My Old Ass got some love from the Independent Spirit Awards. Megan Park (writer/director) has a Best Screenplay nomination and Maisy Stella has a nomination for Best Breakthrough Performance. We will have a review at some point.
Julian Brave NoiseCat, Emily Kassie — directors of Sugarcane — are nominated for the Truer Than Fiction Award. There are only 3 film nominations in this category. For our American readers, Sugarcane debuts tonight on the National Geographic channel and tomorrow on Disney+ and Hulu.
Sneaking some TV into a film notebook: Enrico Colantoni, heralded on both sides of the border, has a nomination for Best Supporting Performance in a New Scripted Series for English Teacher. Colantoni and his Canadian TV series Allegiance (with Supinder Wraich) head into Season 2 this winter on CBC.
The Independent Spirit Awards, with no inclination to reward films nominated for the Oscars, has an intriguing list of films for its Best International Film category. Here are the films with countries and director.
- All We Imagine as Light (France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg) Payal Kapadia
- Black Dog (China) Guan Hu
- Flow (Latvia, France, Belgium) Gints Zilbalodis
- Green Border (Poland, France, Czech Republic, Belgium) Agnieszka Holland
- Hard Truths (United Kingdom) Mike Leigh
We saw Green Border a year ago and found the film to be very powerful. Poland picked a less "controversial" film for the Oscars because of its right-wing government. Heartily recommend this film. Flow played at WIFF 24. While we didn't get a chance to see this film, people we talked to really enjoyed the film.
The other 3 films were new to us once this list was announced.
The Golden Globes nominations came out this morning. Here are the noms in the Best Motion Picture – Non-English Language category:
- All We Imagine As Light (USA/France/India)
- Emilia Pérez (France)
- The Girl With The Needle (Poland/Sweden/Denmark)
- I’m Still Here (Brazil)
- The Seed Of The Sacred Fig (USA/Germany)
- Vermiglio (Italy)
The only repeat film on both lists is All We Imagine As Light. We found The Girl With The Needle the engaging and disturbing. Most excellent. The Seed Of The Sacred Fig is way too long with plenty of material to fast forward through in a 2 hour, 37 minute movie. The story is good but needed 90 minutes tops and that is a stretch.
We've heard terrible things about Emilia Pérez even if the film is supposed to be rewarded with nominations. Since the film is on Netflix, we aren't in too much of a rush to watch this right away.
On the Canadian side (none of these are remotely Canadian content), Pamela Anderson got a nomination for The Last Showgirl for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama. Gabriel LaBelle has a rare moment for a Canadian playing a Canadian character — Lorne Michaels — in Jason Reitman's Saturday Night. LaBelle's nomination is for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical Or Comedy. Reitman is also Canadian.
Martin Short got a Golden Globe nomination for Only Murders In The Building for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Series – Musical Or Comedy.
Denis Villeneuve's Dune: Part Two is up for Best Motion Picture - Drama but didn't receive a screenplay or directorial nomination.
Canadian film notebook: Upcoming TIFF Top 10 and TFCA finalists
We reported last week that we thought we would see the TIFF Top 10 list at least by Friday. The Toronto International Film Festival has been consistent in its inconsistency on awards. We finally saw the festival reward relatively inexperienced filmmakers after a 4-year absence. Yet the festival didn't do the Rising Stars feature in 2024.
While we would be severely disappointed if TIFF flakes out and doesn't do the TIFF Top 10, we have to go on as if nothing is happening. we will report on this if they send out a list. If the TIFF Top 10 won't happen, that would be a huge loss for recognizing Canadian film.
We have huge vats of faith that the Toronto Film Critics Association will announce on Sunday about its finalists for Best Canadian Film and Best Canadian Documentary for 2024.
We found this video from back in September on TIFF 24. The CTV show Your Morning had Lindsey Deluce interviewing resident film critic Radheyan Simonpillai on Canadian films at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Simonpillai briefly went through the Canadian films at TIFF that also played at Cannes: The Shrouds. Rumours, and Universal Language. Appreciate that Rad spent little time on these titles to give space for other Canadian films of note.
Simonpillai focused on 5 Canadian films. We saw 2 of them: Seeds and You Are Not Alone. Our reviews were mixed on these films: liked the former and confused by the latter (not bad just odd). We were also intrigued about the other 3 films.
Measures for a Funeral with Deragh Campbell was compared to Tar, a high compliment. We would see Campbell in just about anything. Sweet Baby Angel is a Newfoundland film featuring Michaela Kurimsky (Firecrackers). The story sounded quite compelling. Village Keeper is set in Toronto and deals with Black mental health and finding community.
Some Canadian films grab more publicity than others so we appreciate a chance to learn about some films beyond a title and description. We hope you do as well.
2024 WIFF Canadian films in review
A couple of French Canadian film links of note: a list of 12 French Canadian films via Canada Screens and some movies set in Montréal.
We have seen 10 of the 12 films from the first link, all but The Three L’il Pigs 2 | Les 3 p’tits cochons 2 and Le mirage. Most of these films are a good basic introduction to le cinema du Quebecois. 3 of them belong to Xavier Dolan: Mommy, Laurence Anyways, and It’s Only the End of the World. 5 of the 12 were Canada's entries into the Academy Awards in what is now the Best International Feature Film: Gabrielle, Incendies, Monsieur Lazhar, along with the aforementioned Mommy and It's Only the End of the World. Louis Cyr, l'homme le plus fort au monde is more of a historical drama. The list finishes up with 3 well-known Quebecois films: Café de Flore (Jean-Marc Vallée), My Internship in Canada, and Starbuck. The latter 2 star Patrick Huard, whom you might know from Bon Cop, Bad Cop, and was also in Mommy.
The Montréal list is charming with some American films at the bottom of the list. The Whole Nine Yards (2000) was set and filmed in Montréal but didn't make this list. An odd but likable collection of stars: Bruce Willis, the late Matthew Perry (Canadian), the very underrated Amanda Peet, Michael Clarke Duncan, Rosanna Arquette (with a hilarious Quebecois accent), and Natasha Henstridge (Canadian).
The fun of these lists for your humble narrator is finding Canadian films I did not know. Funkytown is one of those films: taking place during the time of disco in Montréal. Didn't realize the city was known for its disco scene.
Canadian film notebook: Santa Barbara film festival has limited Denis Villeneuve retrospective
Came across this intriguing list of classic Canadian films in the LGBT file. The first 5 listed are ones I have little to no knowledge of yet have seen 4 of the last 5 on this list.
The only one of the first 5 we knew something about was La Femme de l’hôtel (1984) from Léa Pool. Those en Anglaise might find the film under the title A Woman in Transit. Consider that this film came 17 years before Lost and Delirious (2001).
We mentioned the retrospectives for Denis Villeneuve and Denys Arcand in a recent Canadian film notebook. Sign us up for a retrospective of Léa Pool's early films.
We are particularly interested in Desire in Motion | Mouvements du désir (1994) followed by Anne Trister (1986).
We have seen Set Me Free | Emporte-moi (1999), Lost and Delirious (2001), Mommy Is at the Hairdresser's | Maman est chez le coiffeur (2008), The Passion of Augustine | La Passion d'Augustine (2015), and Worst Case, We Get Married | Et au pire, on se mariera (2017).
The other films on this BFI list that we have seen are: When Night Is Falling (1995) from Patricia Rozema; C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005) from the late Jean-Marc Vallée; J'ai tué ma mère | I Killed My Mother (2009), the debut from Xavier Dolan; and Vic + Flo Saw a Bear (2013) from Denis Côté. I really enjoyed the latter film but definitely not the ending.
The lone trans film on the list was My Prairie Home (2013) from Chelsea McMullan about trans singer Rae Spoon. We noted 2 films from WIFF 2024 dealing with trans stories that were up for the WIFF Prize in Canadian film: Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story (Michael Mabbott & Lucah Rosenberg-Lee) and Really Happy Someday (J Stevens). We didn't see either one but that was coincidental. We hope to see both films at a later date. Our criticism of Something You Said Last Night didn't stem from a trans character just having a film about a trans character not be so boring.
Our Canadian readers should know that Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story should be available on Crave as of today.
Canadians and Americans can view My Prairie Home through the NFB Web site.
How filmmakers are covering the impact of toxic masculinity
Reese Witherspoon was so iconic for this pic.twitter.com/tj3lZeRJD5
— Women Posting W's (@womenpostingws) December 4, 2024
Regular readers know we love realism in films, at least where realism is an option. Reese Witherspoon has a wonderful take on the lazy use of "What do we do now?" for female characters written by male screenwriters. Witherspoon is absolutely correct that women in real life aren't asking that question. They take charge and I am impressed by that in real life.
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Let us know if you have an idea or story for a future Canadian film notebook.
photo credit: My Old Ass
video credit: CTV/Your Morning
Twitter capture: @womenpostingws