2022 TIFF

The human need for social connection and an acceptance of basic personal expression is universal. When societies make certain groups feel unwelcome or unsafe in expressing themselves — or, indeed, simply existing — people will eventually create spaces that affirm their identity.

Catherine Called Birdy is director Lena Dunham’s comedy about just turned thirteen-year-old Catherine (Bella Ramsey), who becomes available for marriage with the arrival of her menstrual period, to any prosperous suitor her father chooses – most of them old and undesirable – in order to rescue her family’s dire economic position, brought about by her father’s poor management of the household finances. The film amusingly documents Catherine’s willful attempts to escape the role to which she has been assigned.

Butcher’s Crossing had its first-ever public screening at TIFF and was met with a standing ovation for filmmaker Gabe Polsky and stars Nicolas Cage and co-star Fred Hechinger before they took the stage for a Q&A. The film is based on John Williams’ 1960 western novel set in the 1870s and stars Cage as Miller, a buffalo hunter who lures a naïve young man (Fred Hechinger) into an ambitious expedition in the Colorado Rockies that goes horribly wrong.

The Toronto Film Festival has ended with a message to Hollywood: Steven Spielberg’s new drama, The Fabelmans, could be the film to beat going into awards season after taking home the TIFF People’s Choice Award. While Toronto is not a prize-driven festival and does not have an official jury like the Cannes and Venice festivals, its highly coveted People’s Choice Award – voted only by audiences – is almost always a harbinger of a best picture nominee, with films like Green Book, La La Land and Jojo Rabbit, all winners that went on to receive Oscar love.

Throughout a long and distinguished career, the most defining characteristic of Werner Herzog’s canon has been sheer variety, driven by an enormous sense of curiosity. In his prolific documentary work, the 80-year-old German filmmaker has shown an intense interest in people (Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Meeting Gorbachev), in addition to the natural world and its history, both culturally and scientifically (Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Fireball: Visitors From Darker Worlds).

Expectations were high when packed theatres screened the much-hyped biopic, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, at the Toronto Film Festival. This was, after all, the story of the legendary parody songsmith who had hit records changing the lyrics to famous songs including Eat It (Michael Jackson’s Beat It), Another One Rides the Bus (Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust) and My Bologna (The Knack’s My Sharona).

The immense fortitude of the female gender was on rich display throughout this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, from well-received narrative features like The Woman King and Women Talking to the gripping documentary In Her Hands, which details two years in the fraught existence of one of the few female mayors in Afghanistan, and by far the youngest. “This is Zarifa Ghafari’s story, but also the story of so many other women in Afghanistan.

Taylor Swift is the only woman in history to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year three times, tying for the most wins alongside Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon. She’s a singer, songwriter, producer, actor, and director and - as her TIFF premiere of All Too Well: A Short Film announces to the world - a really gifted filmmaker.

Only in the movies can we root for liars, cheats and thieves to succeed in their endeavors to commit a crime. It is the unusual paradox of the heist film, from Oceans 11 to Dog Day Afternoon, from The Sting to Reservoir Dogs, where the hero is someone who should be behind bars but as the audience, we cheer on his lawlessness.

The Joker, the longtime foil of superhero Batman both in comic books and onscreen, is known for his anarchic sense of humor. But an independent film made much in that same spirit, writer-director-star Vera Drew’s outrageously imaginative The People’s Joker is finding its attempted fair-use satirical exploitation of that same character muffled.