 |
| The Amina Profile |
Dir. Sophie Deraspe
Program: World Cinema Documentary Competition
Last year’s doc hit and Oscar nominee The Square offers a compelling account of the ways in which social
media pioneered digital democracy in the Arab Spring movement. This feature
documentary The Amina Project, a
co-pro from National Film Board of Canada, offers a new twist on the viral
revolution that exploded during Arab Spring as it recounts the story of Amina,
a Syrian revolutionary dating a Montrealer, who is mysteriously abducted and
leaves no trace other than her blog A Gay
Girl in Damascus. Billed as “part love story, part international thriller,
and a gripping chronicle of an unprecedented media and sociological hoax,” The Amina Project confronts the
authority of the image in the digital age. Is it, to quote one interviewee, an “Inspirational
story of the power of blogging” or proof that social media sway is the War of the Worlds of today?
The Witch
Dir. Robert Eggers
Program: US Dramatic Competition
Production designer and short filmmaker Robert Eggers makes
his feature directorial debut with The
Witch, an American-Canadian co-pro that offers one of two horror entries in
the Canadian contingent at Park City. The
Witch sounds like a fascinating offering for genre fans as it recreates a
chilling New England before the days of the Salem Witch Trials when residents
of the idyll villages are tormented by supernatural forces lurking in the woods.
No, it isn’t Meryl Streep looking for ingredients to a magic potion—Canadian
films can’t afford her—but Canadian film’s signature thin creepy dude Julian
Richlings co-stars with an international cast that includes Kate Dickie (Prometheus, Red Road) and Ralph Ineson (Game
of Thrones) as parents whose worst fears are realizes during this
unsettling time.
Dir. Bruce McDonald
Program: Park City at Midnight
Hellions is one of
the Canadian films that I’d really been hoping to see at TIFF’14, but the
joke’s on me since Bruce McDonald and company only completed in December,
shortly after the announcement was made that the film would make its world
premiere at Sundance. Hellions is the
second horror film at Sundance, but it has a stronger hint of maple bacon. It
brings McDonald back to Pontypool
territory (woohoo!), but this time he’s working with a script from Pascal
Trottier, whom local readers might recall as the writer/director of the great
OIFF short Honour Code. Trottier’s
becoming a notable voice among the speculative films of the Canadian film scene
with The Colony under his belt in
addition to a bunch of shorts, and I’m very excited to see how this pairing
with McDonald plays out. Rachel Wilson, Rossif Sutherland, and Robert Patrick
co-star alongside up-and-comer Chloe Rose (The
Lesser Blessed) as a babysitter in Laurie Strode mode when a band of
trick-or-treaters give her the night from hell. Hellions may be the Canadian film with the highest profile heading
into Sundance, so we’ll cross our fingers that it finds distribution when
Sundance kids pierce the crisp mountain air with their blood-curdling screams.
Dir. Anouk Whissell, Francois Simard, Yoann–Karl
Whissell
Program: Park City at Midnight
Turbo Kid joins Hellions in Sundance’s equivalent of the
Midnight Madness program, and this co-production between Canada and New Zealand
seems like a lot of fun. It’s an action/splatter sci-fi comedy bender, and it sounds
like something that the Wachowksis’ Speed
Racer conceived one random night with Nic Cage. Pitched by the filmmakers
as “a love story with the exploitation elements [they] grew up with, a post-apocalyptic
scenario, over-the-top gore FX, super turbo explosions and a few BMX tricks for
good measure,” Turbo Kids sounds
destined for CanCon cult status. Munro Chambers, Laurence Leboeuf, and Michael
Ironside star, while Raven Banner has the film for Canadian release. (Date
TBA.)
Dir. François Delisle
Program: World Dramatic Competition
Fanny Mallette, a regular of Stéphane Lafleur films such as Tu Dors Nicole and En Terrains Connus, stars in the latest feature from director François
Delisle (The Meteor) alongside Pierre
Curzi (The Barbarian Invasions) and
Canuck icon Geneviève Bujold. Delisle’s background encompasses both drama and
experimental short cinema, and his films have increasingly been gaining
attention in both Quebec and on the international festival circuit, but they
haven’t really broken in to the rest of Canada. The sombre looking story about
two parents trying to move forward after the death of their child is doing a
major festival run this winter with the one-two punch of Sundance and Berlin, as
did his last film The Meteor, before
a March release in Canada, so keep abreast of buzz. Early clips showcase some
effective performances, striking black-and-white cinematography, and
understated direction, making Chorus
one of the Quebecois films to keep on the radar, especially as we look for innovative
voices on the Canadian film scene. FunFilm has Canadian distribution.
Dir. Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson
Program: New Frontier Films
 |
| Photo: Galen Johnson |
Canada’s resident weirdo Guy Maddin jumps to Park City after
curating Telluride last fall, and his latest film The Forbidden Room sounds like it has all of his signature
peculiarities. This time, though, Maddin co-directors with newcomer Evan
Johnson and he brings a stacked cast of Canadian and international players
including Karine Vanasse, Roy Dupuis, Geraldine Chaplin, Charlotte Rampling,
Udo Kier, and Maria de Medeiros. Footage of the project, previously titled Séances, has been circulating the web
for a while as it grew and evolved at Montreal’s Phi Centre—like Hellions, Séances made this blog’s TIFF wish list for 2014—and the early
snippets showcase Maddin’s uncanny formalism and bizarro aethestics in top
form. I still have no clear idea as to what this project actually is, but the
more I learn about Maddin and Johnson’s absurdist epic and find myself confused
by it, the more intrigued I am to see it. Phi Films has Canadian distribution.
Dir. Vincent Morisset
Programme: New Frontier | Exhibitions
Vincent Morisset brings a new interactive experience to
Sundance and it’s one of the premieres that fans will first be able to enjoy
themselves when it launches online February 5. This film/game/online art
installation creates a world of panoramic vide, hypnotic hand-drawn animation,
and dreamy music, and it leads users on an adventure with animated guide,
taking them on a 360˚ walk through the woods that’s strange, unusual, and
eye-opening. Morisset, one of the creators of the Arcade Fire web experience Just a Reflektor, is taking web-based media to new limits, so this jaunt
through the woods promises to be an immersive experience for cinephiles ready
to explore the ever-growing boundaries of film form.
 |
| Jennifer Connelly as Nana in Aloft. by Jose Haro, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics. |
Aloft
Dir. Claudia Llosa
Programme: Spotlight
Here’s an interesting fusion of talents: one of the Canadian
production companies behind the films of Guy Maddin teams up with one of the
Spanish production companies behind the black-and-white opus Blancanieves. Aloft, which stars an
impressive cast of Jennifer Connelly, Cillian Murphy, and Mélanie Laurent,
marks one of many Canuck co-pros on the festival circuit this year with major
talent (Anton Corbijn’s Life and Wim
Wenders’ Everything Will Be Fine are
premiering at Berlin), and this Spanish-French-Canadian co-pro Aloft finally gets a North American
premiere after debuting at the Berlin International Film Festival last year to reviews
ranging from mixed
to mildly positive. Aloft had high
expectations heading into Berlin since Claudia Llosa’s previous feature The Milk of Sorrow was a sleeper hit at
the festival that went on to take the festival’s top prize, the Golden Bear,
and nab an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. Perhaps the
Peruvian director’s English-language debut, which uses the snowy Canadian landscape
as a quasi-mythical land for spiritualty and healing, will fare better with
time, tempered expectations, and an appropriately snowy atmosphere. Mongrel
Media and Sony Pictures Classics have the film for North America.
*I won’t be at Sundance myself, but stay tuned for round-ups
of coverage of the Canadian films taking Park City by storm!
