by Ralph Lucas
(October 29, 2024 – Toronto, ON) Here we are in the last few pre-Halloween days of October yet some late month film festivals have just begun or recently started. The ReelWorld Film Festival started on the 21st and will wrap on November 3rd. Meanwhile the Windsor International is 5 days old and will also wrap on November 3rd. They announced yesterday that Meryam Joobeur’s first feature-length film, Who Do I Belong To has been honoured with the festival’s prestigious WIFF Prize in Canadian Film. Earlier this year it was in Official Competition at the 75th Berlinale.
Toronto’s Rendezvous With Madness festival also continues until Sunday November 3rd. The National Film Board (NFB) has two award-winning films in the festival’s lineup, both of them have already screened. Dr. Jules Arita Koostachin’s deeply personal documentary WaaPaKe (Tomorrow) on Friday, October 25 and A Man Imagined by Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky on October 27.
WaaPaKe (Tomorrow) asks the difficult question: “Who are we without our pain?”
For generations, the suffering of residential school Survivors has radiated outward, impacting Indigenous families and communities. Children, parents and grandparents have contended with the unspoken trauma, manifested in the lingering effects of colonialism: addiction, emotional abuse and broken relationships. In her efforts to help the children of Survivors, including herself and her family, Koostachin makes the difficult decision to step in front of the camera and participate in the circle of truth. She is joined in this courageous act of solidarity by members of her immediate family, as well as an array of voices from Indigenous communities across Turtle Island.
A Man Imagined introduced me and maybe others to a new genre: Documentary fable. Made in close collaboration with 67-year-old Lloyd, this doc follows the jagged path of a decades-long street survivor, across harsh winters and blistering summers, as he sells discarded items to motorists, sleeps in junkyards and lapses into near-psychedelic reveries. When Lloyd reveals a startling detail from his past, the filmmakers try to help him piece together a story that spills out in fragments—a jigsaw puzzle of painful childhood abstraction that seems to hold an unspeakable mystery at its core. It was the winner of the Directors’ Choice Award at the 2024 Tallahassee Film Festival.
The last of the late October festivals on our list is the Banff Centre Mountain Film & Book Festival. It also continues until November 3rd.
The first of the November film festivals starts on the 1st of November and it is one of my favourite. Yes, I’m allowed to have favourites. It’s CinéFRanco. It opens with 1995, the latest instalment of the cinematic life of writer-director Ticardo Troji. It’s a comedy/drama and runs almost 2 hours. This is the English Canada Premiere screening of what is the 4th film in this autobiographical saga. It began with the feature 1981, then 1987, then 1991, and we now arrive at 1995 although the action begins one year earlier. In 1994, Ricardo was on the verge of giving up his dream of be coming a filmmaker. However, luck intervenes when he is chosen to participate in the TV show “La course”, a competition to send eight budding globetrotters to discover the world. Ricardo arrives in Cairo, Egypt, where his dream is reborn. However, he his now faced with more than one difficulty as he tries to make a short video that he needs to deliver in record time. Ricardo begins to question a lot of things, including his own nature. Is he a real artist or not? It’s in French with English subtitles.
A special highlight is a 20th anniversary screening of 3 Saisons. Director Jim Donovan will be at CinéFranco for this screening. CinéFranco runs from November 1 to 10.
On November 7, the Ottawa Canadian Film Festival unspools at the ByTowne Cinema. Opening film is La folle traversée de Philippe from Québec director Stéphanie Gagné. There’s also a program of 6 shorts ranging between 1 minite and a little over 8 minutes. Better hurry, the festival ends November 9.
Also starting on the 7th, the Silver Wave Film Festival runs until the 14th in Fredericton, New Brunswick. This year they celebrate 24 years of spotlighting films shot in the province and produced by New Brunswick filmmakers. It also showcases some of the best films from Canada and around the world. The Opening Gala Feature is Drive Back Home. The synopsis: In the winter of 1970, a cantankerous, small town plumber from rural New Brunswick, must drive his beat-up work truck 1000 miles to Toronto to get his estranged, gay brother out of jail after being arrested for having sex in a public park. The two men are then forced to drive back home together at the behest of their hard-nosed mother before they kill each other. Previously working mostly in shorts, this is writer-director Michael Clowater’s 6th film.
The third of our festivals opening on November 7th is the Vancouver Asian Film Festival.
The Pomegranate Film Festival is now in its 17th year. Founded by a group of young Armenian professionals, this year’s festival kicks off on November 15th and runs until the 17th.
There are six more festivals on our list, and we will look deeper into them once we’re into November. Of note, however, is the Whistler Film Festival, which doesn’t start until December 4th. Yesterday they announced the films selected for the prestigious Borsos Competition. Now in its 21st year, the Borsos Competition – named after the legendary Canadian filmmaker Philip Borsos – awards a $35,000 cash and in-kind prize for Best Canadian Feature, making it the second-largest in the country. The competition shines a spotlight on Canadian feature film, putting an emphasis on innovation and artistic merit. The competition is presented by the Directors Guild of Canada-BC.
Following are the 12 Canadian feature films that have been selected:
Aberdeen | Written and directed by Eva Thomas and Ryan Cooper
Darkest Miriam | Written and directed by Naomi Jaye
Hunting Matthew Nichols | Directed by Markian Tarasiuk, written by Sean Harris Oliver (BC)
Kryptic | Directed by Kourtney Roy, written by Paul Bromley (BC)
Lucky Strikes | Written and directed by Darcy Waite
Phoenixes | Written and directed by Jonathan Beaulieu-Cyr
Please, After You | Directed by Rob Michaels, written by Amir Kahnamouee
Really Happy Someday | Directed by J Stevens, written by J Stevens, Breton Lalama
Sweet Angel Baby | Written and directed by Melanie Oates
The Birds Who Fear Death | Written and directed by Sanjay Patel
Who Do I Belong To | Written and directed by Meryam Joobeur
Sway | Directed by Charlie Hamilton and Zachary Ramelan, written by Charlie Hamilton
This year’s Borsos jury includes Tatiana Maslany, Tantoo Cardinal and Cory Bowles.
Click here to see the full list of our November Film Festivals. If we missed your festival, please send your information to news@northernstars.ca
Ralph Lucas is 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.
