinental Hotel.
I Don’t Know Who You Are had its World Premiere at TIFF23.
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