Daniel Garber talks with Gail Maurice about Rosie at #TIFF22
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photos by Jeff Harris.
It’s the 1980s in a working-class neighbourhood of Montréal. Fred is an artist whose day job is working at a sex boutique. Adopted as a child, she ran away from home at 16 and never 
looked back. Now she’s best friends with Flo and Mo, two gay streetwalkers who make up her current family. But she’s thrown for a loop when a social worker shows up at her door with a six-year-old girl, who says Fred is her closest living relative. What??
She tries to explain she’s close to eviction, living hand-to-mouth, she’s a Francophone while Rosie only speaks English, and knows absolutely nothing about raising a child. But who can resist a cutie-pie like Rosie?
ROSIE is a new, feel-good comedy/drama about life on the edge in 1980s Montreal. It deals with chosen families, 
marginalized groups, homelessness, and indigenous and queer people in urban settings. (Both Rosie and Fred were adopted as indigenous kids into white families)
The film is directed by actor and filmmaker Gail Maurice. It may be her first feature, but you’ve probably seen her unforgettable roles on TV shows like Trickster, and in movies like Night Raiders.
I spoke to Gail in Toronto via ZOOM.
ROSIE is having its World Premiere at #TIFF22 on Sept. 9th.
Daniel Garber talks with Kevin Hegge about TRAMPS!
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photo by Jeff Harris.
It’s the late 1970s in a Covent Garden, London nightclub with an exclusive policy. To get in you have to look amazing in some way. An older man in blue jeans gets turned away at the door. The man is Mick Jagger, the place is Bowie Night at the Blitz Club 
and the doorman and organizer is Steve Strange. And so a new movement, born out of the ashes of punk, is dubbed the New Romantics by the mainstream press. But who were these tramps, really?
Tramps! Is a new documentary that looks in depth at East London in the early 1980s, along with the art, fashion, film, 
music, hats, makeup, hair, magazines, sexualities, aesthetics and lifestyles that grew out of it. It’s a stunningly beautiful kaleidoscope of colour, a collection of period photos and footage combined with new interviews with the main players. And it talks about the celebrities who emerged from it, like Boy George, Leigh Bowery, Derek Jarman, Phillip Sallon, Judy Blame, and many others.
Tramps is the work of award-winning Toronto filmmaker Kevin Hegge, whom I last interviewed on this show back in 2012 about his documentary She Said Boom: The Story of Fifth Column.
I spoke with Kevin Hegge in Toronto, via Zoom.
Tramps! is premiering in Toronto at the Inside Out film festival on May 31st, 7 pm, at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
Daniel Garber talks with filmmaker Chase Joynt about Framing Agnes at Hot Docs
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photos by Jeff Harris.
It’s the late 1950s in Los Angeles. While the world’s attention is on Christina Jorgensen, the charismatic transgendered celebrity who flew back from Copenhagen as a new woman, a much quieter clinic at UCLA was also conducting treatment and surgery of transgendered patients. And into this office stepped a young woman 
named Agnes who said despite being a cis male she grew breasts spontaneously upon reaching puberty — a celebrated case. But later Agnes admitted she made it all up so she would qualify for gender reassignment surgery. Why did Agnes have to lie to get much-needed treatment?
Framing Agnes is a new and unusual documentary based on newly uncovered medical files that look at Agnes and her other unsung contemporaries from that era. Made in the style of a 1950s talk show, it includes reenactments, off-screen conversations, period footage as seen 
through a present-day filter. Using trans actors, it meticilously presents interviews as “real”, immediately followed by footage showing that they’re only acting. It deals with hot topics, ranging from gender, sexuality and identity, to trans youth, and visibility vs invisibility. This first feature is the work of prize-winning writer and filmmaker Chase Joynt, who co-directed No Ordinary Man, about jazz musician Billy Tipton, and co-authored You Only Live Twice with Toronto artist Mike Holboom.
I spoke with Chase Joynt in Chicago, via Zoom.
Framing Agnes is premiering in Toronto at Hot Docs on Sunday, May 1, 8:30pm at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
Daniel Garber talks with Jeff Harris about Oscars 22!
Oscar interview
(Interview continued)
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photo of Jeff Harris by Jeff Harris.
Yes, it’s Oscar time again, but are you ready for more pomp circumstance, the swimming pools and movie stars, the red carpets and fancy clothes?
Or are you just going to give it a miss?
Either way, you’ll hear all about after this year’s awards this weekend, on Sunday, March 27th.
Did you notice anything different this year? Have you seen any of the movies yet? Do you want to see them? How many could be considered Oscar Bait?
Well to answer some of these questions, to look at the nominations, and to give you a taste of what’s to come, I’m going to join today’s guest in a discussion about the Oscars. Jeff Harris is a Toronto-based photographer, former photo editor at Maclean’s, and is continuing a twenty five year art project of self portraits taken each day. You may also know him for taking the pics that accompany my interviews each year at Hot Docs and TIFF (which he has been covering since 2002).
Jeff Harris is back again for the fifth year as resident cinephile to add his voice to our annual Oscar rundown.
I spoke with Jeff via Zoom.
The Oscars air on March 27, 2022.
Daniel Garber talks with Jeff Harris about #TIFF21!
(Short version)
(Extended version)
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photo by Jeff Harris.
TIFF is the one of the world’s biggest film festivals, where independent filmmakers from around the world show their latest work young actors give breakaway performances, and forgotten names try for their come-backs. Celebrities, publicist, the press and autograph seekers live in a weird symbiotic relationship. And movie lovers have a chance to see the best new movies of the year before they are released. But what’s it like during a pandemic when people are still tiptoeing around? How is TIFF right now? What is working, what isn’t? What’s surprising, and what movies are good, bad, or indifferent?
Well to answer some of these questions — and many more — I’m discussing this year’s festival with a long-time collaborator, marking his fifth time on this show.
Jeff Harris is an award-winning photographer and a freelance journalist who for 20 years has been covering TIFF for Macleans and The Walrus.
I spoke with Jeff in Toronto, in person.
Daniel Garber speaks with Jeff Harris about the Oscars
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photo by Jeff Harris.
Yes, it’s Oscar time again, albeit a few months late, and selected from a much smaller pool since most movie theatres have been closed for a year now, and distributors are sitting on their big-ticket blockbusters.
But hey, however you slice it, it’s still the Oscars. What are the biggest changes this year? Are the Oscars a tired warhorse that should be put out pasture? Or is it an always fresh and always surprising look at the past year’s best movies?
Well to answer some of these questions, to look at the nominations, and to give you a taste of what’s to come, I’m going to join today’s guest in a discussion about the Oscars. Jeff Harris is a Toronto-based photographer, former Photo editor at Maclean’s, and is continuing a twenty-year long art project of self portraits taken each day. You may also know him since he takes the photos that accompany my interviews at Hot Docs and TIFF. Most recently he completed a music video for Toronto musician Regina Gently released later this month.
I spoke with Jeff Harris on April 13th, 2021 via Zoom.
The Academy Awards will be broadcast on April 25th.
My predictions:
Best Picture: Nomadland ✓
Best Director: Chloe Zhao ✓
Best Actress: Frances McDormand ✓
Best Actor: Riz Ahmed Anthony Hopkins X
Best Supporting Actress: Youn Yuh-jung ✓
Best Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya ✓
Best International Film: Quo Vadis, Aida? Another Round X
Daniel Garber talks with Robert Fisk and Yung Chang about This is Not a Movie
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photos by Jeff Harris.
Robert Fisk is a foreign correspondent based in Beirut, who has covered, first-hand, all of the wars in the middle east for the past four decades. He met with Osama bin Laden three 
separate times. Award-winning and highly controversial, Fisk flouts the conventional slant pervasive in western mainstream reporting, and brings things back to the people he’s covering.
This Is Not a Movie is a new doc that follows Fisk at work, tells his history and background, and 
discusses controversial stories and issues. The film is written and directed by Canadian Yung Chang, known for films like Up the Yangtze and the Fruit Hunters.
I spoke with Robert Fisk and Yung Chang in September, 2019 during TIFF, at NFB’s headquarters in Toronto.
Robert Fisk died earlier this week after a short illness.
Daniel Garber talks with filmmaker Corneliu Porumboiu about The Whistlers
Photos by Jeff Harris
Cristo is a corrupt police detective who lives with his mother in Bucharest. But everything starts to change when a beautiful woman asks for his help freeing her friend from jail. At stake? 30 million 
euros in cash… hidden in a mattress. At risk? Arrest, torture or gruesome, painful death. And in order to succeed, first he must learn a secret whistling language used only in the 
Canary Islands. But which of the whistlers will come out alive?
The Whistlers is a new dark and twisted crime thriller that uncovers multiple layers of crime and corruption in Romania and across Europe. It’s directed by Romanian New Wave filmmaker Corneliu Porumboiu, known for award-winning films like Police: Adjective.
I spoke with Corneliu at TIFF19.
The film had its debut at TIFF, opened theatrically in March, and will be available VOD or for purchase in June.
Daniel Garber talks with Will Bowes about CBC Gem’s new series Hey Lady!
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photos by Jeff Harris.
What do you call a rude, audacious and incorrigible senior citizen who has inflicted her idiocyncracies on her adult chidren and absolute strangers alike? What do you call a 
woman who shoplifts, puts lipstick on random babies and rants at everyone around her? What do you call a possibly demented and definitely insulting woman who named her three children after famous dogs? A woman who desperately 
needs you to pay attention to her? If you’re like most people, you probably just call her “hey lady”.
Hey Lady! is the name of a new web comedy series, premiering on CBC Gem on February 14, 2020. It stars the legendary actress Jayne Eastwood, is written by playwright Morris Panych, and is co-directed by actor, singer, songwriter Will Bowes.
I spoke to Will at CIUT 89.5 FM. His new single The Devil I Know is on Youtube.
Hey Lady starts streaming today in Canada on CBC Gem.
Daniel Garber talks with filmmaker Jamhil X.T. Qubeka about Knuckle City
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Photos by Jeff Harris.
It’s Mdantsane, Cape Province, in Apartheid South Africa. A boxing champ tells his young sons Duke and Dudu that there are three ways out of their township: as a boxer, as a mobster, or as a dead man. Flash forward to the present day; their father is dead, and the boys have taken divergent paths. Duke is a flamboyant career criminal just out of prison and Dudu – AKA the Night 
Rider – is a professional boxer in the twilight of his career. But there’s still a chance at becoming a champion. Can they turn things around? Or will they just be the latest casualties at Knuckle City?
Knuckle City is the name of an exciting new boxing / crime drama out of South Africa. This fast-moving, visceral movie dives deep into the nexus between those two worlds as personified by the brothers, their families and friends. Knuckle City is directed by Jahmil X.T. Qubeka, who has won countless awards across Africa, Europe, and North America. The film had its international premier at TIFF and was South Africa’s nominee for Best International Feature Film Oscar.
I spoke to Jahmil in studio at CIUT 89.5 FM during #TIFF19.
Knuckle City is opening soon.
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