TIFF 2022 – Day Nine
by Thom Ernst – Film Correspondent
(September 16, 2022- Toronto, ON) It’s the last weekday of the festival and an excellent time to play festival catch-up. You have 3 more days if you’ve missed any of TIFF-22’s impressive line-up of Canadian features. Most every film that is to be screened has been screened.
We’ll reserve tomorrow to discuss the best of the festival, leaving Sunday to post the awards announcement.
Today, I’ll try to steer you towards some of Canada’s best entries still available to see.
Topping the list is director Sarah Polley’s brilliant adaptation of Miriam Toews’ novel, Women Talking. The film is sure to appear on many people’s best-of-the-fest list. Women Talking screens at 8:30 pm at the Royal Alexander Theatre.
Tonight is your last chance to catch Viking, director Stéphane Lafleur’s surprisingly comic take on micro-communities, with perhaps a snippet of pandemic-like seclusion tossed in. The story is about five characters who share remarkable similarities with five astronauts orbiting Mars. The group is confined in a simulated spaceship, instructed to wear full space gear if going outside (the landscape looks to be a barren part of the Great Basin Desert), and told to identify by the name and the gender of their psychological and emotional doppelganger. The story is experienced through the eyes of David (Steve Laplante), a high school gym teacher who signs up for the experiment even though it means 2 ½ year away from his wife. But whatever conflict his spontaneous departure causes in his family life, it is nothing to the politics of surrendering your identity to fulfill someone else’s goals and expectations. Viking is on the ‘not to be missed list. Viking screens tonight at 6:45 pm at Scotiabank Theatre Toronto.
Others on the ‘if you haven’t seen it yet’ list are:
The Colour of Ink is director Brian D. Johnson’s beautiful story behind the passion and love of ink. With voices from those who make ink (often as a hobby) to those who use it, Johnson’s film captures a magic that I bet few people have even considered. The Colour of Ink is surprisingly engaging (for a movie about ink) and often amusing. The Colour of Ink screens today on digital TIFF Bell Lightbox beginning at 10 am and in-person at 6:30 pm Sat., September 17 at Scotiabank Theatre Toronto.
There is a solid buzz around director Clement Virgo’s Brother. Virgo’s film is adapted from David Chariandy’s award-winning novel. It’s the kind of film, like the novel, that inspires people to use the word ‘powerful’ when speaking of it. Brother screens at 6 pm at TIFF Bell Lightbox.
And film critic turned filmmaker Chandler Levak’s charming, funny, and all things good about the movies, I Like Movies gets its final screening tonight at 9:45 pm at TIFF Bell Lightbox.
Also screening today is director Don Shebib’s police procedural, Nightalk at 6 pm at Scotiabank Theatre Toronto; This Place from director V.T. Nayani at 6:30 pm at TIFF Bell Lightbox and on Sat., September 17 at 7:35 pm at Scotiabank Theatre Toronto.
Thom Ernst is a Toronto based film critic and writer and an active member of the (TFCA) Toronto Film Critics’ Association. His work has appeared in various publications including Playback Magazine, The Toronto Star, and The National Post. He is known to CBC Radio listeners for his lively contributions to Fresh Air, Metro Morning, and CBC Syndication as well as appearing on-air for CTV News Channel and The Agenda with Steve Paikin. He was host, interviewer and producer of televisions’ longest running movie program Saturday Night at the Movies. Currently he can be heard interviewing Canadian filmmakers on the Kingston Canadian Film Festival podcast, Rewind, Fast-Forward.
