'The Grizzlies': A Film that Roars

The Grizzlies

(Canada, 104 min.)

Dir. Miranda de Pencier; Writ. Moria Walley-Beckett, Graham Yosy

Starring: Ben Schnetzer, Paul Nutarariaq, Emerald MacDonald, Anna Lambe, Fred Bailey, Tantoo Cardinal, Booboo Stewart, Will Sasso

Photo by Shane Mahood
Mongrel Media

The fearless and inspiring The Grizzlies gives Canadian film the great sports drama that has long eluded it. As The Grizzlies gives its excellent young cast a chance to shine, roar, and spotlight their community, the film provides a significant call to action for the suicide crisis up North and an effective portrait of the complexity of north/south and Indigenous/settler relationships. The film begins with a heartbreaking image of an Inuit youth walking on the tundra, alone save for his faithful dog, as he takes his life. The image returns more than once in The Grizzlies as the film introduces audiences to a community in which literally everyone has lost a friend or family member to suicide.

Nocturnal Animals: 'Fausto' Re-Imagines Man and Myth

Fausto

(Canada/Mexico, 70 min.)

Written and directed by Andrea Bussmann

Starring: Alberto Núñez, Victor Pueyo, Gabino Rodríguez, Fernando Renjifo, Ziad Chakaroun

If Andrea Bussmann’s previous feature was a tale for those who dreamt, her latest work is a dream realized in its most cinematic form. Bussmann’s Fausto transports the Faust myth to beaches of Oaxaca, Mexico for a loose, free-flowing, and hypnotic meditation. It’s a fleeting film that ebbs and flows in elliptical pauses. Demanding, frustrating, fascinating, and rewarding, Fausto is a richly dense exercise in active viewing. Much like a dream that only makes sense when unpacked and savoured as a metaphorical whole, it’s also a beautifully evocative film that washes over you and enriches the mind.

Interview: Chatting with 'New Homeland' Director Barbara Kopple

It was an absolute thrill to get to chat with Barbara Kopple, the two-time Oscar winning director, who just happens to be my favourite filmmaker working in documentary thanks to films like Harlan County, USA, Miss Sharon Jones!, Shut Up and Sing, American Dream, and more. Over at POV, I got a chance to talk with Kopple about her latest film, New Homeland, which follows five boys--a mix of Syrian and Iraqi refugees--as they experience the Canadian wilderness for the first time. The doc is a thoughtful study about the need to open arms rather than put up walls.