Taking you across Canada, the world and the mind
Interest in screenings of indie-spirited cinema forced organizers to add sixth day to annual event
At the Canadian Film Fest, the definition of Canada is limited only by the extent of one’s imagination.
Toronto’s expertly curated annual showcase of indie-spirited national cinema, 11 features and 45 shorts screening Monday to March 23 at Cineplex’s Scotiabank Theatre, bursts through boundaries of geography and the mind.
The eclectic features slated for the festival’s 18th edition take moviegoers to many corners of Canada, from the wilds of British Columbia and Nova Scotia to the plains of Manitoba to the cities and parks of Ontario. There are journeys across the world, from Trinidad to Haiti to the Middle East to somewhere in the Wild West of the 1870s.
The films’ common link is that they’re made by Canadians, with a large amount of diversity involved: 59 per cent of the features were directed by female/non-binary filmmakers, and 63 per cent of all the films, features and shorts were directed by filmmakers who are Black, Indigenous or people of colour.
“This year, we got over 500 submissions, which is a lot for Canadian films,” festival director Ashleigh Rains said. “We only program Canadian films. We don’t consider films from outside the country. Our submissions have grown substantially since COVID.”
The pandemic had a big effect on the festival. It was the first multiday fest in Canada to switch to online screenings when COVID-19 first struck in 2020.
The virtual version of the fest, which proved popular, continued until last year, when the festival shifted to a hybrid of in-person and virtual presentations. This year, it’s returning to its pre-pandemic format; the Canadian Film Fest and partner Super Channel agreed it was time to get back to the in-person, big-screen experience.
Interest is so great, in fact, the festival added a sixth day of screenings this year.
Most of the 2024 features are Toronto premieres, among them Ian Harnarine’s opening night film “Doubles,” an immigrant family story. “Doubles” began life as a short called “Doubles With Slight Pepper” that won best Canadian short film at TIFF 2011.
“Doubles” is titled for the flatbread-and-spice snack that’s hugely popular in Trinidad. It’s what street vendor Dhani (Sanjiv Boodhu) unhappily serves alongside his mother, Anita (Rashaana Cumberbatch), as their sole means of making a living. They were abandoned years ago by Dhani’s estranged father, Ragbir (Errol Sitahal), who immigrated to Canada with a promise of returning to get them, a promise never fulfilled.
Dhani travels to Toronto to confront his now ailing father, learning along the way that the so-called “Canadian dream” is far from reality for many people.
The passage of years, presented in reverse order, also enlivens the relationship drama “The Burning Season” by Winnipeg writer/director Sean Garrity. It stars actor/cowriter Jonas Chernick and actor Sara Canning as secret lovers whose long-time affair is destructively revealed at a wedding.
Loneliness also looms large in Kim Albright’s surreal B.C. drama “With Love and a Major Organ,” set in a dystopian future when human hearts are essentially optional and an all-encompassing app called LifeZapp has eliminated the need for emotion.
There’s also a sci-fi/fantasy element to “Daughter of the Sun,” a Manitoba-filmed road movie starring writer/director/actor Ryan Ward and teen newcomer Nyah Perkin as father-and-daughter fugitives Sonny and Hildie.
Complicated social and family connections also fuel Taylor Olson’s drama “Look at Me”; Sandi Somers’ dramedy “Hailey Rose”; Caitlyn Sponheimer’s drama “Wild Goat Surf” and Anna Fahr’s drama “Valley of Exile.”
Real life always makes for the most potent drama, though, and the two documentaries in the festival’s lineup really deliver.
In “WaaPaKe (Tomorrow),” Indigenous filmmaker Jules Arita Koostachin puts her family and herself before the lens to fully explore the impact of Canada’s shameful residential schools on their collective lives.
Kaveh Nabatian’s “Kite Zo A” gives us an impressionistic, poetic and wildly captivating tour of Haiti, explaining its Vodou — or voodoo — rituals and showing us a people far more resilient and optimistic than current gloomy headlines would suggest.
This leaves us with Audrey Cummings’ potent western “Place of Bones,” of which the less said the better to avoid spoilers. The bullets fly, but don’t assume you know what’s going on.