BFI LFF 2024: Hard Truths (2024)
★★★★☆
Marianne Jean-Baptiste is tremendous as a woman constantly beset by anger, fear and depression in Mike Leigh’s searing character study Hard Truths.
Toronto
BFI LFF 2024: Conclave (2024)
★★★★☆
After the death of the Pope, Cardinal Lawrence is tasked with leading the conclave to recruit a successor with rumour and conflict threatening to overtake the Vatican’s battle for power in Edward Berger’s thriller Conclave.
The Queen of my Dreams (2023)
★★★☆☆
The Queen of my Dreams, Fawzia Mirza’s first feature, links two time lines and two continents with a mother and daughter’s shared love for Bollywood.
Toronto 2024: U Are The Universe (2024)
★★★★☆
U Are The Universe is Ukrainian writer and director Pavlo Ostrikov’s gem of an amazing first feature.
Toronto 2024: Shepherds (2024) (Bergers)
★★★☆☆
Shepherds (Bergers) directed by Sophie Deraspe is a lyrical drama based on Mathyas Lefebure’s book about rejecting his previous life and learning to be a shepherd in Provence.
TORONTO 2024: The Party’s Over (2024) (Se acabó la fiesta)
★★★☆☆
Toronto: The Party’s Over directed by Elena Manrique is a black comedy that shows the underbelly of immigration.
TORONTO 2024: Seven Days (2024)
★★★★☆
Seven Days, directed by Ali Samadi Ahai and written by Mohammed Rasoulof is a poignant film that explores the human tensions between political resistance and personal sacrifice.
Venice and Toronto 2024: Mistress Dispeller (2024)
★★★☆☆
Mistress Dispeller, an intimate documentary by Elizabeth Lo, shows a unique Chinese practice.
Toronto Film Festival 2024 (49th): 6–15 September 2024
★★★★☆
TIFF 6-15 September 2024
The Sweet East (2023)
★★★☆☆
The Sweet East is cinematographer Sean Price Williams’ directorial debut, with a screenplay by film critic Nick Pinkerton. It stars Talia Ryder (Never Rarely Sometimes Always) as a contemporary Alice in Wonderland, a student on a dreamlike road trip, satirising US subcultures.
Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World (2023) (Nu astepta prea mult de la sfârsitul lumii)
★★★★★
Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World is a wide-ranging, vicious satire on the post-communist, rampantly privatised, chaotically capitalist economy in Romania and everything else in modern European life, by Radu Jude.
The Holdovers (2023)
★★★★☆
December 1970, a grumpy teacher forced to stay on campus over the holidays gradually bonds with a volatile teenager in Alexander Payne’s latest comedy drama The Holdovers.
Raging Grace (2023)
★★★★☆
Raging Grace is an unusual contemporary social-comment-psychological-horror feature debut by British/Filipino Paris Zarcilla, an exciting new filmmaking voice.
Fallen Leaves (2023) (Kuolleet lehdet)
★★★★☆
Fallen Leaves is Aki Kaurismäki’s drily touching film of a kind of love story amid the grinding reality of life.