NO SHORTAGE OF FILM FESTIVALS AROUND TOWN

ImagineNATIVE returns with a generous slate while Planet in Focus turns the spotlight on the environment

ImagineNATIVE and Planet in Focus: Moviegoers have a huge range of very worthy viewing options this weekend thanks to the return of two of the fall movie season’s key events. Indeed, the slate at imagineNATIVE seems especially generous, what with the docs, shorts, features and other varieties of screen content on offer at TIFF Bell Lightbox.

Screening Friday, Maliglutit is Inuit director Zacharias Kunuk’s more frigid yet still riveting reinterpretation of John Ford’s classic western The Searchers. Then on Saturday, imagineNATIVE, Hot Docs and Native Child and Family Services of Toronto co-present We Can’t Make the Same Mistake Twice, a searing examination of the legal battle to improve the lot of Canada’s aboriginal youth by NFB great Alanis Obomsawin, whose landmark 1993 doc Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance was named one of the 150 essential works of Canadian cinema in TIFF’s new poll for the sesquicentennial.

Another new feature that makes its Ontario premiere at the festival, The Northlander puts a Métis spin on the familiar tropes of the postapocalyptic thriller — it plays Sunday.

Meanwhile, Planet in Focus continues its latest eco-themed program with screenings and events at a variety of venues.

Highlights include Bugs (Friday at Innis Town Hall), a Danish doc about a group of gastronomic scientists determined to make insects a more desirable food option for wary westerners, and Behemoth (Saturday at AGO’s Jackman Hall), a visually stunning study of the impact of rapid industrialization in Inner Mongolia that won two prizes at last year’s Venice festival for director Zhao Liang but was banned from public exhibition in China.

Planet in Focus closes Sunday at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema with What Lies Below, a doc profile of seeing-impaired activist Lawrence Gunther and his efforts to raise the alarm about the threats to Canada’s water sources and the fish who swim in them.

Macedonian, Eatable and Cinefranco fests, too: Could there really be room for three more film fests this week? Apparently so. On Saturday and Sunday, the Carlton hosts the 11th annual Macedonian Film Festival.

The program of features, docs and shorts includes Q&As with two visiting Macedonian filmmakers, Goce Cvetanovski and Goran Trenchovski.

Returning to the Royal for its second annual program of food-and-movie matchups overseen by local culinary MVPs, Eatable begins with a matinee of Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes on Saturday accompanied by food and drink by Sam James Coffee Bar, Blackbird Baking Co. and Chocolates X Brandon Olsen. On Sunday, a showing of Big Night will be followed by a VIP experience overseen by Pizzeria Libretto’s Rocco Agostino and Enoteca Sociale’s James Santon.

Back to share its traditional bounty of subtitled French-language fare, Cinefranco launches its six-day pro- gram at Alliance francaise de Toronto’s Spadina Theatre on Thursday.

Identities in crisis and human rights issues are at the forefront in a set of new features beginning with the French comedy Retour chez ma mère ( Back to Mom’s) and the Quebecois drama Montréal la blanche ( Montreal, White City). Driving With Selvi: A terrific Canadian doc that tells the wrenching but inspirational story of South India’s first female taxi driver, Driving With Selvi has travelled far and wide since it served as a very moving openingnight selection for the Reel Asian festival last year.

Fresh from screenings in London and Brussels, it returns for a limited run at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema this week. Director Elisa Paloschi and her subject Selvi will both attend Q&As after the showings on Saturday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.

In brief: Cineplex hosts free screenings for its Community Day on Saturday — proceeds from $2 snacks go to WE Charity. The Revue’s Food in Film program continues with Willy Wonka

and the Chocolate Factory and sweets by chocolatier David Chow on Monday. A grisly Manson Family-inspired freakout from 1970, I Drink Your Blood plays Rue Morgue’s Cinemacabre series at the Royal on Thursday. Other new releases: The Hotel Dieu at the Carlton, The Swedish Theory of Love at Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema and a 4K restoration of Howards End at Cineplex Cinemas Yonge Dundas. jandersonesque@gmail.com

HOT DOCS Driving With Selvi, playing this week at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, tells the wrenching, inspirational story of South India’s first female taxi driver.

IMAGINENATIVE We Can’t Make the Same Mistake Twice is playing at imagineNATIVE.