It’s that time of year again. The Toronto International Film Festival is ready to start, and we’re ready to bring as much coverage as we can to our readers. And while people will be talking about the celebrities or any one of the 285 features selected for the festival, there’s another part of TIFF that deserves just as much attention. A whopping 108 short films will play this year, a much higher number compared to previous years. That’s because TIFF used to only have one programme dedicated to Canadian shorts. This year they’ve expanded things out to include international short films as well, a welcome addition to the festival.

We were lucky enough to catch some of the short films in both the Canadian and International programmes before the festival, and have written about some of our personal favourites. If you have the time, you should definitely check out some of the shorts programmes at TIFF. The festival groups films into several back-to-back marathons, each one uniting the selected shorts around an overall theme. It’s a chance to see some really great programming from the festival staff, and it offers the ability to watch some excellent shorts you may otherwise never see in the best possible viewing conditions.

To find out more about Short Cuts Canada, click here, and to find out more about the Short Cuts International programme click here. The Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 4th to 14th in Toronto, Canada.

Canadian Shorts

CODA

Playing in Short Cuts Canada Programme 1

Denis Poulin and Martine Époque’s animation/motion capture of the finale of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring demands a viewing on the big screen. Using light, darkness and vivid colours to make their gorgeously abstract animations pop, the two directors create a truly original and exhilarating short film. [C.J.]

Last Night

Playing in Short Cuts Canada Programme 5

Ever call someone out on a lie, only to see them stubbornly refuse to admit their wrongdoing no matter how much the evidence stacks against them? Last Night is the short for you. When a man accuses his roommate of doing something terrible to him the night before (it’s best to discover the specific accusation for yourself), the roommate refuses to confess. What follows is one absurd development after another, and the way Last Night quickly veers off into absurdist comedy works like gangbusters. [C.J.]

Entangled

Playing in Short Cuts Canada Programme 4

A woman tries to find out what science experiment her now-catatonic lover was working on, and what she discovers leads to a fun piece of low-key science fiction.. Tony Elliott’s short may feel quite stuffed for its 15-minute runtime, but that’s a good thing; it has a great concept at its centre, one that feels like it could easily transition to feature-length without a problem. Fans of low budget science fiction like Primer or Coherence, as well as fans of Orphan Black (Elliott is a writer for the show) shouldn’t miss out on this one. [C.J.]

Take Me

Playing in Short Cuts Canada Programme 2

A hospital worker tasked with helping permanently disabled patients gets pushed to his limits when he has to help a husband and wife in “the intimacy room.” Take Me packs plenty of power in its short runtime. It’s a quiet, human drama bolstered by great performances. [C.J.]

Intruders

Playing in Short Cuts Canada Programme 5

A 9-minute short split into 3 different stories, Intruders certainly has ambition. The bookending segments work well as minimalist horror pieces, but it’s the second segment that stands out. A young boy pulls a Rear Window when he uses a telescope to spy on the apartment building across from him, and what he sees is the stuff of nightmares. The way this sequence combines real and surreal images only adds to how terrifying it is, making it one of the short programmes’ highlights. It’s also one of the best-looking short films in the lot too, with plenty of striking cinematography. [C.J.]

The Underground

Playing in Short Cuts Canada Programme 6

Inspired by Rawi Hage’s novel Cockroach, The Underground follows a young Iranian refugee barely scraping by in Canada. Alone and living in poverty, he begins imagining himself as a cockroach while he wanders the streets looking for food and supplies. Director Michelle Latimer’s short has plenty of style, but it never overpowers the heart of the film. It’s an impressive, evocative story anchored by an impressive performance from Omar Hady. [C.J.]

Running Season

Playing in Short Cuts Canada Programme 5

When his father dies, a man heads off to PEI to try to sell his house for a quick return. The only problem is that severed feet keep washing up on the town’s shore, a grisly piece of news that decreases the value of the house. Running Season is fantastic, the kind of showcase for director/co-writer Grayson Moore and writer Nigel Turgeon-Mannion to help move on to bigger and better things. The way Moore and Turgeon-Mannion strongly establish a character with a single line shows serious talent. The way someone says “Your father was a…consistent man” is all that’s needed to understand what kind of relationship the main character had with his father. The short’s centerpiece, a long conversation and negotiation over the house, is a brilliant piece of writing, starting out friendly before slowly generating a surprising amount of tension. Running Season might not be just the best short at TIFF; it might be one of the best things there, period. [C.J.]

Chamber Drama

Playing in Short Cuts Canada Programme 3

Megan, a young girl with hypersensitive hearing works as an intern at an acoustics lab, trying to impress her boss into letting her stay on instead of hiring a replacement once her internship ends. Chamber Drama is compelling all the way through, with some truly arresting images used to represent Megan’s hypersensitivity to sound. Out of what we’ve seen in the Canadian line-up, it’s definitely one of the programmes’ most assured short films. [C.J.]

A Tomb With a View

Playing in Short Cuts Canada Programme 4

At a scant 7 minutes, A Tomb With a View quickly covers a fascinating topic: the world’s tallest graveyard, a multi-storey necropolis looking more like an average apartment building than a cemetery. Director Ryan J. Noth exploits the disturbing quality of the graveyard before letting an architect explain why it’s such an unsettling sight; seeing the same structure people live most of their life in used as a monument to the dead provides a lot of bothersome associations. With nice cinematography and some brief but effective uses of music, A Tomb With a View benefits from its quick, no frills approach. [C.J.]

International Shorts

everything & everything & everything

Playing in Short Cuts International Programme 1

Take a Charlie Kaufman-esque premise, throw in some David Fincher and Paul Thomas Anderson and you might get an idea of what everything & everything & everything is like. An isolated man (Shane Carruth, Upstream Color) suddenly finds a glowing blue pyramid in his apartment. The only thing the pyramid does is generate a doorknob on command, something the man sees as a business opportunity. Director Alberto Roldan shows off major talent in this short, using montage and long takes in seriously impressive ways. Here’s hoping we don’t hear the last of him. [C.J.]

130919 • A Portrait Of Marina Abramović

Playing in Short Cuts International Programme 5

It’s tough to judge a 2D version of a 3D project, but if Matthu Placek’s 130919 has me excited about it in 2D, I can only imagine how amplified it will be on the big screen in 3D. Shot on location in a desolate warehouse (though “space-ground” is a term that comes more readily to mind), which will later turn into the Marina Abramović Institute in New York, this film is a single 6-minute swooping take of the embodiment of human body within space. If you’re not familiar with Abramović and her provocative post-modern performance pieces, do yourself a big favor and watch Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present. But whether you’re familiar with the artist or not, Placek’s portrait, with its haunting score and clenched sense of empowerment, will beguile you. [Nik]

Growing Pains

Playing in Short Cuts International Programme 2

The one that stuck out to me the most from the second programme in the International Short Cuts was Tor Fruergaard’s Growing Pains. It’s a horrific and fantastical sort of coming-of-age story, perfectly conceptualized for an animated world. When the opening sequence of the film is a young boy jacking off to a porn mag, you know you’re not watching a Pixar short. Watching stuff like this reminds me how Lars Von Trier put Denmark on the map, because his spirit is certainly felt; one close-up in particular will have all the men in the audience heave a collecting sigh of relief that this is, after all, just a cartoon. Of course, even when Felicia enters the picture and the story takes a curve into horror-fantasy, Growing Pains is much, much more than just a cartoon. [Nik]

(NULL)

Playing in Short Cuts International Programme 4

Unlikely to be outsmarted or outstyled in its programme, (NULL) is pure invention and in four short minutes provides probably the most exhilarating ride I’ve been on in terms of International Shorts appearing at TIFF. Directed by David Gesslbauer and Michael Lange, the film is reminiscent of an old-school Prodigy music video; the rabid, kinetic energy of a woman’s life as captured through a circular aspect ratio, with every manageable object (cups, fans, make-up, glasses, disco-balls, rolled-up dollar bills, washing machines, etc.) engulfing the edges and taking the “vicious circle” concept to literal and lively levels. Good news is; it all comes full circle in the end. (Couldn’t resist.) It’s placed alongside more formal shorts that deal with personal, political, and economic problems, but don’t be surprised if (NULL) ends up spinning the wheels in your head the most. [Nik]

The Warren

Playing in Short Cuts International Programme 1

James Adolphus makes his directing debut with his short film The Warren, which gets its World Premiere in TIFF’s new International Short Cuts programme. Together with his DP Guy Godfree, and editors Jarod Shannon and Bret Bachman, Adolphus successfully captures the pulsating anxiety and escalating fear of a midnight raid by the Israeli Defense Forces. During 11 gritty minutes, the viewer is paralyzed in the uncomfortable moments of a disturbing reality faced by thousands of refugees who have forgotten what safety feels like. The buildup concludes with a hair-raising moment of silence between oppressor and oppressed that will stay with the viewer for some time to come. [Nik]

Tricycle Thief

Playing in Short Cuts International Programme 3

A man is struggling to make ends meet as a tricycle cabbie in Macau, living in poverty and on the verge of getting his family evicted. Then, one night, a rejected customer steals his tricycle and the internal conflict of baser characteristics that are found in desperate men starts to bubble up. Maxim Bessmertnyi directs this mini odyssey set in the illuminated and rainy streets of a Macau night, and what struck my fancy the most with Tricycle Thief is the cinematography from Jordan Lavi Quellman (no doubt channeling some Wong Kar-Wai and Ming-liang Tsai imagery,) complimenting Bessmertnyi’s controlled pace so well. It makes for an absorbing watch, and the way that finale plays out with the wife, the sarcastic chuckle, and that music; it’s a positive sign that Maxim Bessmertnyi has a bright future ahead of him in the arthouse field of cinema if he keeps this up. [Nik]

Listen

Playing in Short Cuts International Programme 5

A Muslim woman comes to the police begging them to arrest her abusive husband, hoping they can put him away before he makes good on his promise to kill her and their son. The woman can’t speak Danish, making the police rely on a translator who purposely provides an incorrect translation of the woman’s pleas (“We’ll contact the imam. He’ll find a solution,” the translator tells the woman). Listen is deliberately frustrating, but its impact is undeniably powerful. [C.J.]

A Single Life

Playing in Short Cuts International Programme 2

In 2 minutes, directors Job, Joris & Marieke go through one woman’s entire life, no small feat for something no longer than your average commercial break. A woman finds a vinyl outside her apartment, and when she starts playing it she notices the record has a special power: time can go forwards or backwards depending on the position of the needle. It’s a cute animated short with a catchy song at the centre of it. And the ending provides a nice, morbidly funny touch to it all. [C.J.]

Despite my short time at Hot Docs, I’d say that I came away seeing a batch of relatively good documentaries. The only problem for me is that, if I had to sum up the films I saw in one word, it would be ‘pleasant.’ Sure, the subject matter on a lot of them is harsh, but I rarely saw anything that tried to shake things up structurally/formally. Talking head interviews, animated interludes and statistics, light background music and other familiar documentary elements were used abundantly. With the exception of couple titles I was disappointed with the lack of risk in what I saw. The problem with that is, for me, the make or break factor on a lot of these films is the subject matter.

Overall ratings for Hot Docs 2013

Valentine Road: 7.5
Despite some poor choices and a conventional presentation, it’s a very powerful documentary – Review
The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear: 7.3
A promising debut from director Tinatin Gurchiani – Review
The Conversation: 7
The foreboding mood more than makes up for how much of a mess it is – Review
The Life and Crimes of Doris Payne: 7
A light and enjoyable doc with a compelling main subject – Review
Tales From The Organ Trade: 6.5
Well-done but too shallow in its approach – Review
After Tiller: 5
Compelling subject matter that probably would have worked better as a short – Review
Entangled: 4
A bold stylistic choice by the director ends up ruining what could have been something a lot more interesting – Review

Tales From The Organ Trade

A perfect example of when the subject matter actually proves to be interesting is Tales From The Organ Trade. In what seems to be a cheeky move, director Ric Esther Bienstock gets David Cronenberg to narrate her documentary about black market organ transplants. Starting in the Philippines, Bienstock films an organ trade in progress as an organ broker picks a viable candidate willing to sell their kidney.

At the same time Bienstock cuts between different people who have (or already had) looked into kidney transplants: a woman who’s been on a waiting list for 8 years, a man who paid for a black market transplant to save his life, an American looking for altruistic donors and some of the more famous transplant doctors who are currently on the run from the law. Eventually the doc goes into full-on advocacy mode, arguing that financial incentives for donating an organ shouldn’t be illegal.

There’s no doubt that Tales From The Organ Trade is a compelling feature, and watching it will definitely make people wonder why selling an organ is illegal, but that’s because Bienstock doesn’t really delve beyond the surface. The possibility of people being exploited against their will is never discussed (everyone who sold their organ talk about how it was their choice, and they had no regrets), and there’s no attempt to look further into poverty and other factors that cause people to sell their body parts. Despite being well-made, Tales From The Organ Trade is too simplistic to have any meaningful impact.

After Tiller

My most anticipated documentary of the festival, After Tiller, turned out to be the biggest disappointment. The subject matter is one that’s so problematic that the audience had to be checked by security at its Sundance premiere. The title refers to Dr. George Tiller, one of five doctors in the United States who can perform third-term abortions. In 2009, Tiller was murdered by a pro-life activist, and After Tiller follows the four remaining doctors who can perform the same procedure.

Doctors Shelley Sella and Susan Robinson, who worked with Tiller until his death, set up a clinic in New Mexico, while Doctors LeRoy Carhart and Warren Hern run clinics in Nebraska and Colorado respectively. Carhart faces the most trouble from protestors, as his decision to start providing third-term abortions after Tiller’s death causes Nebraska to pass legislature making it illegal to perform the procedure. The other three doctors mostly discuss how hard their job is both on a physical and mental level, as they constantly face threats against their own lives and grapple with the morality of what they’re doing.

After Tiller is, to put it simply, a surprisingly boring documentary considering how sensitive of a topic abortion is. It could be that, knowing the facts about what they’re doing already (the vast majority of these procedures are done because of issues that will harm the baby or mother significantly, not because of frivolous reasons), none of what I saw was especially fascinating. Other than a few compelling parts, like Dr. Hern explaining how his time working at a maternity ward in Peru inspired him to work with Tiller, there isn’t much explored here. The general message is that their line of work is hard, but I didn’t need a documentary to tell me that. I recommend people watch Lake of Fire, a more thorough and interesting look at abortion, instead.

The Conversation

Finally, two documentaries that did try to shake things up came from the festival’s ‘Made in Poland’ program. The first, a short film called The Conversation, will probably baffle anyone who didn’t read a synopsis beforehand. A man and woman, both in jail for committing murder, have communicated with each other through mail for almost a decade without ever seeing each other. The short films their first conversation, held over webcam while intercutting between the woman’s time out of jail on a day pass.

At first the poorly translated subtitles, combined with the lack of context for anything on screen and cheap quality of the footage, make the film repellant. However a few minutes in, whether it was intentional or not, it started to cast a spell on me. There was something sinister to the whole film, and even though I had a hard time understanding I embraced the atmosphere director Piotr Sulkowski managed to create.

Entangled

Unfortunately the film that followed, Lidia Duda’s Entangled, failed miserably at what it wanted to accomplish. The film focuses on a teenage boy who tried to get revenge on the man who molested him at a young age. After nearly beating the man to death, he went to the hospital and unsuccessfully tried to murder him again. Duda intercuts between the boy serving his jail sentence and his molester, who is now free after serving a jail sentence years ago.

While Entangled has some terrific cinematography, it’s Duda’s choice to obscure everyone’s faces in the film that tank her film. She shoots both of her subjects from behind or with camera angles that obscure their faces, a choice she makes to highlight how the story could apply to anyone. The only problem is that this story is incredibly specific, and any attempts to explore themes of revenge and rehabilitation get drowned out by the style. As much as I can respect Duda’s approach, it makes for some unbearably dull viewing.

While Cannes, TIFF, Sundance and other major film festivals put their focus on a wide range of films, the Hot Docs festival puts the spotlight entirely on documentaries. Now celebrating their 20th year, Hot Docs is screening over 200 titles this year from 43 countries. For me, it was a bit difficult to decide on what to see. Only a few documentaries were familiar to me, like After Tiller and Valentine Road which had festival premieres earlier this year. For the most part I had to rely on my own judgment, picking titles based on nothing more than the official description. Below are some of the documentaries I hope to see throughout the festival.

The Hot Docs festival runs from April 25th to May 5th in Toronto, Ontario. You can check out what’s playing and buy tickets at www.hotdocs.ca

The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear

Director Tinatin Gurchiani announces a casting call for youth, aged 15 to 23 years, from villages and cities throughout the country of Georgia. Some come for fame, others for a chance to tell their story. As the hopeful subjects stare into the revealing lens of Gurchiani’s camera, extraordinary tales unfold. With turns sorrowful and comedic, this cinematically stunning film reveals truths of war, love, dreams and poverty. Some of the subjects are followed more intimately, and through their eyes we get a glimpse into modern day Georgian youth. Winner of the Directing Award: World Cinema Documentary at Sundance 2013, The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear explores the unlikely circumstances we’re born into and the paths we choose to travel from there forward.

Valentine Road

The seaside town of Oxnard, California, was shattered in 2008 by the shooting death of Lawrence “Larry” King, a 15-year-old biracial, LGBTQ student. The killer? His white, 14-year-old crush, Brandon McInerney. Was this a hate crime—retaliation against unwanted advances—or something more complex, entrenched in the community and society at large? Did flamboyant Larry, who liked to crochet, wear makeup and don heels, push his attacker, an emerging white supremacist, over the edge? It sure made for catchy headlines and drew attention to the plight of LGBTQ teens, as well as the overwhelmed educational and juvenile justice systems. But sensational press coverage only scratched the surface of the real story. Valentine Road delves deeper, to explore the complicated issues of accountability, sympathy and deviance at the heart of a legal defense that posited a murder victim can be the cause of his own murder.

Entangled

The roles of victim and aggressor are tragically reversed when a young man exacts revenge on his molester. The abuser becomes the abused in this complicated and ambiguous debate between crime and punishment, attempted murder versus rape. Presented using cross-cutting narratives, the young man is put behind bars while his pedophile remains free. But neither man can escape the other. For over 10 years they’ve lived in the same small town, in a tight, messy knot of hatred, fear and emotional chaos. “Maybe you have to feel it to understand it,” the juvenile muses about getting even as he paces his cage. “Life is not fair. Life is evil,” the pedophile states from behind locked doors, fearful of harassment from neighbours and his victim’s looming release date. Neither man regrets his crime, just its consequences. Entangled portrays a brutal grey area of blame, where both and neither is guilty.

Mercy Mercy: A Portrait Of A True Adoption

Easily one of the most important documentaries on inter-country adoption, Mercy Mercy gives a rare look at all participants in the adoption process, including the parents who give their children up. Two loving Ethiopians parents, Sinkenesh and Hussen, have just been diagnosed with HIV and told they have only a year to live. They make the painful decision to give their two youngest children up for adoption, handing them over to a Danish family. In an emotional departure, the Danish family promises to stay in touch and the adoption agency agrees to broker the relationship. What seems like the best decision for the children becomes a series of tragic and painful events for all, unveiling that the well-being of children is not always the main priority in the adoption process. Greed, selfishness, unrealistic expectations and skewed cultural perspectives idealizing one way of life over another collide in this powerful story.

The Life And Crimes Of Doris Payne

How does a poor, single, African-American mother from segregated 1950s America wind up as one of the world’s most notorious jewel thieves? Just ask her. A glamorous 81-year-old, Doris Payne is as unapologetic today about the nearly $2 million in jewels she’s stolen over a 60-year career as she was the day she stole her first carat. With Payne now on trial for the theft of a department store diamond ring, filmmakers Kirk Marcolina and Matthew Pond probe beneath her consummate smile to uncover the secrets of her trade and what drove her to a life of crime. Stylish recreations, an extensive archive and candid interviews reveal how Payne managed to jet-set her way into any Cartier or Tiffany’s from Monte Carlo to Japan and walk out with small fortunes. This sensational portrait exposes a rebel who defies society’s prejudices and pinches her own version of the American Dream while she steals your heart.