TIFF13 REVIEW: 2013 Short Cuts Canada Programmes

Programme 1 A far cry from the documentary short Joda—a visual letter to Jafar Panahi—that was included in the TIFF Short Cuts Canada Programme last year, graphic designer turned filmmaker Theodore Ushev’s Gloria Victoria is all about the visceral and aural capabilities of film without something as unnecessary as words. Full of sumptuous textured layers formed by sketch drawings, Russian Constructivist elements, what I believe were faces from Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, and more, the rising crescendo of Shostakovich’s “Invasion” from Symphony No. 7 helps spur on an emotive war in…

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REVIEW: Hobo with a Shotgun [2011]

“I’m gonna sleep in your bloody carcass tonight” Put on your snap bracelets, grab your shotgun, and prepare to take back your city. When a crazed lunatic is running the police, his sons wreaking havoc on the citizens without provocation, and the population shaking in silent fear so as not to be the next victim at the hands of their brutality, sometimes it takes a stranger to finally make a stand. Whether that vigilante is a homeless man straight off the train shouldn’t matter, his brand of justice is the…

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