It should be difficult to make Jack Unterweger’s story dull: Austrian prostitute-murderer turned prison poet, he became a literary cause-celèbre. He achieved early release from prison in 1990, only to kill himself four years later after being convicted of nine subsequent murders. Yet Elisabeth Scharang’s Jack manages to make a clock-watcher out of this dramatic material […]
Women Directors
In honour of #52filmsbywomen, we've collected all of our reviews of films directed by women and interviews with female directors all in one place.
TIFF15: Sherpa is an inside look at the Nepalese people who make climbing Everest possible
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 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 […]
NFB short Rock The Box **1/2: unclear intentions in promising feminist short
Rhiannon Rozier has a degree in political science and Latin American history, but her true passion is connecting to people through music. She is a DJ and creates electronic dance music (EDM), but she’s also a woman, working in a male-dominated genre. Katherine Monk’s National Film Board of Canada documentary short Rock the Box begins with […]
TIFF15 interview: Ninth Floor director Mina Shum discusses Canadian racism
Ninth Floor director Mina Shum: In Canada, “We’re racist but we like to apologize about our racism.” Shum discusses Canadian racism and her new documentary.