106 minutes – Drama
Festival release date: May 18, 1999 (Cannes Film Festival), September 10, 1999 (TIFF)
U.S. release date: July 14, 2000
Canadian distributor: Alliance Films
U.S. distributor: Fine Line Features

Taking place over the span of three days, five characters who live and/or work in the same building engage in personal crisises. The interconnected stories examine situations involving the five senses. Touch, for example, is represented by a massage therapist (Gabrielle Rose) who is treating a woman (Molly Parker), while her older daughter (Nadia Litz) accidentally loses her younger pre-school daughter in the park. The older daughter meets a voyeur (Brendan Fletcher) (vision), a professional house-cleaner (Daniel MacIvor) who has an acute sense of smell, a cake maker who has lost her sense of taste, and an older man (Phillippe Volter) who is losing his hearing. During the course of the film each of these characters discovers an essential clue to his or her own true desire. The Five Senses was a hit at both the Cannes Film Festival and at the 1999 Toronto International Film Festival. Jeremy Podeswa was given the Genie Award for Best Director in January 2000.

Also see: A review of The Five Senses