NYFF '24: "Lázaro at Night" asks what you really want

by Cláudio Alves

Treading the line between documentary and fiction filmmaking, Nicolás Pereda continues his collaboration with the Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol theater collective in his latest film. Lázaro at Night can, at times, feel like an acting exercise spinning out of control yet perpetually low-key, a sort of screwball comedy on a morphine drip. It's the story of three friends in their forties, living in Mexico City, where they pursue work as actors and fall into a peculiar love triangle. In this, Lázaro G. Rodríguez, Luisa Pardo, and Francisco Barreiro are basically playing themselves. Or, at the very least, a fictionalized version of their identities, twisted for the pleasure of Pereda and a film that confounds aplenty but is also captivating in its own odd way…

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TIFF '24: A Dozen Capsules and Final Farewells

by Cláudio Alves

PERFUMED WITH MINT was one of many gems in TIFF's Wavelengths section.

At long last, let's close this seemingly unending TIFF coverage, so that The Film Experience can move on to some NYFF reviews, maybe even some peeks into the Lisbon festival scene. Still, before bidding Toronto adieu, a dozen titles need assessment, even if it's through a cornucopia of capsule reviews, plus a personal top ten to close things off properly. Spread out through five different festival sections and four continents, these twelve final films span from the experimental to the conventional, from dreamy stylization to dry dreary realism. There are beautiful sights to appreciate and performances, too, including a pair of wildly different characterizations from Chilean actress Paulina García. 

To open the belated farewell, I propose a look at my favorite TIFF section – Wavelengths. Within its radical offerings, one can find pictures that look like none other, such unique visions as Muhammad Hamdy's Perfumed with Mint and Jessica Sarah Rinland's Collective Monologue…

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TIFF '24: From the River to the Sea

by Cláudio Alves

At the Berlinale, NO OTHER LAND won the Best Documentary and Panorama Audience awards.

The 2024 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival was marked by multiple instances of political protest. PETA came for Pharrell Williams, and the documentary Russians at War had its screenings delayed until after the official festival in response to the public outcry against it. While some organizers, guests, and audience members may have grumbled about it, one should expect such demonstrations at an event that purports "to transform the way people see the world" and lead in the "creative and cultural discovery through the moving image." Like every art form, cinema is political – everything is political – and a festival's program can delineate allegiances and avenues of dialogue. In its search for plurality, it can also illuminate contradictions of its own. 

In the realm of political cinema, No Other Land and From Ground Zero, two of the year's most essential films, were screened at TIFF. Both works deal with the plight of the Palestinian people…

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TIFF '24: "The Wild Robot" brings Monet to a Miyazaki Forest

by Cláudio Alves

Many have rightfully said that animation isn't so much a genre as a different medium than live-action cinema altogether. Though many of the same rules apply, audiovisual grammar and specific dramatic codes, there's a depth of craft and intentionality to its image-making that exceeds what can be achieved between a camera and our material reality. Such rhetoric tends to manifest only when analyzing more avant-garde efforts in the realm of animation, but even the most mainstream of productions deserves these considerations. Chris Sanders' The Wild Robot is a good example, borne out of DreamWorks with eyes set on the future of its medium, expanding technological horizons while inventing new forms of cinematic beauty…

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TIFF' 24: Three Documentaries, Three Portraits of Resistance

by Cláudio Alves

A moment of joyful defiance in SUDAN, REMEMBER US.

Documentary cinema tends to get the short shrift regarding festival coverage, unless one's dealing with a strictly non-fiction fest. It seems made-up stories and dramatized truths will always excite mainstream audiences in ways that documentaries won't. Perchance, it all comes down to the need for cinema as escape. Perhaps it's more about historical trends and industry prescriptiveness. Whatever the case, it's a pity because the medium's future is often found outside the confines of narrative filmmaking. Moreover, when looking at political cinema, the potential directness of documentaries cannot be overstated, charging at issues head-on rather than through the oblique avenues of fiction. 

At TIFF 2024, three documentaries felt especially urgent, even when regarding the historical past. They're stories of resistance in its many forms – Hind Meddeb's Sudan, Remember Us, Raoul Peck's Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, and Santiago Esteinou's The Freedom of Fierro…

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