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| Tru Love opens Inside Out tonight at The ByTowne. |
Unfortunately, Inside Out doesn’t do media accreditation for the Ottawa festival and I can barely afford bus tickets at the moment, let alone movie tickets (since all my TIFF coverage is still in editorial limbo…), so I won’t be seeing nearly as many films from the sturdy programme as I’d like to. I’ll be there in spirit!
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| Lilting is Inside Out's Closing Night film. |
Anyhow, here are five picks for the Ottawa Inside Out Film
Festival that look particularly dandy:
Tru Love
Dir. Kate Johnston, Shauna McDonald | Canada | 87 min.
Thursday, Oct. 23 at 9:00 pm – ByTowne Cinema
37-year-old Toronto dyke, Tru (Shauna MacDonald)—a notorious
womanizer with intimacy issues—finds herself falling for her friend Suzanne’s
mother, the beguiling 60-year-old Alice. Despite their age difference, Tru and
Alice experience an immediate connection, and while Suzanne is away at the
office the two spend their cold winter days together having dinners, walking on
a snowy Sugar Beach and relaxing at Tru’s cozy home on Toronto Island. Suzanne,
however, sees where this friendship is headed and sets out to ruin the
blossoming relationship.
-Why you should see it: This queer Canadian May-December romance
has been charming audiences festivals around the world and racking up audience
awards at numerous Canadian and international film festivals, including Toronto’s
Indie Out, and
Regarding Susan Sontag
Dir. Nancy D. Kates | USA | 101 min.
Saturday, Oct. 25 at 12:15 – ByTowne Cinema
Synopsis: Regarding
Susan Sontag is an intimate study of one of the most influential and
provocative thinkers of the 20th century. Endlessly curious and gracefully
outspoken throughout her career, Sontag became one of the most important
literary, political and feminist icons of her generation.
Examining Sontag’s early infatuation with books, her first
experience in a gay bar, her first marriage and her relationship with acclaimed
photographer, Annie Leibovitz, Regarding
Susan Sontag is a nuanced investigation into the life of a towering
cultural critic and writer whose works on photography, war and terrorism still
resonate today.
-Why you should see it: Sontag’s strong alternative voice
marks a highlight of this year’s other über-literate doc The 50 Year Argument and her confrontation with Norman Mailer in
the Martin Scorsese-co-directed film is reason enough to argue that Sontag has
a perspective that fits right in at an alternative film festival. Plus, the
film’s narrated by Patricia Clarkson—don’t you just love her?!
The Way He Looks (Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho)
Dir. Daniel Ribeiro | Brazil | 95 min.
Friday, Oct. 24 at 9:30 pm – ByTowne Cinema
Synopsis: Leonardo is a blind teenager struggling to break
free from his well-meaning friends and family. At home, his over-protective
mother doesn’t trust him to be on his own. His best friend, Giovana,
attentively looks out for him even though Leo is blithely unaware of the torch
she carries. When new student Gabriel arrives at school, he befriends Leonardo
and Giovana and the trio become inseparable. Leo and Gabriel’s friendship gently evolves, as each tries
to find the courage to reveal their deeper feelings. Meanwhile, Giovana begins
to feel jealous that she is no longer his sole caretaker.
-Why you should see it: The
Way He Looks is Brazil’s official submission in this year’s competition for
Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars and its netting some pretty
favourable reviews. This year’s BFLF race features a number of notable LGBT
films, and Looks is one of the few
that Ottawans may see before nomination day.
The Circle (Der Kreis)
Dir. Stefan Haupt | Switzerland | 102 min.
Sunday, Oct. 26 at 4:30 pm – ByTowne Cinema
Synopsis: This absorbing film, part documentary and part
historic recreation, examines a tumultuous period in The Circle, Switzerland's
pioneering gay male organization. In 1942, Switzerland decriminalized same-sex
relations, which led to a thriving underground gay community that produced an
internationally-read magazine and held legendary annual balls. In present-day
interviews, schoolteacher Ernst and drag performer Röbi Rapp—partners for over
50 years—recount their lives; the critical role The Circle played in gay life,
and how a series of murders shook Zurich's gay community in the late 1950s,
leading to repression and scapegoating.
-Why you should see it: This year’s other LGBT Oscar contender at Inside Out this year, The Circle sounds like a fascinating
doc/drama hybrid that situates true events within subjective experience.
Lilting
Dir. Hong Khaou | UK | 86 min.
Sunday, Oct. 26 at 9:30 pm – ByTowne Cinema
Synopsis: Staggering from the recent death of his lover Kai,
Richard (Ben Whishaw) reaches out to Kai’s mother Junn. Kai was Junn’s lifeline
to the world; she relied on him for everything, but despite this enforced
intimacy, he never came out to her and Junn remains fiercely critical of
Richard through a fugue of maternal jealousy and denial. Since they share no common language, Richard hires a
translator, and the two improbable relatives attempt to reach across a chasm of
misunderstanding through their memories of Kai. Lilting is a perceptive
meditation on the path to connection between two human souls and reveals that
what separates us can also bind us together.
-Why you should see it: The drama starring the new Q Ben
Whishaw and Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon’s Cheng Pei-Pei has been netting great reviews since Sundance, especially for Whishaw’s performance.
The Ottawa Inside Out Film Festival runs Oct. 23-26.
View the full schedule of films here.
