In Waves, based on AJ Dungo’s acclaimed 2019 graphic memoir of the same name, is a visually striking and also incredibly emotional debut for filmmaker Phuong Mai Nguyen. It’s also the kind of movie that reminds you that life is…
TIFF
YAGA Spoiler-Free Review: A Witty, Twisted & Sexy Supernatural Thriller
YAGA is a witty, twisted, sexy supernatural thriller that showcases some of Canada’s best talent and leaves you with a creeping sense of dread. It also has a little bit of something for everyone. It doesn’t matter if you don’t…
La Bola Negra TIFF Review: This is Why It’s Important to Preserve LGBTQ+ Stories
La Bola Negra is a wonder of a movie about the importance of preserving and telling LGBTQ+ stories. It’s intimate, hopeful, powerful, and the kind of story you want to watch over and over again because it’s thought-provoking, grand, but…
Future Tense TIFF Review: Time-Travel Adventure Sanitized for a White Audience in Mind
Future Tense sees the depiction of Black trauma told through a white perspective and sanitized for a white audience in mind. And this isn’t to say that white directors or writers like Jenna Cato Bass can’t tell Black stories. They…
The Smell of Apples TIFF Review: Don’t Look Away
The Smell of Apples is the kind of movie that forces you to reckon not just with the reality of apartheid South Africa, but also with the things seemingly normal people did to justify the horrors and continue living their…
Always Lalisa TIFF Review: You’ll Laugh, Cry, & Get to Know a New Side of Lisa
Always Lalisa is an intimate look at a global superstar told with a gentle hand that strips back the glamor and reveals a woman with the same fears, joys, and anxieties as the rest of us. It’s also a journey…
The Julia Set TIFF Review: Doesn’t Have to Break the Wheel to Be Intriguing
The Julia Set, starring Chase Infiniti and Christopher Briney, is the kind of movie that, on the surface, can feel pretty predictable. There’s only one satisfying way for the story to go, after all. But movies don’t have to deliver…
5 Black-Directed Films We’re Looking Forward to At TIFF
TIFF is only a few days away, and as we narrow down our schedule, we’re always asking which movies are worth going out of our way for. The most-anticipated lists are everywhere, and a lot of the big films are…
Everything We Know About TIFF Sensation ‘Train Dreams’
The Toronto Film Festival sensation is coming! Train Dreams uses the forest and its trees as a metaphor for change and we’re sold!
Bayaan TIFF Review: A Predictable, Yet Intriguing Story
Watching a movie like Bayaan from the outside, from a basic level of understanding what it is about, the circumstances it depicts, and the story it’s trying to tell, is very different than watching it with knowledge. The movie, although…