2019 in Review: The Best Films of the Year So Far

Rocketman, Hotel Mumbai, nîpawistamâsowin, Genesis, Knock Down the House, and Apollo 11
are some of 2019's best films.

2019 is a year to savour artisanal offerings and home-cooked meals. The only major studio movie of the year that’s even worth talking about, let along seeing, is the Elton John biopic Rocketman. Instead, the movies are all about the small stuff this year: festival fare, independent works, and documentaries.

Interview: Chatting with 'A Colony' director Geneviève Dulude-De Celles

Emilie Bierre stars in A Colony

New interview! I had the pleasure of talking with Geneviève Dulude-De Celles for the TFCA recently about her new film A Colony, which won Best Film at the Canadian Screen Awards earlier this year. It was a pleasure to catch up with the auteur in the making, learning about her process, and hearing about what we can all do to create a culture of cinephilia that will inspire audiences to crave Canadian films.

First Clips from Louise Archambault's 'And the Birds Rained Down'

Sorry for being MIA lately! We're kicking into production on the Fall issue of POV so I've been a bit busy. Part of the fun has been shaking down potential Canadian docs to cover...and while I can't say much about that, 2019 looks to be an improvement for Canadian dramas. One standout so far promises to be Louise Archambault's adaptation of Jocelyne Saucier's acclaimed novel And the Birds Rained Down (Il pleuvait des oiseaux). The film stars Andrée Lachapelle, Gilbert Sicotte, Rémy Girard, Ève Landry, Éric Robidoux, and Louise Portal in this slice of life drama from the director of Gabrielle. (The novel gained popularity when it appeared in CBC's 2015 Canada Reads contest, defended by Martha Wainwright, where it lost to Kim Thúy's Ru, defended by TIFF's Cameron Bailey.)

'Mouthpiece' Takes Audiences Inside Women's Double Lives

Mouthpiece

(Canada, 91 min.)

Dir. Patricia Rozema, Writ. Amy Nostbakken, Norah Sadava, Patricia Rozema

Starring: Amy Nostbakken, Norah Sadava, Maev Beaty, Jake Epstein, Paula Boudreau

Courtesy of TIFF

Patricia Rozema delivers another winner with Mouthpiece. The film might be her most ambitious and auteurist picture since her 1987 breakthrough feature I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing. It’s an exciting reminder of why she’s one of the best voices in Canadian film. After the literary romp of Mansfield Park and the breathtaking dystopian vision of Into the Forest, Rozema looks inward with Mouthpiece, tightening the scope while pushing the boundaries. The film stars Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava, who join Rozema in adapting their play Mouthpiece, as Cassandra, a woman torn between her two selves when she learns of the sudden death of her mother, Elaine.

Interview: Chatting with 'Late Night' Director Nisha Ganatra

Director Nisha Ganatra with Late Night star/writer Mindy Kaling

New interview! I recently had the privilege to chat with Vancouver-born director Nisha Ganatra ahead of the release of her new film Late Night. The film is a whip-smart workplace comedy that stars Emma Thompson as a floundering late night talk show host who insists upon a "diversity hire," played by Mindy Kaling, to freshen up her material. Ganatra talks about her working relationship with Mindy Kaling, pushing for diversity in film and television, and drawing upon her experience as the odd one out on the set to make Late Night one of the year's most topical films.

Read the full interview here at Sharp!

"The the Truth, But Tell It Slant"

Wild Nights With Emily

(USA, 85 min.)

Written and directed by Madeleine Olnek

Starring: Molly Shannon, Amy Seimetz, Susan Ziegler, Brett Gelman

Molly Shannon stars as Emily Dickinson in Wild Nights With Emily
Greenwich Entertainment

All these years we’ve been idolizing Emily Dickinson as a woman of quiet passion. English classes peruse her poems through the lens of loneliness and the melancholy tone of unrequited love. Emily, it turns out, was a demon in the sack with her sister in law.