November Festivals – Part 2
by Ralph Lucas – Publisher
(November 13, 2024 – Ontario) Picking up from where we left off in an earlier article, this piece continues our coverage of November 2024 film festivals from just about anywhere in Canada. And, a reminder, if you don’t see your festival listed on Northernstars.ca, please send your details to news(at)northernstars.ca
Today is the 13th of the month and the Reel Asian Film Festival opens tonight in Toronto with a Gala screening of Can I Get a Witness. It’s a delicately rendered blending of science-fiction and pure fantasy achieved in part because of the mix of live action with animation. The story line speaks to an unwanted future where everything is just about perfect, but to protect all that has been achieved, the population must have a limited lifespan. Turning 50 is a predestined death sentence. It runs 110 minutes and is from Okinawa-born Canadian director Ann Marie Fleming, who has won numerous awards including 3 Best Canadian short film awards from the Toronto International Film Festival.
Ottawa sees the return of the 39th annual European Union Film Festival on Friday. It is a production of the Canadian Film Institute along with the European Union Delegation to Canada and participating EU Member States. With the sincere hope the COVID pandemic is behind us, this EUFF returns to a fully in-person festival in the Alma Duncan Salon at the Ottawa Art Gallery. If you like foreign films, you’re going to love this year’s festival will screen one film from each of the 27 European Union member states, and, to show solidarity with the unfortunately still embattled people of Ukraine, they will also present a powerful and critically acclaimed feature documentary from Ukraine at a special benefit screening on the final day of the Festival. The European Union Film Festival runs from November 15th to 30th.
Back in Toronto, the International Vegan Festival is a short festival both in time and content. It runs from 7:30PM to 11PM on November 16th and will present a series of shorts all contained within the topic of veganism. The festival has a virtual component which runs from November 23rd to December 21st.
You would think this festival would run closer to Halloween, but the Blood in the Snow festival returns on November 18th and runs until the 23rd. Part of this festival is the Deadly Exposure Industry Conference and the Horror Development Lab. All screenings are at the Isabel Bader Theatre on the University of Toronto campus.
Toronto has and I hope will continue to have the Hot Docs documentary festival. In Vancouver it’s DOXA and in Montreal it’s the RIDM, which stands for Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal or the Montreal International Documentary Festival. The NFB will have two feature docs at RIDM including this year’s closing film, Ninan Auassat: We, the Children. Director Kim O’Bomsawin took more than six years to craft what is described as “an immersive documentary celebrating the power and vitality of Indigenous youth.”
The focus is on three groups of children from three different Indigenous nations: Atikamekw, Eeyou Cree and Innu. Through this film we hear their heartfelt, raw stories and the ways they understand their history and experiences. We enter the world of their dreams, learning about the issues that concern them and their hopes for the future. We follow these young people through the crucial milestones of childhood, right to the threshold of adulthood, witnessing their daily lives and aspirations, along with the challenges they face. Ninan Auassat: We, the Children will have its theatrical release in Quebec in spring 2025.
Wilfred Buck by Lisa Jackson runs 92 minutes and will have its Québec premiere at RIDM. It is screening in competition and comes with some big names in documentary production behind it. Co-produced by Lisa Jackson and Lauren Grant for Door Number 3 Productions, and Alicia Smith for the NFB, executive producers include Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier and the NFB’s David Christensen. The NFB synopsis states: “He’s from the ‘fresh-out-of-the-bush, partly civilized, colonized, displaced people,’ and he’s here to take us to the stars.” This documentary is a portrait of Cree Elder Wilfred Buck and adapted from Buck’s rollicking memoir “I Have Lived Four Lives.” The film weaves together stories from his life, including his harrowing young years of displacement and addiction. Seamlessly fusing present-day scenes with cinematic re-enactments and archival footage, this intimate yet expansive documentary takes us on an inspiring journey to the space beyond, and to the spaces between us all. It will screen on November 22 at 8:30 p.m. at the Cinéma du Musée. A second screening is scheduled for November 24 at 3:30 p.m., also at the Cinéma du Musée.
RIDM will launch its 27th edition at Théâtre Outremont on November 20 with the screening of Preparations for a Miracle with Swiss director Tobias Nölle in attendance, thanks to the support of the Consulate General of Switzerland in Montreal. Adopting the point of view of machines, this bold and dystopian film, set in an age marked by artificial intelligence, explores in rare depth the ecological and technological changes that are redefining our world.
There is a lot to see at RIDM and much of it is from Canadian filmmakers. In fact, 58 Canadian titles will screen, many of them Canadian or Québec premieres. RIDM runs from November 20th to December 1st with screenings at the Cinémathèque québécoise, Cineplex Odéon Quartier Latin, Cinéma du Musée, Cinéma du Parc, Cinéma Moderne, National Film Board of Canada, BAnQ and Théâtre Outremont.
As the month draws to a close, in Toronto, the 22nd annual Regent Park Film Festival begins. It opens on November 28th with a pre-festival party, and the opening film screens about 90 minutes later. The Canadian film Boxcutter from director Reza Dahya is about an aspiring rapper who has his laptop stolen. He sets out on a quest across the gentrifying streets of Toronto to recover his music in time for the event that could change his life – a meeting with a Grammy Award winning producer. Lots of events and workshops at this festival, which runs until December 1st.
Click here for links to these and other November 2024 Canadian film festivals.
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. Top of page image: Cinémathèque Québécoise.
