With Sherpa, Australian filmmaker Jennifer Peedom revisits the story of Everest, but in present day and from the Sherpas’ perspective instead of that of the Westerners who hope to conquer it.
TIFF15: Our Loved Ones depicts cycles of family grief
Our Loved Ones wrestles with the path to adulthood, memory, and family obligation.
TIFF15: The Rainbow Kid respectfully depicts disability
The Rainbow Kid addresses both the ways in which disability can be a limitation and a difficulty without presenting it as utterly debilitating.
‘The VVitch’ explores interesting ideas but disappoints
Nothing is more terrifying than a teenage girl, except perhaps the mysterious witch of the woods. There’s also no better scapegoat. Such is the premise of writer-director Robert Eggers’ masterfully directed but disappointingly dull psychological horror film, “The VVitch” set in seventeenth century New England. When the patriarch William (Ralph Ineson with lengthy, curly, Jesus-like […]
TIFF15 review: NFB history doc Ninth Floor sheds light on our racial biases
Mina Shum’s taut and accomplished documentary The Ninth Floor is an extremely important film about racial discrimination in Canada. Not only does it retell a crucial part of Canadian history that never made it into the history books I studied in school, but the incident it depicts has continued relevance today. The title refers to the […]
TIFF15 Interview: Canadian director Kire Paputts talks The Rainbow Kid and disability in film
With his first feature, The Rainbow Kid, Canadian filmmaker Kire Paputts has made a landmark film. The film stars a character with Down Syndrome, Eugene (Dylan Harman), a naive boy whose mother can’t pay the rent. In an effort to prevent their eviction, he sets out on a journey to find the pot of gold at […]