TIFF 50: Xin Zhilei earns the Volpi Cup in "The Sun Rises on Us All"

by Cláudio Alves

Every year, folks think they can predict the wiles and ways of festival juries, forgetting that the smallness of such groups often privileges idiosyncratic tastes and produces shocking results. A jury festival is not deferent to critical consensus, so looking at reviews to divine their decisions is a fool's errand. Moreover, there's a tendency to think only the presupposed big players will vie for plaudits. It isn't so, and, honestly, that's a good thing. For sure, there are those who'll cry about Amanda Seyfried or Emma Stone not taking the Volpi Cup for Best Actress, but I'm glad Xin Zhilei got the prize instead.

Having watched Cai Shangjun's The Sun Rises on Us All at TIFF, I can confirm she makes for a worthy champion...

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TIFF 50: The cranes are flying in "The Tale of Silyan"

by Cláudio Alves

According to Macedonian legend, there was once a boy called Silyan who wished to go far away, leave his village behind, and spread his wings into the world beyond. But when he told his father, the patriarch flew into a rage, cursing the name of the child and his dreams along with it. Answering these paternal furies, the heavens opened above, releasing a mighty force that struck the boy. He didn't die, though. Instead, as the father had decreed, Sylian turned into a stork who could now do as he wanted and leave everything that he knew. But this freedom was not to be an idyll. It was a cursed existence, lonely and unmoored, caught in the space between worlds and belonging to nowhere. 

Tamara Kotevska uses this folktale as the jumping start from which her latest exercise soars into the cinematic heavens above. The Tale of Silyan, which was just announced as North Macedonia’s submission for the 98^th Academy Awards, marks the director's second feature since she, along with Ljubomir Stefanov, helmed the Oscar-nominated Honeyland...

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TIFF 50: Finding hope in "The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo"

by Cláudio Alves

Gazes, whether averted or confrontational, flirtatiously elusive or probingly direct, have been one of the cornerstones of queer desire on screen. In the 21st century, the state of post-New Queer Cinema has only exulted their role, almost codifying certain gestures across a plurality of artistic expressions that may, otherwise, appear to have very little in common past their shared LGBTQ+ label. In this regard, it's almost inevitable to find a picture like Diego Céspedes' The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo. Chile's official submission for the 98th Academy Awards and this year's Un Certain Regard champion ruminates on the transgressive essence of a queer gaze, transforming it into a conduit of infection in what, at first glance, strikes the viewer as an allegory for the AIDS crisis. Things are not what they seem, however…

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TIFF 50: Sweden's "Eagles of the Republic" and Taiwan's "Left-Handed Girl"

by Cláudio Alves

For the past three years, a big part of my TIFF journey has revolved around the Best International Film Oscar submissions. Although I try not to limit myself to award contenders when deciding what to watch and cover, this particular race is very close to my heart, often serving as a bridge between more mainstream audiences and the endless possibilities of world cinema. Earlier, I shared my thoughts on Norway's Sentimental Value, but today, it's time to examine that nation's Scandinavian neighbor, Sweden. And then, let's travel east, to Taiwan, where we find our most recent Oscar king producing, editing, and co-writing his longtime collaborator's solo directorial debut. Tarik Saleh's Eagles of the Republic and Shih-Ching Tsou's Left-Handed Girl await us…

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TIFF 50: Théodore Pellerin delivers a career-best performance in “Nino”

by Cláudio Alves

When describing new films, there's often the temptation to force analogies with past, unrelated works. It's an understandable impulse, akin to shorthand that tends to convey ideas that would otherwise require much more effort to articulate and may not be as clear when all is said and done. In other words, comparisons as such are a crutch for the film critic, verging on cliché. They are also really useful and, at times, almost impossible to avoid. Consider Nino, Pauline Loquès's feature debut, which follows a young Parisian as he reels from a cancer diagnosis and the need to bank some of his sperm if he ever wishes to have biological children. He has three days to make that decision, as he must start treatment by the beginning of next week. So… a genderbent take on Varda's Cléo from 5 to 7 that might as well be titled Nino from Friday to Monday? Yes and no…

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