Festival Picks 2021-23
Festival picks I’m waiting for to be released widely.
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- DirectorCamilla NielssonStarsNelson ChamisaA young and charismatic leader takes on the corrupt ruling party in Zimbabwe's 2018 presidential election.
- DirectorShariff KorverStarsJoes BrauersSpencer BogaertTobias KerslootAfter the sudden disappearance of their superior, three young soldiers are left to guard a military vehicle by themselves. As their situation and the scorching desert heat renders them increasingly disconnected from reality, an encounter with a local boy escalates into a fight that will mark their lives forever.
- DirectorEran KolirinStarsAlex BakriJuna SuleimanSalim DawA gently satirical tale of a man and his family trapped by military blockade inside a tiny Arab village in Israel.
- DirectorHamzah JamjoomStarsSumaya RidaBilly ZaneFayez Bin JuraysA young couple visiting London for fertility treatment find themselves tormented by a mysterious concierge with a taste for playing twisted and sinister mind games.
- DirectorMeg SmakerGuantanamo detainees are released into a year long program of de-radicalization in Saudi Arabia, with the eventual goal of finding jobs and starting families.
- DirectorBianca StigterStarsHelena Bonham CarterGuy ClemensThomas DudkiewiczA snippet of 16mm film offers an emotionally charged, meditative glimpse into the lives of the unsuspecting Jewish citizens of a small Polish village at the precipice of World War II.
- DirectorAraya MengeshaKhadijah Roberts-AbdullahStarsAraya MengeshaKhadijah Roberts-AbdullahKaren RobinsonStarring in and directing their own razor-sharp script, the Toronto team of Khadijah Roberts-Abdullah and Araya Mengesha play twins trying to navigate their own, and each other's, complex responses to both the lockdown and the fight for racial justice during the long hot summer of 2020.
- DirectorLewie KlosterNoah KlosterStarsSara DriverThe completion of Jim Jarmusch's film 'Stranger Than Paradise' depended on producer Sara Driver's willingness and ability to smuggle one of the world's weirdest and most controversial films across the Atlantic Ocean.
- DirectorGiovanni BuccominoIn Libya, two siblings put their heart and soul into the future of their country during the 2011 revolution, but each on a different side: he supported Gaddafi, she was one of the "rebels". Now belonging to the ruling class, she is again standing up for the oppressed and seeking rehabilitation for people like her brother. We follow these fervent, resilient siblings over six years, during which she stands for elections and he struggles with the traumas of war.
- DirectorHanna PolakHanifa and Saeed barely survived the hell that ISIS inflicted on them and their people. Hanifa escaped kidnapping, but her younger sisters were enslaved by the Islamic State. Hanifa embarks on a mission to find them and bring them home.
- DirectorRichard MisekA study of property, profit, and power, made out of archive footage sourced from Getty's online catalogue.
- DirectorNoa Berman-HerzbergOsi WaldStarsNoa Berman-HerzbergGabriela BörschmannA dark family secret from the past is revealed unexpectedly and opens an abyss between two old friends. The movie is an animated documentary, Ispired by true events.
- DirectorIsri HalpernThe film first reveals the struggle to close the strip clubs in Tel Aviv, from the point of view of the strippers, and documents the first public struggle of sex workers in Israel, a struggle that was almost completely ignored by the media. A follow-up film over the years that reveals to the audience a different and unfamiliar view of sex facts in Israel and of the organizations that struggle with them.
- DirectorRami FarahThree Syrian activists are reunited on a theatre stage in Paris. 10 years after the revolution, they revisit traumas and memories of a ferocious war.
- DirectorChris StrikesStarsMichael DavidsonOrville CummingsAlma SaraiThe story of Toronto's bizarre 1985 "patty wars," when Jamaican-Canadian bakers went head-to-head with the federal government over the name of their beloved beef patty.
- DirectorZayne AkyolA camera aboard a drone flies over a territory. The aerial images show barren landscapes, dotted with shabby houses, animals and a few human figures. We scarcely have time to wonder where we are when a text appears on the screen directly addressing the viewer: we are in Syrian Kurdistan, liberated from the occupation of the Islamic State, whose jihadist members are currently in prison. The woman who speaks has been given permission to question them; about their ideas, their past and the future. The Kurdish filmmaker Zaynê Akyol, who made a great impression on the Visions du Réel audience in 2016 with GULÎSTAN, LAND OF ROSES, shows towards them dialectic behaviour typical of those who want to understand before they pass sentence. Their stories thus take shape, framed by a mise en scène that shifts between words, faces and aerial views of the landscape. An unexpected look at a far-reaching current political issue and a film whose subject matter and rhythm create an impressive cinematographic object.
- DirectorShamira RaphaelaShabu, a 14-year old from Peperklip, Rotterdam, accidentally crashes his grandma's car. He then spends a summer trying to make money for the car while pursuing his passion: making music.
- DirectorJames BenningA crisscrosses through the USA, carving it up into a series of static shots of just under two minutes, one for each state, presented alphabetically, from Heron Bay, Alabama to Kelly, Wyoming.
- DirectorLaurène FernandezLocked up in their own apartments, some neighbors tell the camera about the little troubles of life in community. Little by little, when everything piles up, it's enough to drive one mad.
- DirectorEly DagherStarsManal IssaRoger AzarYara Abou HaidarAfter a long time gone, Jana, a young woman, suddenly returns to Beirut. She finds herself reconnecting with the familiar yet strange life she had once left.
- DirectorSean GarrityStarsEmily HampshireJonas ChernickGray PowellA couple feeling the pressures of parenting and adulthood, send their kids to winter camp for the first time and embark on a series of sexual adventures to reinvigorate their relationship.
- DirectorAntoine BourgesStarsHussam DouhnaAmani IbrahimAbdullah NadafRashid, a doctor from Syria, struggles to adjust to his life in Canada after five years in Toronto's Thorncliffe Park with his wife Farah and son Ammar.
- DirectorKhalid FahadStarsHamad FarhanNaif KhalafAseel OmranUnexpected journey waits for Ali when he embarks through the wonder of the valley
- DirectorYasmine BenkiranStarsNisrin ErradiNisrine BencharaRayhan GuaranCasablanca, Morocco. A trio of women, with the police on their tail, embarks on a long escape that takes them across the rugged red terrain and flower-filled valleys of the Atlas to finally reach the Atlantic coast.
- DirectorNausheen DadabhoyStarsGeorge ShakkourFollows three Muslim women activists who have come of age since 9/11.