(Canada, 10 min.)
Written and directed by Molly McGlynn
Programme: Short Cuts (World Premiere)
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| Courtesy of TIFF |
The future of Canadian comedy looks pretty hot if Molly
McGlynn’s 3-Way (Not Calling) is any
hint of things to come. This funny and naughty hook-up adventure for the
Netflix and chill age is bold and hilarious as Mel (Emma Hunter) and her
husband (Kristian Bruuns) decide to spice up the monotony
of Saturday nights of sweat pants and Game of Thrones. After a few awkward Craig's List ads and near
casual encounters, they take a shot on the eclectic barista slinging beans at
the local shop (Emily Coutts). Spirited performances by the trio of
actors create a spunky threesome as they explore the awkwardness of the
situation. While the territory of hookups in the era of online ads and Tinder
swipes isn't necessarily new terrain, 3-Way
(Not Calling) is a smarter and funnier take. This short has its finger on
button when it comes to the lost intimacy of connection when everyone it's
plugged in and tuned in to mobile screens. Swipe right for 3-Way.
Blind Vaysha
(Canada, 8 min.)
Dir. Theodore Ushev
Programme: Short Cuts (North American Premiere)
 |
| Courtesy of TIFF |
Animation master Theodore Ushev returns with the ambitious
and enthralling film Blind Vaysha. This
3D film brings more of Ushev’s singular style, but it marks a notable drift
from his recent experiments in shapes and structures after Gloria Victoria, Third Page from the Sun, and Sonambulo as a narrative work. The film adapts a tale about a young
girl with peculiar vision who can choose to see either the past or the future
as the film builds its own fable with shapes and patterns that evoke history in
a contemporary flavour. Blind Vaysha
is still an Ushev film through and through, though, for, unlike the discordant
eyes of the poor young girl, narrative and experimentation aren’t incompatible
elements. Ushev’s remarkably vivid palette offers one of his deepest films yet
as the film meditates upon the limitations of human vision and foresight.
Blind Vaysha
screens in Short Cuts Programme 2
Ape Sodom
(Canada, 14 min.)
Dir. Maxwell McCabe-Lokos
Programme: Short Cuts
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| Courtesy of TIFF |
Without a doubt the weirdest and most fucked up film at the
festival, Ape Sodom is a TIFF shorts novelty. This bizarre black comedy from Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, the writer and
star of Bruce McDonald’s The Husband,
envisions a post-consumer hell of hedonistic pleasures. McCabe-Lokos stars as a
sweaty and sickly looking garbage picker who takes up and offers that’s too
good to refuse and finds himself in a sick and twisted fetish freak-fest
involving a gorilla suit, a television remote, some lube, and other things that
are just too troubling to name. Ape Sodom
amps up the weird factor as the dingy hotel room in which the drifter sells his
soul features a TV documentary narrated by David Cronenberg, Canada’s king of
the strange and unusual. Told with a spot-on tone that teeters on the edge of
satire and insanity, and with the confidence of a rising talent, this darkly
funny film delivers a peculiar style of body horror at which Cronenberg would
surely chuckle.
Ape Sodom screens
in Short Cuts Programme 6.
