Canadian films by immigrant talent captivate audience at TIFF

Credit to Author: Baisakhi Roy| Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2024 14:33:44 +0000

A still from Living Together

Hordes of adoring film fans lined up King Street West, rechristened Festival Street for the duration of the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival held from September 5 to 15. They were cheering on their favourite stars, including Hollywood royalty like Angelina Jolie, Denzel Washington, young Australian sensation Jacob Elordi, activist and icon Malala Yousafzai, Korean superstar Hyun-Bin and iconic singer Bruce Springsteen who sparkled on the red carpet and indulged their fans with selfies and autographs.

As the excitement unfolded on the streets, the festival showcased a diverse array of 278 films. Among them, Canadian films made by notable immigrant talent garnered praise from critics and audiences alike. Somali-born K’naan Warsame’s directorial feature Mother, Mother was awarded one of the top prizes at the festival — the FIPRESCI Award, adjudicated by a jury of international critics to a debut feature film having its World Premiere in TIFF’s Discovery programme. Warsame, who was also one of the recipients of Canadian Immigrant’s Top 25 Awards in 2012, is one of Canada’s most accomplished recording artists, having won the Juno award for his debut music album, “The Dusty Foot Philosopher.” His chartbusting single “Wavin’ Flag,” was selected by Coca-Cola as its official song for the 2010 World Cup. In his directorial debut, Warsame tells a stirring tale of familial bonds based in rural Somalia.

China-born Johnny Ma’s The Mother and The Bear, a touching tale of a Korean widow flying to Winnipeg to care for her comatose daughter received a standing ovation from the audience. Ma, who does not speak Korean, told the audience after the screening that his unfamiliarity with Korean culture was never a factor because the story was universal. “I saw my mother through the character of this woman. So, it just felt right to have this woman telling the story I wanted to. The fact that I’m not from Winnipeg also didn’t matter for this very same reason,” he said.

Another heartwarming story about a family navigating an unfamiliar culture was depicted in Oscar winning animator, Norway-born Torill Kove’s charming film, Maybe Elephants, which was inspired by her own experience of living in Nairobi, Kenya as a teen.

“In our hometown, In Norway, we were allowed to do what we wanted as long as we were home by supper, but in Nairobi, we had to navigate an enormous sprawling city where our parents’ freewheeling parenting approach was neither practical nor safe,” she explains.

“In the middle of all this, we were also just teens being teens, making new friends from all over the world, learning to speak English, exploring an exciting city, going dancing, driving around listening to music, skipping school, experiencing falling in love one day and a broken heart the next,” she says.

Kove was cognizant of the fact that she was making a film set in Kenya and consulted the local Kenyan community during the process. “I had some concerns about telling a story based in Kenya because I’m not Kenyan. Throughout the production, we were in dialogue with Kenyan Canadians in Montreal, and with their help, I think we managed to set a high bar for respectfulness for the film’s location. Our question was always: What would a Kenyan audience think?” she says.

England-born Canadian filmmaker Jason Buxton’s dark comedy, Sharp Corner, filmed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, kept the audience at the edge of their seats. The film tells the story of a couple traumatized by car accidents that take place with alarming regularity on the front lawn of their suburban home, with the husband developing an unhealthy obsession with being prepared for the next accident.

TIFF is never without its controversies and this time, Russian-born filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova’s documentary Russians at War was at the centre of one. The documentary is told from the perspective of disillusioned Russian soldiers on the frontlines of the war in Ukraine. Large protests by members of the Ukrainian community in Toronto who called the film propaganda aiming to humanize Russian soldiers, and looming security threats forced TIFF organizers to cancel public screenings of the documentary.

Exploring identity and individualism

France-born Halima Elkhatabi has the special distinction of having two of her films showcased at the festival this year – a short film Fantas and a documentary, Living Together. In her eye-opening documentary, the filmmaker portrays the life of young people in Montreal looking for accommodation at a time when the housing shortage is at its worst in years. The filmmaker found her interviewees through Facebook ads and was surprised by their openness, especially post-pandemic. The documentary explores themes of identity, housing and shared living, highlighting the vulnerability of tenants and the power dynamics with landlords.

A still from The Mother and The Bear

“I was deeply interested in the concept of home — having a place to live safely and securely. This interest was sparked by the housing crisis in Montreal and other large cities, where many people are forced to share their homes with strangers,” she says. “It’s not just young people in their 20s facing this; I encountered people in their 40s and 50s too, who, after a divorce or due to being single, find it challenging to afford living alone. I realised there was a unique story to tell about the relationships between tenants, something rarely explored in documentaries,” she explains.

Her subjects are vulnerable, seeking to define their individualism while sharing their lives with strangers, talking frankly about their challenges, be it mental health issues, living with special needs or loneliness. Elkhatabi who came to Quebec 24 years ago remembers being pleasantly surprised by how welcoming people were.

“At that time, everyone seemed genuinely curious and friendly, which was quite different from what I had experienced in France,” she says. She finds that things changed after the September 11 attacks which brought about new laws and political shifts, particularly around immigration. For now, she is looking forward to reconnecting with her culture through her work.

“As I get older, I find myself wanting to make more documentaries about my own roots, like in Morocco. My parents are from there. I realize now that I don’t know as much about my own culture as I’d like, and there’s this urgency to explore and document it before it’s too late,” she says.

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