TIFF 2018: The Round-Up

Best-of-Fest:

What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire? (Roberto Minervini, USA)
What is Democracy? (Astra Taylor, USA)
Out of Blue (Carol Morley, UK)
High Life (Claire Denis, France)
Transit (Christian Petzold, Germany)

Really Enjoyed These Too:

The Grand Bizarre (Jodie Mack, USA)
Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Marielle Heller, USA)
Monrovia, Indiana (Frederick Wiseman, USA)
Rafiki (Wanuri Kahiu, Kenya)
Mouthpiece (Patricia Rozema, Canada)

This Film Can Help Us Start Conversations in Every Home and Classroom:

What is Democracy? (Astra Taylor, USA)

Female Collective Authorship is the Future:

Mouthpiece (Patricia Rozema, Canada). Wrote a few words about it at Cinema Scope.

A Revelatory Moment When I Realized:

That I’m way more interested in hearing about Arab history and cinema from the voices of Arab people than I am from the 30-minute barrage of images and sounds devoted to the subject in Jean-Luc Godard’s The Image Book.

A Good Movie Marred by the “Woman as Savior” Trope:

Ash is the Purest White (Jia Zhang-ke, China)

Building Entire New Worlds:

Out of Blue (Carol Morley, UK)
High Life (Claire Denis, France)

Dying to Rewatch:

Out of Blue (Carol Morley, UK)
High Life (Claire Denis, France)
Transit (Christian Petzold, Germany)

I Read More Un-illuminating, Unsympathetic Reviews of This Movie Than Any Other:

Out of Blue (Carol Morley, UK)

I am a Fan, and Will Follow Wherever She Leads:

Marielle Heller: Will You Ever Forgive Me? (2018) and Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015)

Heavenly, Eye-Melting Colors, Costumes, and Jewelry:

Rafiki (Wanuri Kahiu, Kenya)

Best Use of Songs:

“I’ll be Seeing You” (Brenda Lee, in Carol Morley’s Out of Blue)
“Under the Milky Way Tonight” (The Church, in Carol Morley’s Out of Blue)
“Road to Nowhere” (Talking Heads, in Christian Petzold’s Transit)

Best Q&A’s:

Astra Taylor, What is Democracy?
Jodie Mack, The Grand Bizarre

Movies I Most Regret Missing:

Reason (Anand Patwardhan, India)
If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins, USA)

pic: What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire? (Roberto Minervini, USA)