TIFF22 REVIEW: Rosie [2023]

Love is what makes a family. The last thing Frédérique (Melanie Bray) needs is another mouth to feed. She’s already sneaking out the fire escape to avoid her landlord and can barely hold down a job due to her “passionate” disposition, so a child services agent (Josee Young‘s Barb) dropping off a niece (Keris Hope Hill‘s Rosie) she didn’t know she had proves quite the shock. More than needing to deal with the logistics problem, however, Fred also possesses a wealth of guilt and regret considering the reason the two…

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TIFF22 REVIEW: Bones of Crows [2023]

See you soon. It starts in the 1800s. That’s when the first residential schools were opened in Canada as a means of “beating the Indian” out of indigenous children throughout the country. The front-facing narrative was always education, but the thousands of bodies found in unmarked graves and devastating psychological toll endured by survivors of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse prove otherwise. And while writer/director Marie Clements never shies away from showing that generational trauma as it pertains to Aline Spears and her extended family, she’s also unafraid to depict…

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TIFF21 REVIEW: Night Raiders [2021]

We are still here. German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller coined the poetic confession “First they came …” in 1946. The post-WWII piece spoke about how groups like the Nazis would always find new targets to oppress once their recent victims were erased. First it was the socialists. Then trade unionists and Jews. The sigh of relief breathed by those not yet included under those labels is therefore only ever brief. Unless you don the swastika to partake in the purges, they’ll eventually find a label to justify wiping you from…

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