TIFF '23: At the Crossroads of Old and New

by Cláudio Alves

During my days at the festival, I've found TIFF can be a place of great discovery, full of small titles coexisting with big ones, often besting them from a disadvantageous position. Discovery can also exist in the dialogues established between programmed projects, threads of shared ideas and ideals linking works of distinct artists from all over the globe.

Because of its status as Bhutan's Oscar submission and Pawo Choyning Dorji's follow-up to his nominated Lunana, I would always see The Monk and the Gun. However, the conversations it shares with other, less high profile films, were a welcome surprise. Despite their disparate genres (comedy, character study, tragedy) themes of encroaching modernity within traditional communities of mountainous Asian nations echoed back from the Nepalese A Road to a Village and the Mongolian City of Wind...

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TIFF '23: Shadows of Our Violent Past

by Cláudio Alves

Examining troubled history through art can be a necessary confrontation, even a search for catharsis. You can't move into a brighter future without acknowledging the shadows lurking in the past. It's no wonder, then, that countless filmmakers use their skills to make these excavations on the dig site of the screen. For all that Shinya Tsukamoto's Shadow of Fire and Felipe Gálvez Haberle's The Settlers tackle their respective countries' histories, they're not traditional period pieces content to passively restage yesteryears. They bear the weight of an artist's singular vision…

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TIFF '23: A widow's plight is the nightmare of "Inshallah a Boy"

by Cláudio Alves

Some films are like nooses, rope around the neck, tightening exponentially with ever-strengthening pulls. Air runs out, suffocation on the horizon if not for the mercy of a final crack. Neck broke, the kiss of death at long last, and let the credits roll. The rope is tension born out of misery and misfortune, a path of escalating tragedy that can easily fall into cheap suffering for suffering's sake. We've all seen such films, bursting with good intentions but way too mired in the character's pain to ever look beyond it. What should be empath sours into pity. So, when an artist risks the noose without capitulating to its snags, it's cause for celebration.

Then, let's cheer for Inshallah a Boy, the first Jordanian production to screen at Cannes and a prime candidate to be the country's Oscar submission…

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TIFF '23: “The Teachers’ Lounge” builds a fizzling provocation

by Cláudio Alves

Germany’s official submission for the 96th Academy Awards starts with a students’ rights violation. Between teachers and administration, headaches abound due to a series of thefts with no apparent culprit. By the time we meet them, with no solution in sight, the staff sanctions two teachers to go into a classroom and question the students. When no kid comes forward with a confession, not even after the class representatives are pressured, the educators insist on searching through their belongings. A suspicious amount of money is found in a wallet, paranoia combined with xenophobic distrust toward the child’s Turkish origins. Turns out the money was a present from his parents.

It’s an embarrassment for all, especially Carla Nowak, the teacher whose classroom got raided. New to the school and full of righteous indignation, she sets out to make a point, kickstarting a chain of events that will soon slip out of everyone’s control…

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TIFF '23: "Pictures of Ghosts" Sings a City Symphony

by Cláudio Alves

When I walk around Lisbon, I often pass by places that once were cinemas, temples of art and communion left abandoned or transformed for new commercial purposes. There's a big one that got bought by an Evangelical church years ago, its screening room turned auditorium for religious spectacle. I've witnessed some of these changes, but many had already happened by the time I found myself alone in the city. My parents' memories and souvenirs tell the stories of a metropolis I never knew, invoking ghostly cinemas I wish I had seen. Lisbon is a graveyard for a moribund culture, the moving image surviving in a few palaces that persist, raging against the dying of the light.

While watching Kleber Mendonça Filho's Pictures of Ghosts, I couldn't help but translate its reflections to my beloved Lisbon. I imagine most cinephiles will do the same for their homes. It's an identification that shouldn't betray the Brazilian master's intent, which is deeply personal. But in specificity, the universal resides...

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