The Toronto International Film Festival is here! Fresh off the heels of the Venice and Telluride Film Festival, TIFF is a packed to brim festival with over a hundred slated premieres. From highly anticipated awards contenders to international premieres to pulse pounding, high octane Midnight Madness offerings, TIFF has a little bit of everything to offer cinephiles.
TIFF is a great place to discover new films, add new movies to your ever growing watch list, and highlight new filmmakers bringing new voices to the cinema landscape. With so many films available and limited tickets for both press and public, it is impossible for one reviewer to see them all. Of course, we’re going to try our best, and have got our first round of TIFF films for review and your reading pleasure! Enjoy!
“Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person“
From its title alone, “Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person” immediately sparks intrigue, which is why it was one of the first films we decided to check out. A gothic style coming of age story from Ariane Louis-Seize follows Sasha (Sara Montpetit), a “teenage” vampire with immense sympathy for humanity. Much to the disappointment of her family, she will only drink blood pouches and refuses to feed. That is until she has a chance encounter with Paul (Félix-Antoine Bénard), an actual teenager who is convinced life is not worth living. After discovering the truth about Sasha, he offers himself to be her next meal, giving them both what they want. But as their bond grows, both Sasha and Paul begin to discover themselves and will inevitably be changed by their consenting agreement.
With a confident vision and quirky world building, Louise-Seize delivers a quiet, darkly funny story that picks up steam as it goes on. It is elevated by terrific performances from Montpetit and Bénard, who’s chemistry is palpable and pulls you into their budding bond. Its style and darker undertones do struggle at times, keeping audiences at bay if you’re unable to tap into “Humanist Vampire’s” strange underworld. Darkly lit and rather slow in its pacing, there are some tonal imbalances and often underdeveloped character motivations that hold it back from really coming together. Still, “Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person” makes good on its strange premise and if you’re able to tap into the wavelength, ends up working more than it doesn’t. We would recommend this one.
“Boil Alert“
An indigenous documentary from Steve Salas, “Boil Alert” follows an aspiring activist Layla Staats who guides us through a number of First Nations reserves to receive the basic human right of drinkable water. Across the Canadian reserves, “Boil Alert” explores the devastating effects of long term boil alerts and the pollution that has wreaked havoc on some of these nations. Nations whom have not had drinkable water in their lifetimes. Staats also goes through her own self discovery, sharing her personal struggles and reconnecting with her indigenous roots as she seeks to bring awareness to a very real, often ignored problem. “Boil Alert” delivers a poignant subject matter that demands to be seen and serves as a call to action to protect and help suffering people.
Though the subject matter of “Boil Alert” is vital, its execution is lacking, with Salas struggling to combined the story at hand with the personal story of his protagonist. Staats feels a little to new to activism to be our guide for such an important story, and it becomes hard to feel the compelling nature of the film’s core narrative. Which is a shame, because that core story in “Boil Alert” is something vital that more people should hear and see for themselves. The protagonist feels forced, and the hybrid approach takes away from the necessity of the story it is telling. “Boil Alert” could benefit greatly from docutropes, providing more experts and commentary as well as a deeper exploration of the rich history that exists here. It is held back by its unique approach, which sounds counterintuitive to filmmaking but would get its point across more directly if it focused on being a singular documentary in a typical documentary style.
“The Teacher’s Lounge”
Easily a top 3 of the early TIFF screenings so far, “The Teacher’s Lounge” is a riveting, tense drama with a strong current of thriller elements that explores the power dynamics between administration, teachers and students. Directed by Ilker Çatak, “The Teacher’s Lounge” tells the story of Carla (Leonie Benesch) a new teacher at a German junior high school. Loved by her students and taking great pride in her work, she becomes a victim of a series of small thefts that have been happening around the school, one she captures on video inside of the teacher’s lounge. Caught up in trying to find the culprit, the small action ends up having huge consequences, one that spirals out of control and effects everyone around her, including her students who begin to demonstrate their abilities to fight back against things they deem injustices.
It’s hard to really talk about “The Teacher’s Lounge” without giving anything away. On the surface, it seems like a small story that couldn’t possibly be that intriguing. But Çatak’s capable direction and tight, almost claustrophobic cinematography, the film is immediately engaging and never lets go once it gets ahold of you. It wraps you up in the characters and ever growing emotional explosion and stress of Carla, and where it goes and how the story unfolds is truly gripping. “The Teacher’s Lounge” manages to take a very simple premise and explore a plethora of themes buried beneath the surface. Benesch is electric, and delivers a fully committed performance that engrosses you into her emotional turmoil. Prejudice, power, bureaucracy, retaliation, and consequences all collide in this tense tale. The ending may leave some feeling unsatisfied, as it is more of a statement than a resolution and didn’t quite work for us. However, the journey in “The Teacher’s Lounge” is absolutely worth taking, and will leave you on the edge of your seat as the events unfold. This was the first real surprise of TIFF, a film that wasn’t on our radar but instantly became a top pick and a must watch. We highly recommend “The Teacher’s Lounge.”
“Tautuktavuk (What We See)“
Another indigenous feature, “Tautuktavuk (What We See)” tells the story of two sisters Saqpinak and Uyarak (played by co-directors Carol Kunnuk and Lucy Tulugarjuk) separated by past events amid COVID lockdowns. Uyarak left her family and tribe in Nunavot after a traumatic event involving domestic violence to live in Montreal. Now more isolated than ever due to the lockdowns, she begins to explore her past traumas through counseling and healing, sharing her experiences largely over zoom with her older sister Saqpinak, her closest confidant and one who has more detailed memories of the pain they endured. As they continue to open up to each other, their memories and stories begin to come together more clearly, even as they are separated by different lives in their adulthood.
Unfortunately, though this premise is intriguing the film has a hard time keeping its audience engaged. The slow paced exploration of trauma, though purposefully kept from being relived onscreen, never quite feels as emotionally impactful for the audience as it does for the characters. This is largely due in part to the Zoom call framework and the tonal imbalance of a more documentary style as it explores the different communities. “Tautuktavuk (What We See)” has long stretches of time spent on understanding and explaining the communal life of Nunavot, and while this is important to the understanding of the characters themselves, it never feels like a true narrative feature film. This hinders the investment in the lives and journey of Saqpinak and Uyarak, and though poignant and important it fails to really allow its audience to share in their journey of experience. “Tautuktavuk (What We See)” is an important story told through a distant lens, and the execution holds it back from being as impactful as it could be.
So there you have it, our first round of TIFF reviews! We’ll continue to update as we see additional films. You can learn more about the film festival here.
