IMAGINENATIVE LAUNCHES 16TH EDITION
Five-day Toronto festival is the world’s largest showcase of film and media arts by indigenous artists
imagineNATIVE: Yet another humble Toronto film festival that grew to world-class proportions, imagineNATIVE is now the planet’s largest showcase of film and media arts by indigenous artists. The 16th annual edition more than maintains the fest’s standards for both quantity and quality.
The five-day program begins Wednesday with a welcome gathering at the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto at 2 p.m.
A spare yet striking new drama by Seminole filmmaker Sterlin Harjo that recently had its world premiere at TIFF, Mekko is the opening night gala at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema at 7 p.m. The international slate also includes a retrospective on Cherokee producer and director Heather Rae, a spotlight on Sámi cinema and an encore presentation of the recent Maori martial arts epic The Dead Lands at the Lightbox on Thursday at 8 p.m.
Just as notable are the contributions by First Nations filmmakers and artists working in Canada.
The latest doc by Atanarjuat filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk, Angirattut pays tribute to the oral traditions of the Inuit — indeed, Kunuk chooses to honour the words of the elders by presenting them with no Englishlanguage translation. The richness of the images will certainly suffice for many viewers when Angirattut plays Oct. 16 at 10:30 a.m.
In conjunction with his new exhibition at the Gardiner Museum, artist Kent Monkman also presents a set of subversive and often hilarious short films — including his recent TIFF premiere Casualties of Modernity — at the museum on Oct. 16 at 3 p.m.
Making its Toronto premiere at the Lightbox on Oct. 16 at 1:30 p.m., Le Dep is a low-budget but high-impact drama about a young Innu woman who faces a desperate situation while working one night at her father’s store in a remote northern community.
A thoughtful debut feature by Adam Garnet Jones about a young man coming to terms with a family tragedy and his own sexual identity, Fire
Song plays imagineNATIVE’s closing gala at Lightbox on Oct. 18 at 6 p.m.
QUEEN OF EARTH
Though only 31, Alex Ross Perry has become a leading figure of the American indie movie scene thanks to a string of idiosyncratic features with a decidedly literary bent.
His first feature Impolex was a (very) loose adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow and his acerbic comedies The Color Wheel and Listen Up Philip eagerly flaunted the influence of Philip Roth. Making its Toronto premiere this week in a co-presentation by MDFF and Refocus, Queen of Earth is the director’s second film to make excellent use of Mad Men’s Elizabeth Moss.
Here, she plays a fragile woman who comes apart over the course of a weeklong getaway with a best friend played by Inherent Vice’s Katherine Waterston. While the writing is just as sharp as it was in Perry’s earlier features, his latest establishes an equally precocious flair for Ingmar Bergman-style psychodramas, too. Queen of Earth plays the Royal on Tuesday at 7 p.m.
THE CREEPING GARDEN
If you see only one movie this week about slime mould, it has to be this British doc. A surprise favourite at Hot Docs and other fests, The Creeping Garden investigates a weird subculture of scientists and artists who are collectively fascinated with plasmodial slime mould. Sure, it may seem like gunk to you, but a closer look reveals a great deal about the mysteries of creativity and consciousness. Jim O’Rourke’s eerie musical score adds another level of oddness to this surprisingly engrossing effort by directors Tim Grabham and Jasper Sharp, which opens at the Lightbox on Friday.
PEOPLE HOLD ON
A dramedy about a cottage weekend that gets engulfed in an array of quarter-life crises, People Hold On boasts an impressive array of young Canadian actors. They all came together thanks to the efforts of Michael Seater ( Life With Derek) and Paula Brancati ( Degrassi: The Next Generation), who co-wrote the script and workshopped it with fellow actors such as Katie Boland and Noah Reid. People Hold On opens at the Carlton on Friday with cast Q&As on opening night.
DEEPA MEHTA
TIFF Bell Lightbox marks the upcoming arrival of Deepa Mehta’s new feature Beeba Boys in theatres with an extensive retrospective on the Toronto filmmaker. Mehta joins Piers Handling for a conversation on Saturday at 7 p.m.; she also provides intros for a screening of Satyajit Ray’s 1959 classic The World of Apu on Saturday at 3:15 p.m. and her own 2005 Oscar nominee Water on Sunday at 4 p.m.
NEW DOCS ON FABERGÉ AND THE BLACK PANTHERS
The subjects of two new releases at the Bloor this week couldn’t be further apart on the socio-economic spectrum. Fabergé: A Life of Its Own recounts the history and legacy of Peter Carl Fabergé, the 19th-century craftsman who made priceless jewels for Russia’s czars. Meanwhile, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution is director Stanley Nelson’s acclaimed primer on the African-American nationalist group. Both films begin runs at the Bloor on Friday.
IN BRIEF
A new doc about the pain of heartbreak, Sleepless in New York opens Friday at the Carlton. Dr. Helen Fisher, an anthropologist who’s one of the film’s subjects, shares her wisdom on the subject at the first screening at 7 p.m.
Surely the greatest of all comicbook adaptations, Howard the Duck plays the Carlton on Saturday at 2 and 7 p.m.
An Education plays the TIFF 40 free screening series at the Lightbox on Tuesday at 6:15 p.m.
The MUFF Society presents the Canuck grrl-werewolf classic Ginger Snaps at the Carlton on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
Benedict Cumberbatch stars in a big-screen presentation of the National Theatre’s recent production of Hamlet at selected Cineplex theatres on Thursday at 7 p.m.