Reel Encounters

Mainstream cinema remains preoccupied with the exigencies of history on film, recent or distant.

In 2020, German actress Maria Schrader made her directorial debut with the Netflix miniseries “Unorthodox”, the first Netflix series to be primarily in Yiddish.

Last month, the publicity team for Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans”, a semi-autobiographical account of the filmmaker’s life from 1952 to the mid-1960s, revealed that Michelle Williams would be campaigning for awards attention as Lead Actress rather than Supporting Actress.

“The Wonder” feels like an important step in the maturity of Florence Pugh onscreen.

“Black Adam”, the latest in our current reality of multiple CGI superhero spectacles per year, feels built on paradoxes.

Somewhere, in a seaside town, an ageing couple invites an older – ailing – friend to convalesce in their home.

It feels important that “Catherine Called Birdy” and “On the Come Up”, both films about girls coming of age in ambivalent circumstances, are directed by actresses turned directors.

Somewhere, in a seaside town, an ageing couple invites an older – ailing – friend to convalesce in their home.

At its world premiere at TIFF in September, “The Greatest Beer Run Ever” director Peter Farrelly introduced the film to audiences by giving a brief account of its journey to the screen.

It feels important that “Catherine Called Birdy” and “On the Come Up”, both films about girls coming of age in ambivalent circumstances, are directed by actresses turned directors.

Olivia Wilde’s new film, a “psychological thriller” about a woman in an idyllic 1950s suburb who begins to realise that something is very wrong is a far cry from her directorial debut, the teen comedy “Booksmart”, but the two have more in common than you would think.

“Bros” is the first of its kind. Billy Eichner, the male lead and cowriter of the film’s script, has been telling everyone for months.

Wole Soyinka’s Nigerian play “Death and the King’s Horseman” is easily remembered as one of the essential works of late 20th century African drama.

Darren Aronofsky’s latest film, which had its North American premiere at TIFF after resounding success at its world-premiere at the Venice Film Festival, is based on a 2012 Drama Desk winning play of the same name.

In a way, Gina Prince-Bythewood’s “The Woman King” follows a traditional path: a well budgeted Hollywood epic, loosely based on events in history, which creates a high-energy action story driven by human emotion.

The wide range of films screened at the Toronto International Film Festival each year often means that debut filmmakers are sometimes more established ones, sometimes even exploring similar things thematically.

The crux of George Miller’s “Three Thousand Years of Longing” begins when a Djinn is released from a bottle in a hotel room in Istanbul.

Even before the title characters in Clio Barnard’s “Ali and Ava” meet, a brief musical montage early on binds them together in moments of isolation.

According to well established Hollywood logic, any movie about a rule-breaking action hero needs to add nuance to his character by giving him a wife and a daughter to contextualise his character arc and provide some essential emotional robustness.

A few months ago, somewhere in the middle of the umpteenth round of the ongoing debate over “Superhero Movies vs Art Movies” online, a superhero-enthusiast proposed an idea to bridge the gap.