TIFF 51: Latin American Gems, Part II – Queer Stories

by Cláudio Alves

Latin American storytelling at TIFF wasn’t just about great feats of actress-ing, as I explored in part one of this miniseries within the broader festival coverage. Another common thread found between several projects was an exploration of queerness in its many forms. From an Irish studio's attempt to honor a Dominican child’s journey of self-discovery to a French-Haitian tale of sexual liberation from the chains of Christian fundamentalism, the Toronto program had much to offer in matters of LGBTQIA+ representation. Honestly, having landed in Portugal from Canada and immediately jumped into covering Queer Lisboa for a local outlet, these ideas kept percolating in my mind, bolstered by such films as this year’s Queer Lion winner, the Brazilian provocation that is London, which I might need to find a way to write about before the fall festival season is over for good. 

Alas, tonight, let me recommend you Sharon Kleinberg’s I Am Mario, Louise Bagnall’s Julián, Gessica Généus’ Marie Madeleine, and Joaquín Ruano’s Nosotros…

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TIFF 51: Latin American Gems, Part I – Actress-y Delights

by Cláudio Alves

Fair warning, the fall festival coverage isn’t over yet – it will never be over!

I kid, I kid. We’ll conclude the TIFF odyssey next Tuesday, exactly one month after the 51st Toronto International Film Festival screened its last picture with a very silly convo between myself and Brian Rector (aka Eurocheese). Until then, I still have more reviews to drop, mostly capsules that will hopefully spark your interest in smaller films likely to be released in limited form this year or the next. So take these as friendly recommendations, reminders to pay attention when you hear that these films might be playing near you. In that spirit of sharing cinematic joys and celebrating the Davids to Hollywood’s Goliaths, I decided to give some special space to Latin American cinema, which had an incredible showing at this year’s fest, spanning fiction to non-fiction, shorts to five-and-a-half-hour epics.

For this first batch of texts, I’m shining a light on films held together, in one way or another, by sublime lead actress turns. After all, there’s nothing that The Film Experience readership loves more than great actress-ing. They are Diego Luna’s Ashes, Fernando Eimbcke’s Flies, Neto Villalobos’ Love is the Monster, and Gabriel Martins’ On Behalf of My Son…

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TIFF 51: “Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney” and “Sunburn” were among the fest’s best Canadian films

by Cláudio Alves

Sometimes, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that TIFF is a Canadian film festival. It’s the biggest Canadian film festival, to be specific, and, as such, it bears the responsibility of celebrating and helping launch local talent, voices and, indeed, Canadian film. By defining Hollywood-made movies as ineligible for the International People’s Choice Award, unlike UK- and Ireland-based projects, TIFF blurs the line between itself and the American film industry, perhaps as part of its endless quest to make the fest indissociable from the start of Hollywood’s awards season. Still, it remains a landmark cultural institution of Canada and, hopefully, for Canadians before it is for LA-based studio fare.

With that in mind, let’s talk about this year’s Midnight Madness People’s Choice Award winner, Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney, a uniquely Canadian documentary fever dream by Winnipeg filmmaker Matthew Rankin. There’s also Serville Poblete’s Sunburn, a Toronto-set summery daydream that was awarded the Best Canadian Film prize…

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TIFF 51: Jury of Two, Part II

Time for another break from those TIFF and NYFF reviews. Cláudio Alves and Eurocheese have appointed themselves juries to choose the best of the Toronto fest. From Casting to Picture, let's go!

How many prizes can Eurocheese give to LA BOLA NEGRA? To quote a 22-year-old comedy classic, "the limits does not exist."

CLÁUDIO: Hello again, my friend. I guess it's time for the second round of these. Or third, if we count that gargantuan Best Actress conversation that spanned from Oscar frontrunner Julianne Moore to such underrated international thespians as Rejane Faria. And speaking of acting, why don't we start the next part of our jury-of-two journey with the category AMPAS hosted for the first time last season?

BEST CASTING 

First up, casting legend Nina Gold deserves praise for the miracles she does for Tender Loving Care and Clarissa. The former is full of small, one-scene roles that need to jump off the screen and feel as lived-in as our main quartet. Somehow, she got it right every single time, be they Leigh regulars, British theater and TV vets, or newcomers like Kaedon Skerritt. In the Nigerian Mrs. Dalloway adaptation, the main cast is more sprawling, and casting different versions of the same characters adds another layer of difficulty. Somehow, she aces it, sometimes by not insisting on superficial similarities between performers but by getting the right energy for the role at two such distinct phases of their lives that they might as well be different people altogether...

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NYFF 64: “Clarissa” is the best “Mrs. Dalloway” adaptation you’ll ever see

by Cláudio Alves

Between Wuthering Heights and The Odyssey, much has been said this year about the merits and demerits of film adaptations straying from their source material. Most of the time, I’m a defender of unfaithfulness in the transformation of a text between mediums. Indeed, some of the most interesting aspects of both those box office success stories are precisely the dialogues established between them and their literary origins, deviation as conversation. Moreover, the general public’s idea of fidelity to a text can be superficial, to say the least, and believe me, I’m trying to be diplomatic in my choice of words here. Some would say Arie and Chuko Esiri’s Clarissa is a wild re-imagining of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, unfaithful as can be in its transposition of a narrative set in post-WWI England to contemporary Nigeria.

They would be wrong. Not because the Esiri brothers don’t do what I’ve just described, but because, in this gesture, they have managed to capture the essence of Mrs. Dalloway in ways no other cineaste has to this day. Step aside, Gorris and Daldry, for there are new masters of putting Woolf on screen to join Sally Potter in her tiny pantheon. And it’s precisely through their changes to the classic novel that they manage to make Clarissa the best Mrs. Dalloway we’re likely to see in the annals of film history, yesteryear’s and those to come, purists be damned…

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