TIFF 51: “Four Seasons in Java” is Kamila Andini’s most ambitious film to date

by Cláudio Alves

Over the last decade and change, Kamila Andini has become one of Indonesia's most acclaimed and internationally recognized filmmakers. Her debut, 2011’s The Mirror Never Lies, carried the pressure of paternal legacy, for Andini is the daughter of renowned director Garin Nugroho. Yet, the film’s promise of excellence was enough to supersede the legacy of blood and quiet any errant accusations of nepotism. More successes followed, including 2021’s Yuni, which represented Indonesia at the 94th Academy Awards, and 2022’s Before, Now and Then, which competed at the Berlinale and won Laura Basuki a deserved Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance. This year, her Four Seasons in Java had its world premiere at TIFF as a Centerpiece selection. 

Part revenge Western and part ghostly horror, part foray into magical realism and a piece of landscape poetry, a reflection on sexual violence against women and the insufficiencies of superficial progress, the film is hard to describe, much less categorize. There’s one thing about Four Seasons in Java of which there is no doubt, however. It is Andini’s most ambitious project yet…

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TIFF 51: Stephanie Ahn’s “Bedford Park” is an unrelenting actors’ showcase

by Cláudio Alves

Social realism is a preferred style for many directors in the American indie scene. However, one must be careful when indulging in its rawness, or else accusations of making misery porn may come about. There’s also the way such projects can devolve into something more akin to an acting exercise than a story proper, built upon and uniquely sustained by performers willing to portray degradation for the camera, breaking apart for our viewing pleasure if not our elucidation. Despite putative good intentions, Stephanie Ahn’s debut feature, Bedford Park, is a good example of these pitfalls, exploring the attrition cum companionship cum romance of two thirtysomething second-generation Korean-Americans played by Moon Choi and Son Sukku.

Her Audrey and his Eli go through it and then some in a diasporic bit of melodrama that, at times, feels like it’s aimlessly piling on misfortunes so that it can gawk at how its leads will articulate them through committed performances. Is there more to it? Hard to say…

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TIFF 51: “Fjord” works great as a conversation starter

by Cláudio Alves

I don’t want this to become a yearly tradition. However, it’s notable that, for the second TIFF in a row, I chose to cap my first day at the fest with a Cannes prizewinner starring Renate Reinsve, coming hot into the awards season with NEON’s backing and the recommendation of a battalion of fellow critics I follow. And at the end, I find myself a contrarian. But while Sentimental Value was merely a disappointment, Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord is much worse, an outright catastrophe that’s probably my most despised Palme d’Or choice since Sophia Loren’s jury decided to give the festival’s top prize to The Birds, the Bees and the Italians, way back in 1966. Reinsve innocent, though… 

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TIFF ’26: “Everything Else Is Noise” crowns Nicolás Pereda the Wavelengths king!

by Cláudio Alves

You may have noticed over the last few years of TIFF coverage that one particular section holds a special place in my heart. It’s the Wavelengths program, curated by Andréa Picard and committed to celebrating some of the most audacious works of cinema today. They are films that push boundaries and challenge, not just, or even primarily, through dramatic provocation, but by offering new ways of understanding the filmic form. Think of Gomes’ Grand Tour and Santos Arias’ Pepe and Koberidze’s Dry Leaf. Think of Nicolás Pereda’s Lázaro at Night and Copper. Indeed, the Mexican-Canadian auteur has become a section mainstay, something of a Wavelengths king that asserts his rule through seemingly simple, almost simplistic, exercises, where storytelling is depurated and elasticized, stretched betwixt off-screen and on-screen realities, apparent convention and quiet eccentricities.

The director’s latest, Everything Else Is Noise, fittingly starts with a sleight of hand that could only work as it does in this beloved seventh art of ours. Its modesty is quite disproportionate to how much it ended up fascinating me…

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TIFF 51: “Hope” delivers a blast of Midnight Madness

by Cláudio Alves

Though the 51st edition of the Toronto International Film Festival (and Market, the organizers would like to remind you) opens officially tomorrow, a special screening kicked off the festivities tonight. Coinciding with its stateside release, the widest for any Korean film since Parasite, Na Hong-jin’s Hope was shown as an honorary part of this year’s Midnight Madness selection. The NEON blockbuster wannabe caused quite the stir at Cannes, the rare genre movie to play in competition. Back at the Croisette, our own Elisa Giudici was impressed by the boldness of Na’s direction despite finding many faults in Hope. That’s something that the jury, presided by Park Chan-wook, might have felt, too, considering the production left Cannes empty-handed - no awards for Na. 

Alas, I am much more enamored of the director’s vision and overall film than our Italian correspondent, and think it's a perfect fit for TIFF’s Midnight Madness crowd. There’s no shortage of madness on display, that’s for sure...

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