Fall film festival season is in full swing! There’s at least one festival running daily in Toronto with more happening from coast to coast, but POV’s stepping away from the tidal wave of screener links and Blue Jays enthusiasts for a trip to the Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF). The festival’s becoming an annual pilgrimage of sorts as Windsor carves a place for movie lovers of all stripes in a crowded field. WIFF kicks off October 23 with Chandler Levack’s drama Mile End Kicks as the opening night film.
This year’s festival again boasts a healthy mix of documentaries, award season contenders, and homegrown movies. The WIFF Prize in Canadian Film competition features two documentaries in the slate of movies vying for the $25,000 prize: The Pitch and Shamed. Both titles mark top docs to catch at the festival, too, as The Pitch has yet to screen locally but will be making its Ontario debut after premiering at Calgary where it won an audience award. Shamed, meanwhile, brings a local true crime story to the festival from the team whose equally gripping documentary Prey won Windsor’s audience award in 2019.
In the spirit of having two docs in competition, here are some pairings of top docs to see at this year’s Windsor International Film Festival:
In-Competition
The Pitch
First onto the field is The Pitch, director Michèle Hozer’s behind the scenes look at the grassroots efforts to create Canada’s first women’s professional soccer league. The documentary follows athletes like Diana Matheson as they organize a nationwide campaign to recognize the popularity of women’s sports—and the good business sense of doing so. Hozer (Sponsorland) follows players and organizers over years as they fight the misconception that people simply aren’t interested in women’s sports. The film asks why women who excel in their field, sometimes winning Olympic medals, have to leave their home country to pursue their passion elsewhere. Even though it asks some tough questions, this is an upbeat and invigorating look at what it means to stick to your guns in pursuit of what’s right. (Check back shortly for an interview with Hozer.)
Shamed
On the flipside of The Pitch is Shamed, director Matt Gallagher’s tough jaw-dropper of an exposé that should play to packed houses at Windsor. The film tells the story of a local man who exploited the popularity of shows like To Catch a Predator by serving as an online vigilante hunting down and entrapping men he perceived to be pedophiles. The film features devastating interviews with survivors and friends and family members of people victimized by “Creeper Hunter” Jason Nassr in a criminal campaign of targeted harassment. This is one that you’ll really want to see for the Q&A with locals. “The story’s not so much about Jason. It’s about the collateral damage that happens when a man like Jason is allowed to operate,” Gallagher told POV in a feature from our spring issue. “I want people to understand that there’s more to the story here…You can’t just look at this story very quickly and make a judgment. You have to sit down and talk to all the people and see the story from different aspects.”
Happy Halloween!
Behind the Castle Doors
Go behind the scenes of the 1970s’ Canadian cult-classic TV series Frightenstein, the schlocky sketch comedy series inspired by things that go bump in the night. Directors Tammy Heisel and Morgan Baker assemble surviving members of the ghoulishly funny series to tell how it all went down, including a big little lie about Vincent Price’s interest in a starring role. Audiences can debate afterwards if Canadian TV budgets have changed.
Silver Screamers
The art of low-budget horror filmmaking is just like vampires: it lives forever. The enduring appeal of DYI fright fests finds a companion in Silver Screamers, director Sean Cisterna’s offbeat look at a senior citizen’s home where residents enlist to participate in an independent production that aims to turn whatever hair colour that remains into grey. The film asks why horror movies appeal across generations and why they’re especially targeted to younger audiences when a love for blood, killer cams, and the Final Girl never dies.
Perspectives from Palestine and Israel
Coexistence, My Ass!
Here’s an unexpected two birds, one stone scenario at the festival: a comedic delight and a refreshingly nuanced take on the situation in Palestine and Israel. Director Amber Fares’ multiple award winner follows Israeli comedian and activist Noam Shuster Eliassi as she puts her platform to good use and confronts extremely complicated geopolitical conversations through a personal, humorous, and unabashedly activist voice. “This film speaks from the heart,” I wrote in my review from Sundance. “The direct address approach makes stirring appeals to both the heart and the head. All the while, Eliassi’s sense of humour, imbued with deprecating self-reflection, appeals to viewers on a personal level. What begins as a roast ends as a plea for peace.”
Holding Liat
Sympathetic portraits from the Israeli side of the ongoing violence in the Middle East can be a minefield on the festival circuit. Just ask TIFF. (Although, notably, the star of the film above is Israeli.) One documentary that seeks to add to the conversation is Holding Liat, Brandon Kramer’s look at the family of Liat Beinin Atzili, who was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 and held for several weeks, while her husband Aviv was killed. The film follows her family as they seek any answers about her safety, while also articulating their own beliefs in the necessity for peace amid an increasingly volatile minefield of public discourse. The stop at Windsor marks one of few screenings on the Canadian circuit for a documentary that won a top prize at Berlin and has drawn acclaim for its reported take on nuance and empathy.
Doc Encores
Fear of Dancing
Dancing might be every single person’s worst nightmare, whereas a filmmaker’s biggest fear is making a movie that nobody sees. The two phobias collide in Fear of Dancing, director Michael Allcock’s consideration of why dance floors give some people jitters instead of inspiring them to do the jitterbug. The documentary also boasts a fate shared by many other films that were completed in 2020: that of the COVID-19 festival circuit. Fear of Dancing is one of many docs that didn’t quite find the audience it deserved back in the lockdown days when many Canadian films fought for space among virtual festivals before being quietly annexed to CBC Gem and its tightly guarded viewership numbers. The film gets a new lease on the circuit, as many 2020 films no doubt will in future COVID-era big screen retros, and WIFF invites audiences to dance like nobody’s watching—an ironic if appropriate way to celebrate the shared theatrical experience.
You Are Here: A Come from Away Story
Nearly 25 years after the tragedy of 9/11 let people see the best in Canada during one of the world’s worst moments, the residents of Gander, Newfoundland touch down in Windsor for a retrospective screening of You Are Here: A Come from Away Story. Director Moze Mossanen’s 2019 documentary looks at the residents of the small Maritime town that pitched in when the world’s airplanes were diverted and grounded amid the terrorist attacks. The film shares the human stories that inspired the beloved Broadway musical. The event, like the film, aims to spotlight the heroes who opened their homes and hearts to weary travellers.
Fight the Power
True North
A snapshot of Canada’s Black Power movement and resistance fuels Michèle Stephenson’s provocatively jazzy documentary that spotlights voices who pushed for change. True North revisits the 1969 protest at Montreal’s Sir George Williams University (now Concordia) where students occupied the ninth floor computer lab to draw attention to systemic racism at the institution. Stephenson mixes archival footage with new interviews with participants who led the occupation, often at great personal expense. The film boldly pushes back against the cozy image of Canada as an all-loving and tolerant nation. “It’s not part of our collective Canadian consciousness, for example, like Selma is for the United States,” Stephenson told POV. “But we know those historical moments, the petite histories that they talk about, whether it’s Rockhead’s Paradise and these clubs. We relied on the accounts of our elders. I truly believe that these interviews that we’ve done, the full length of them, should be part of our Canadian national archive.”
The Librarians
For a snapshot of a very present act of resistance unfolding in daily headlines, The Librarians from Oscar-nominated director Kim A. Snyder offers a terrifically compelling look at librarians protecting young minds as book bans fuel America’s culture wars. The film looks at librarians in key states who build the campaign, and then sees how the movement to preserve free speech expands as book banning reveals a coordinated network. “I started seeing it as not just a mosaic but an odyssey that each story would propel us further into taking this journey that I took as a filmmaker, as a storyteller of entering with the same state of shock that we were living in a time where the prospect of criminalizing librarians was on the table,” Snyder told POV in a recent interview. “They were canaries in the coal mine.”
You Take Care Now
Love, Harold
It probably won’t screen as a double bill with his award winner When Jews Were Funny, but Alan Zweig’s latest documentary shows the art of the talking heads documentary in fine form. Love, Harold serves a sobering series of conversations with twenty-odd participants who lost a family member, partner, or friend to suicide. There are flashes of grief, anger, regret, and occasionally humour. It’s a frank and cathartic exercise in talking openly about a topic from which most people shy away. Read more about the film in our feature on Zweig’s recent work and stay tuned for a review tomorrow.
There Are No Words
The loss of a parent haunts filmmaker Min Sook Lee’s poignant documentary There Are No Words, which offers a singular companion piece to the collective mosaic of Zweig’s documentary. Together, the films show how no two stories of suicide are the same, but Lee bravely confronts her family’s past as she learns from father about his life back in Korea before the family came to Canada. There are harrowing accounts of violence as father Lee tells his daughter about the hands he’d turn on her mother after a hard day’s work. Without sentimentality, the film shows the power of confronting the unsayable. “There are so many people like my mother whose stories have been erased or re-narrated,” Lee tells Jason Gorber in our current issue. “As much as I recognize that the truth is complicated and there’s no real truth with a capital T, there are truths. There are things that did happen, and it matters that there are people who know that.”
This Land of Ours
Middletown
Inspired by an unconventional teacher, a group of teenagers in upstate New York in the early 1990s make a student film and uncover a vast conspiracy that is poisoning their community. Thirty years later, they revisit their film and confront the legacy of this transformative experience with acclaimed directors Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine (Boys State, Girls State). Featuring a wealth of archival material that the students shot while making their alarming discovery, Middletown explores the power of filmmaking anew. “The central metaphor of digging through a pile to find the truth of the matter is always front and center, and whether it be from a mountain of videotapes, or the trash strewn at a dump, there’s an intense sense of satisfaction felt when the deeper truths are uncovered and the detritus re-contextualized into something astonishing,” writes Jason Gorber in our review of the film.
Nechako
Director Lyana Patrick chronicles a fight that’s been in the courts for over a decade, but going on for over 50 years as members of the Stellat’en and Saik’uz First Nations seek an injunction to protect the Nechako River from the devastating consequences of a dam erected to facilitate resource extraction by Rio Tinto Alcan. “The film handsomely observes what the communities seek to preserve, too. The cinematography by Sean Stiller frequently captures the picturesque landscape, while the jarring shocks of grey that intersect through the serene blue and green images show the violent reach of industry as resource extraction cuts through the woodlands and diverts the water from its natural flow,” I noted in POV’s review of the film. “Through the poetic visuals allow Patrick positions the Nechako River as a central protagonist in its own story. It’s a silent voice throughout the film, but the images allow the river to speak to its role as a guardian and caregiver for generations amid their hard-fought campaign to protect it.”
Idiosyncratic Characters
Paul
Cinephiles who like it clean *and* dirty will enjoy the latest droll documentary from Quebecois auteur Denis Côté. This offbeat character study observes the daily pleasures of a Montreal social media user who goes by the name Cleaning Simp Paul. He enjoys the presence of domineering women, particularly in domestic settings in which he submits to their demands for housework. He scrubs in all the right places to please the ladies, and Côté captures his diligent cleanliness without a hint of judgment, particularly as the role play allows Paul to conquer his anxiety in social settings. Grab a snack and get ready to meet Paul’s maker, @donutslut: “Her feet caress a maple bacon donut as Paul dutifully watches from the sides,” I noted in our review of the film from Hot Docs. “There’s a mess to clean-up afterwards, for sure. But these engagements help Paul build self-confidence one tidy at a time.”
Agatha’s Almanac
Audiences looking for a homegrown work of art will find it in Agatha’s Almanac. Director Amalie Atkins, offers a lovingly eclectic portrait of nonagenarian Agatha Bock and her passion for gardening. “Shot in wondrously luminous 16mm images by cinematographer Rhayne Vermette, Agatha’s Almanac radiates with the pure joy that these rituals afford Bock daily. The loving colour palette accentuates the ripeness of Agatha’s bountiful and juicy fruits, from succulent red strawberries to eye-poppingly pink watermelons,” wrote Pat Mullen in his review at Hot Docs. “The weathered character of Agatha’s lived-in abode provides aesthetically pleasing contrasts, while her vibrant wardrobe, curated in collaboration with Atkins, ensure that the titular aunt’s personality radiates in every frame.” Read more about Agatha’s Almanac in Alexander Mooney’s interview with Atkins.
Globe-Trotters
The Art of Adventure
Alison Reid’s tenderly offbeat look at artist Robert Bateman and biologist/filmmaker Bristol Foster captures the awe and wonder inspired by visiting foreign lands and expanding one’s worldview. The Art of Adventure explores Bateman and Foster’s global tour in the 1950s as they visited Africa and Asia in their Land Rover the Grizzly Torque while the former painted the splendid sights of the world and the latter captured them on film. The documentary observes as the friends seek to reclaim the Grizzly Torque decades later with new perspectives about their responsibilities as artists. The archival footage from the friends’ trip will surely inspire some travel plans during the cold months ahead. Read more about the film in Jason Gorber’s interview with Reid, Bateman, and Foster.
Love+War
Oscar winners Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin return with a film that matches the pulse-pounding intensity of Free Solo and The Rescue. Love+War offers a gripping portrait of conflict photographer Lynsey Addario and the passion that fuels her. “The film explores some of Addario big breaks, like the story of Mamma, a young mother in Sierra Leone. Images of the woman who died during child childbirth draw attention to maternal mortality,” I wrote in our review from TIFF. “The piece shows the impact that a single snapshot can have by making an emotional connection with people around the world. As Addario tells how she used her lens to shift the world’s gaze towards poor healthcare conditions needlessly stripping women of their lives and children of their mothers, Love+War conveys exactly why she’s the person for this job.”
Getting Sporty
The Track
Fresh off its win for Best Canadian Feature at the Vancouver International Film Festival, audiences looking for an upbeat and visually dynamic sports movie should head on over to The Track. This engaging documentary observes members of the Bosnian luge team as they train for the Olympics. Their stomping ground is the somewhat decaying luge track from the 1984 Games in Sarajevo. The track, marked by cracks and graffiti, serves a striking symbol for the history that scars the region, but also the hope for a new generation as they seek to repair the landmark and, in turn, make their community proud. “In capturing the obstacles, both personal and sports related, the young men and their coach face over the course of numerous summers, Sidhoo constructs a fascinating meditation on the lingering impact of war. The reverberations of the past echo loudly to this day for a community still trying to figure out how to properly heal,” Courtney Small wrote in his review at Hot Docs. “Managing to be equally engaging and touching, The Track is a true crowd-pleaser in every sense of the word.”
Saints and Warriors
A worthy companion piece as well to competition title The Pitch, Saints and Warriors observes why a diversity of sports leagues makes for a healthy playing field. This documentary by Patrick Shannon, winner of the Colin Low Award for Best Canadian Director at DOXA earlier this year, follows the players of the Skidegate Saints as they prepare for the annual All Native Basketball Tournament. It’s a pivotal year for the Haida team as several of its top players, who are also community leaders, face the end of their basketball runs as age catches up with them. “I was at the 2022-2023 championship and that was such a unique experience,” Shannon told POV. “They came back against all odds against Burnaby to win the 2023 championship, but it was still a struggle. So, realizing that this might be one of the last years we get to follow this core legendary team because they’re all, if not in their forties or getting close to it, this felt like The Last Dance, Chicago Bulls-style for this team.”
