by Ralph Lucas – Publisher
(September 10, 2024 – Toronto, ON) In late August we took a look at the early film festivals in September and it is impossible to do that without devoting a lot of space to the Toronto International Film Festival. This article picks up in a post-TIFF world when there are still a large number of festivals taking place across the country.
The day before TIFF comes to an end, Cinéfest Sudbury launches. Running from September 14th to the 22nd, the opening Gala film is from Andrew Currie and it’s titled The Invisibles. Starring Tim Blake Nelson as Charlie and Gretchen Mol as Hanna, the couple are in crisis and facing the end of their marriage when Charlie literally starts to disappear. As he fades from the world, he discovers a new world of “invisibles”; people who have disappeared just like him and who now exist in an alternate reality. Continually drawn back to his old life, he starts to see their marriage and the tragic loss of their six-year-old son from 
Hanna’s point of view and soon realizes that he must fight to return to his reality. Just a few of the other Canadian films screening at Cinéfest are Ricardo Troji’s 1995, Young Werther and The Mother and the Bear, which Thom Ernst wrote about earlier this week. The full schedule is online.
The 11th annual Lunenburg Doc Fest launches September 18 with the feature documentary Mediha. Mediha is a 2023 American documentary about Mediha Ibrahim Alhamad, who was kidnapped in the Sinjar massacre and sold into sexual slavery. Much of the footage in the documentary was filmed by Alhamad after she was released. Written and directed by Hasan Oswald, Mediha won the Grand Jury Prize at Doc NYC in New York City. Click here to see more about the festival.
The first of the Big 3 western Canada film festivals opens on September 19th. But I want to write about the three festivals together. Before getting to them, I want to point out the Ottawa International Animation Festival (September 25-29) and the Montreal International Black Film Festival (September 26-29).
The OAIF is recognized as one of the leading animation festivals in North America. More than just screenings, a major part of the festival is the Animation Conference. Animators from around the world gather because, as it states, in part, on their website, TAC is “designed for professionals in content creation, development, production, distribution and marketing. TAC brings together key players in North America and international markets. Click here for a look at the complete 2024 schedule.
The Montreal International Black Film Festival (MIBFF) is Canada’s largest black film festival. This year, the 20th, within a short schedule, the festival will offer up 100 films from 30 countries, including 6 World premieres, 5 International premieres, 10 North American premieres, 13 Canadian premieres and 39 Quebec premieres. The big news is the opening night special event, which is being labelled as “an intimate evening with Spike Lee” who is this year’s honourary Festival President. There is lots more information online.
The Calgary International Film Festival (CIFF) is an 11-day event that starts on September 19 and ends on the 29th. It gets a bit complicated because, yes the opening is the 19th and the Opening Gala film is The Thicket, but the day before, September 18th, CIFF is showing The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal. Thom Ernst commented on that film earlier this week. The full CIFF schedule is available online.
The Edmonton International Film Festival starts on September 26 and continues until October 5th. The new Canadian feature from director Johnny Ma, The Mother and the Bear launches the festival at 6:30PM at the Metro Cinema at Garneau Theatre. You can read more about the film here and you can take a look at the full EIFF festival schedule here.
The Vancouver International Film Festival starts on the same day as Edmonton, but runs one day longer, wrapping up on October 6th. This is the 43rd VIFF, which is spread over 9 screens and more than 350 screenings. There are 150 features (including more than 70 premieres) and 81 shorts. The pride of place as the opening films goes to Ariʼs Theme by local filmmakers Jeff Lee Petry and Nathan Drillot. It’s a documentary about British Columbia composer Ari Kinarthy, who lives with spinal muscular atrophy. Born “with the soul of an artist and a passion for composing music”, he embarks on an ambitious goal: to create music that will capture his life and leave a legacy through which others will remember him. In a singular live performance and cinematic experience, eight members of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra will live score select passages within the film.
The closing film isn’t Canadian but it is Jacques Audiardʼs Emilia Pérez, a dizzying musical that took this springʼs Cannes Film Festival by storm. This spectacle sees a Mexico City defence attorney named Rita (Zoe Saldana) enlisted to tend to the affairs of a notorious drug lord (Karla Sofía Gascón) who is now completing gender affirmation surgery. Rechristened Emilia Pérez and determined to right her misdeeds, she relies on Rita to reintegrate her in the lives of her wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and children. The film was honoured with both the Jury Prize and Best Actress Award at Cannes, which was shared by the ensemble cast. Other Canadian films screening at VIFF include Can I Get a Witness?, Rumours, Matt and Mara, Sharp Corner, Shepherds and Universal Language, to name a few. The complete VIFF 2024 schedule is online.
Also see: September Film Festival listings.
Ralph Lucas is a former broadcast executive and award-winning director in high-end corporate video production. The founder and publisher of Northernstars.ca, online since 1998, he began writing about film and reviewing movies while in radio in Montreal in the mid-1970s.
