TIFF 2024 Films Directed, Produced, Starring & Featuring Black Talent In Prominent Roles
As the Venice Film Festival and Telluride Film Festival concludes this week, it’s the Toronto International Film Festival where most people travel to and catch up on some of the hotly anticipated films that with hit theaters and streamers this Fall. Some are coming in with Oscar aspirations on the horizon. With films from all over the world, and films that are directed by, produced by, and starring/ featuring Black talent in prominent roles, the ones of notes include Malcolm Washington’s adaptation of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson. Produced by his father Denzel Washington and starring his brother John David Washington along with Danielle Deadwyler and Samuel L. Jackson, it’s a family collaboration we’ve never seen before but will be there to support.
Fresh from winning this year’s Golden Bear at the Berlinale, director Mati Diop brings to TIFF her second feature film Dahomey. She previously won several accolades on her debut films Atlantics. Jharrel Jerome, who won a Best Actor Emmy for his role in When They See Us, comes to the festival with Unstoppable. He’s playing the role of one-leg wrestler Anthony Robles, who went on to become an NCAA Champion. Continuing with sports, Ryan Destiny will play boxing gold medalist Claressa Shields in The Fire Within, written by Barry Jenkins. From wrestling to boxing, LeBron James exec produces the basketball film Rez Ball. Both musicians Pharell Williams and Anderson .Paak are bringing projects that reflect their personal stories with Piece By Piece and K-Pops respectively. It’s been some time since Marianne Jean-Baptiste and director Mike Leigh worked together, and their reunion comes with Hard Truths.
Here’s a selection of 2024 TIFF films directed by, produced by, starring and featuring Black talent in prominent roles. The synopsis comes from the TIFF guide.
GALA PRESENTATIONS
UNSTOPPABLE - Directed by William Goldenberg
The film stars Emmy Award Jharrel Jerome in an inspiring, true story about Anthony Robles (played by Jerome) who defied every expectation to become a national wrestling champion.
Directed by William Goldenberg from a screenplay written by Eric Champnella and Alex Harris and John Hindman, the supporting cast includes Bobby Cannavale, Michael Peña, Anthony Robles, with Don Cheadle and Jennifer Lopez.
Stories like Anthony Robles’ are the stuff of inspirational fiction, except this one actually happened. Though born without a right leg and growing up in a volatile household, Robles never let go of his dream. He set out to develop the strength and skills that college wrestling demands. He aimed to earn a place on a US Division 1 team despite being its only disabled athlete. And he competed to win.
Starring Jharrel Jerome (Moonlight, TIFF ’16; When They See Us) as Robles in another outstanding performance, Unstoppable is both an irresistible sports drama and a family story full of heart. In the wrestling circle and the locker room, he has to convince two tough coaches (Michael Peña and Don Cheadle) that his grit and potential are real. At home, he contends with a mother going through some growing up of her own.
MEGAPOLIS - Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
The cast includes Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Kathryn Hunter, Dustin Hoffman
Wracked with grief over the death of his wife, Cesar Catilina (Driver) pours all his energy into his startling new invention, megalon, a building material that is infinitely malleable and miraculously strong — and may just imbue its creator with the power to control time and space. The federal government grants Catilina permission to demolish large parts of New Rome to make way for his colossal building project, Megalopolis, outraging the city’s mayor, Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who clings to the status quo. Adding insult to injury, Cicero’s daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) falls in love with Catilina, positioning herself at the centre of a grand conflict between cynicism and lofty ideals.
THE WILD ROBOT - Directed by Chris Sanders
The cast includes Lupita Nyong'o, Pedro Pascal, Catherine O'Hara, Kit Connor, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu, Matt Berry, Ving Rhames, Mark Hamill
Based on Peter Brown’s bestselling children’s books, this adventure from Oscar-nominated director Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stitch) and DreamWorks Animation follows a robot (voiced by Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o), designed to assist humans who finds herself stranded on an island populated exclusively by beasts.
Rozim 7134 (Nyong’o) exists to receive orders. But on the rugged isle where Roz first boots up, no orders are forthcoming. There’s no owner is to be found and none of the island’s motley menagerie of animals have any use for her skills. Until, that is, she meets Brightbill (Kit Connor), an orphaned gosling who attaches to Roz the moment he’s born. Taking advice from a fox called Fink (Pascal), Roz compiles a set of directives to help Brightbill through his infancy. But in this place where every creature is either predator or prey, learning to eat, swim, and fly isn’t enough. Brightbill needs to negotiate sticky social situations and find entry into a flock before migration season comes. In short, he needs qualities like tenderness and nurturing — things Roz will need to look deep inside her robot soul to find.
SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS
40 ACRES - Directed by R.T. Thorne
The cast includes Danielle Deadwyler, Kataem O'Connor, Michael Greyeyes, Milcania Diaz-Rojas, Leenah Robinson, Jaeda LeBlanc, Haile Amare, Elizabeth Saunders, and Tyrone Benskin.
After a series of plagues and wars leaves society in ruins, the Freemans are surviving — even thriving — on a farm in the middle of nowhere... so long as they repel the occasional raiding party. But what good is surviving the end of the world if it means snuffing out your own humanity?
Former soldier Hailey (Danielle Deadwyler) made that choice years ago, believing that isolation was the only way to protect her family. She and her partner Galen (Michael Greyeyes) fled the collapse along with their children, training them to fight (and, yes, kill). But now Hailey’s eldest Emanuel (Kataem O’Connor) is a young man, and when he meets a young woman (Milcania Diaz-Rojas) in the forest beyond the fence, his need for human contact could place the whole family in jeopardy.
BIRD - Directed by Andrea Arnold
The cast includes Barry Keoghan, Franz Rogowski, Nykiya Adams, James Nelson-Joyce and Jasmine Jobson
Twelve-year-old Bailey (played by charismatic newcomer Nykiya Adams) lives with her father Bug (a devoted but emotionally chaotic Barry Keoghan) in a graffiti-strewn tenement. When Bug informs her that he’ll be marrying his new girlfriend soon, Bailey is furious and hurt, for what will become of her? Her mother lives with a violent, cruel man, and while Bug sports a ferocious love for his daughter, he can be oblivious to the needs of a fledgling teenage girl.
DAHOMEY - Directed by Mati Diop
For centuries, the Kingdom of Dahomey, within the borders of modern-day Benin, was a central cultural meeting point in West Africa, a site of European colonial conquest and the transatlantic slave trade. In 1892, the French invaded and looted hundreds of treasures from the royal palace, alongside thousands of other works. Following years of appeals and reports, in 2021 an agreement was made for several of these artworks to be returned from France to Benin.
French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop was granted access to the multipartite process. Tracing the historic repatriation of 26 royal treasures from the Musée du quai Branly in Paris, through their crating, overseas shipping to Cotonou, condition assessment, and eventual unveiling, Diop reveals not only the material and logistical process with elegance and precision, but also summons the ghosts of displacement.
The film was the winner of this year’s Golden Bear at the Berlinale.
HARD TRUTHS - Directed by Mike Leigh
The cast includes Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Michele Austin, David Webber, Tuwaine Barrett, Ani Nelson, Sophia Brown, Jonathan Livingstone
Reuniting with Oscar-nominated Secrets & Lies star Marianne Jean-Baptiste, the latest from seven-time Oscar-nominated auteur Mike Leigh is bracingly tough, darkly funny, and pierced with insight. Shifting between various members of an extended Black family in London, Hard Truths is a psychologically rich ensemble film as only Leigh can cultivate.
Hypersensitive to the slightest possible offence and ever ready to fly off the handle, Pansy (Jean-Baptiste) does not ingratiate. She criticizes her husband Curtley (David Webber) and their adult son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) so relentlessly that neither bother to argue with her. She picks fights with strangers and sales clerks and enumerates the world’s countless flaws to anyone who will listen, most especially her cheerful sister Chantal (Michele Austin), who might be the only person still capable of sympathizing with her. As the film peels back Pansy’s pain and the daily fallout left in its wake, we wonder if a breaking point will come for the family.
K-POPS - Directed by Anderson .Paak
The cast includes Anderson .Paak, Jee Young Han, Jonnie "Dumbfoundead" Park, Soul Rasheed, Yvette Nicole Brown
In K-Pops, .Paak directs and acts opposite his real-life son Soul Rasheed for a family project inspired by his own personal history and parental connection to Korea.
BJ (.Paak) is a washed-up drummer with a love for music that’s both naive and obsessive. When his friend pushes him to travel to South Korea and work on a pop idol show, he meets Tae Young (Rasheed), a young performer in competition to be the nation’s next music star. Soon, BJ is introduced to Tae Young’s mother, Yeji (Jee Young Han), a woman he had a brief relationship with more than a decade ago. Tae Young is the son he never knew existed.
BJ makes up for lost time, showing a sincere interest in getting to know Tae Young while helping his troupe bring something special to their music and choreography. But in the background, BJ’s desire for stardom persists, tempting him to choose between fame or family once again.
ON BECOMING A GUINEA FOWL - Directed by Rungano Nyoni
The cast includes Susan Chardy, Elizabeth Chisela, Henry B.J. Phiri
Here lies Shula’s uncle Fred — dead in the middle of an empty road. It’s late, but Shula knows her family will expect her to wait with his body, no matter how much she might resent it. Bemba funerals are for the living, and the family will have questions. With the days-long ceremony beginning immediately, the blithe and unperturbed Shula — played by Susan Chardy in her debut film role — attempts to opt out of the haunted proceedings. But in this household, mourning is not optional. Tradition dictates that visitors will soon gather while relatives fill the family home with wails of grief. And what will they say about the dry-eyed and resolutely emotionless Shula?
Surely the dead can’t take all their secrets to the grave, and Fred, in particular, had many. Attempting to escape the inquisition of her heartbroken aunts, Shula is drawn to her cousins. Layered somewhere within the flurry of caring for each other, the whispered memories of this middle-class Zambian family will find a new frequency. In misery’s company, Shula will find a new voice.
PIECE BY PIECE - Directed by Morgan Neville
The cast includes Pharrell Williams, Jay-Z, Missy Elliott, Timbaland, Gwen Stefani, Justin Timberlake, Busta Rhymes, Snoop Dogg, N.O.R.E., Pusha T., Daft Punk, Kendrick Lamar
Piece by Piece tells Pharrell Williams’ story entirely with LEGO, for a bright, bouncy, and energetic treatment that captures the multi-hyphenate musician’s unyielding creative spirit.
The film takes us through Pharrell’s spirited upbringing in Virginia, his first job at a record label, the start of production duo the Neptunes with Chad Hugo, the formation of the band N.E.R.D., and beyond.
When nobody wants to give him a shot as a singer and performer, Pharrell pivots to producing, giving him new fuel that blasts him into orbit, working with artists like Gwen Stefani, Jay-Z, and Snoop Dogg, all also presented in LEGO form and who talk about Pharrell’s unique vision and golden touch. But, as the film also shows, being in the stratosphere doesn’t come without a cost.
REZ BALL - Directed by Sydney Freeland, Executive Produced by LeBron James
The cast includes Jessica Matten, Kauchani Bratt, Amber Midthunder, Cody Lightning, Dallas Goldtooth, Ernest David Tsosie, Kusem Goodwind, Zoey Reyes, Julia Jones
Based on a remarkable true story and set in the sprawling and beautiful Navajo Nation, Rez Ball follows one unforgettable season in the lives of the Chuska Warriors boys’ basketball team.
Fronted by the charismatic local hero Nataanii Jackson (Kusem Goodwind), the team is searching for a way out of its current losing streak, which frustrated community members blame on Coach Hobbs (Jessica Matten), herself a former basketball star. But Nataanii is struggling with the tragic deaths of his mother and sister and, after a devastating turn of events results in his passing, the team is left even more bereft and rudderless. The heir apparent to lead the team is Nataanii’s best friend, Jimmy Holiday (Kauchani Bratt), whose own family and financial struggles threaten to derail his hoop dreams.
As their slump continues, Hobbs, Jimmy, and the rest of the team must find a new path forward. Inspired by their language and culture, they develop a uniquely Navajo twist to playing basketball — which they dub “Rez Ball” — leading to an unexpected win streak that keeps alive their hopes of competing for the state championships.
RIFF RAFF - Directed by Dito Montiel
The cast includes Jennifer Coolidge, Ed Harris, Gabrielle Union, Lewis Pullman, Miles J. Harvey, Emanuela Postacchini, Michael Angelo Covino, Pete Davidson, Bill Murray
One-time criminal Vince (Harris) turned his life around when he fell in love with Sandy (Union). Nearly 20 years later, the still-happy couple are looking forward to spending a quiet New Year’s Eve in their country home with their good-natured son, DJ (Miles J. Harvey). Then Vince’s other son, Rocco (Lewis Pullman), shows up unannounced with his pregnant girlfriend, Marina (Emanuela Postacchini), and Vince’s first wife, Ruth (Coolidge), in tow. It is not a happy reunion. Ruth is rude, lewd, and randy, while Rocco — who never divested himself of the family business — is clearly hiding something sinister. Hot on Rocco’s tail is Lefty (Bill Murray), an aging mafioso with a score to settle regarding his own son. When Lefty catches up with Vince’s teeming clan, it seems likely that blood ties will yield blood spilled.
THE FIRE INSIDE - Directed by Rachel Morrison, Written & Produced by Barry Jenkins
The cast includes Ryan Destiny, Academy Award nominee Brian Tyree Henry, Judy Greer, Oluniké Adeliyi, and De'Adre Aziza.
The film is the inspirational true story of two-time boxing gold medalist Claressa Shields. Amazon MGM Studios will release the film in theaters on December 25.
Young Claressa Shields (Ryan Destiny) sneaks into a boxing gym, eager to spar with the boys. Local volunteer coach Jason Crutchfield (Brian Tyree Henry) quickly takes her under his wing. Claressa proves fiercely talented but soon Crutchfield must go beyond the duties of a coach to keep her on track as she starts to feel not just the pressure of winning, but also the glare of her beleaguered hometown of Flint, Michigan seeking hope in her resilience.
The Fire Inside marks Rachel Morrison’s feature directorial debut. For her work on Mudbound (2017), Morrison earned a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography, making her the first woman ever nominated in that category.
THE LUCKIEST MAN IN AMERICA - Directed by Samir Oliveros
The cast includes Paul Walter Hauser, Walton Goggins, Shamier Anderson, David Strathairn, Maisie Williams, Patti Harrison, Brian Geraghty, Haley Bennett, Johnny Knoxville, David Rysdahl, Shaunette Renée Wilson, Ricky Russert, Lilli Kay, James Wolk
This stranger-than-fiction drama resurrects a hugely popular 1980s game show and the “luckiest man in America” who broke it.
Michael Larson (Hauser) shouldn’t even be there. An unemployed ice cream truck driver from Lebanon, Ohio, Michael only made it into auditions for Press Your Luck because he stole someone else’s appointment. The show’s casting director (an excellent Shamier Anderson) thinks Michael is a creep, but co-creator Bill Carruthers (Strathairn) likes Michael’s chutzpah and sees him as a Middle-American everyman the audience can cheer for — the dark horse is in.
Michael fumbles through the first several minutes of play, but once host Peter Tomarken (Goggins) moves onto the second “spin” section of Press Your Luck, where contestants try to get a randomly lit electronic game board to stop on a winning tile, Michael suddenly can’t lose. In fact, he quickly breaks the show’s record — before breaking its savings account. Is Michael cheating? Or does he understand something about Press Your Luck that no one has seen before?
THE ORDER - Directed by Justin Kurzel
The cast includes Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Jurnee Smollett, Marc Maron
Based on Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt’s nonfiction bestseller The Silent Brotherhood, The Order depicts a domestic terrorist group determined to promote their racist ideology — and the lawmen who will go to any lengths to stop them.
The year is 1983. A series of bank robberies and car heists plague the Pacific Northwest. Believing these crimes to be connected to a white supremacist organization, FBI Agent Huss (Law) undertakes an investigation with the aid of an eager young small-town deputy (Sheridan). Their search leads them to Robert Jay Mathews (Hoult), a charismatic cult leader recruiting a small army to raise funds for an armed revolution. As their paths bring them into ever-closer proximity, Huss and Mathews’ powerful convictions will ensure only one of them will emerge from their inevitable confrontation.
THE PIANO LESSON - Directed by Malcolm Washington
The cast includes Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington, Ray Fisher, Michael Potts, Erykah Badu, Skylar Aleece Smith, Jerrika Hinton, Gail Bean, with Danielle Deadwyler and Corey Hawkins
The screenplay is by Virgil Williams & Malcolm Washington and based on the play written by August Wilson. The film is produced by Denzel Washingto and Todd Black.
The Charles family of Pittsburgh has a precious heirloom that sits quietly in the middle of their home: a piano. In its wooden frame are carefully chiselled carvings of the faces of their great-grandparents during a time when they were enslaved.
It’s 1936, and Boy Willie (John David Washington) wants to sell the piano to buy the land his ancestors were enslaved upon. His sister Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler) is fiercely protective of it, even though she never plays it. Their uncle Doaker (Samuel L. Jackson) tries to keep the peace as The Piano Lesson finds levity in this sibling confrontation before the family is troubled by a more serious shadow that hangs over their heads. A ghost descends on their home and Boy Willie gives Berniece an ultimatum that she is too scared to face.
TIFF DOCS
ERNEST COLE: LOST AND FOUND - Directed by Raoul Peck
The South African photographer Ernest Cole won international acclaim for his 1967 book House of Bondage, which captured searing images of apartheid from a Black perspective. In his twenties, Cole was exiled in the United States and Europe, bearing witness to other varieties of racism. He lost his bearings and fell out of sync with the photo editors and arts foundations that had supplied his line of support. He experienced homelessness and died from cancer in 1990, just days after Nelson Mandela was released from prison.
That might have been the end of his story until a revelation in 2017, when 60,000 unknown negatives of his work were discovered in a Swedish bank vault. Through all his adversity, Cole never lost his power to take stunning pictures, trying to see those who spend their lives going unseen. “It’s a matter of survival,” he wrote, “to steal every moment.
Peck draws upon Cole’s private writings to craft a script voiced by actor LaKeith Stanfield (Judas and the Black Messiah) that brings the photographer to life.
CENTERPIECE
ANYWHERE ANYTIME - Directed by Milad Tangshir
The cast includes Ibrahima Sambou, Moussa Dicko Diango, Success Edemakhiota
Issa (Ibrahima Sambou) is a young undocumented immigrant from Senegal living in Turin, Italy. He is doing his best to survive — and send money home — in a bustling city that in countless ways renders him invisible. Moreover, he’s living in a hostile landscape, in which people in his precarious position are at the whims of international politics and at the mercy of whomever they face.
Fired by his previous employer, Issa finds work as a food-delivery rider, thanks to a kind friend (Moussa Dicko Diango). The arduous job requires the employee to provide their own means of transport, and soon Issa’s newly gained stability collapses when, during a drop-off, the bicycle he has just spent all his money on is stolen. Determined to overcome yet another challenge, Issa immediately embarks on an uphill odyssey through the city streets to recover his means of transport and survival. Luckily, moments of reprieve find tenderhearted Issa, as he moves through the city with distinguished grace, including an encounter with a fellow migrant (Success Edemakhiota) that brings glimmers of beauty and reminds the viewer of the best of humanity.
SOULEMANE’S STORY - Directed by Boris Lojkine
The cast includes Abou Sangare, Nina Meurisse, Younoussa Diallo, Alpha Oumar Sow
Boris Lojkine’s fourth film follows an undocumented Guinean immigrant, Souleymane (Abou Sangare) through the bustling streets of Paris for over two days as he makes bike courier food deliveries while preparing for his asylum interview. Part of an underground economy of couriers who rent verified accounts, Souleymane works morning to night, piecing together a life between the strict schedule of the homeless shelter he stays at with other immigrants, fitting in as many deliveries as possible to avoid penalties from the app, and somehow finding time to call his girlfriend back at home.
All of this leaves Souleymane with little time to assemble the payment and necessary paperwork for his well-meaning but harried immigration broker or to commit all the details of his revised asylum narrative to memory. Despite the pressing nature of his obligations, Souleymane’s personality shines through in his brief moments of respite — joking with other immigrant couriers, helping an elderly customer, and connecting with a kebab vendor.
THE LEGEND OF THE VAGABOND QUEEN OF LAGOS - Directed by Nigeria’s The Agbajowo Collective: Elijah Atinkpo, Temitope Ogungbamila, Tina Edukpo, Okechukwu Samuel, Bisola Akinmuyiwa, Mathew Cerf, and James Tayler.
The cast includes Temiloluwa Ami-Williams, Debo Adedayo, Kachi Okechukwu, Gerard Avlessi
Jawu (Ami-Williams) bears the mark of a warrior king but lives humbly, selling swallows at the local market, saving up for the better future she’s determined to build for herself and her son. The pair reside in the Agbojedo community, a floating slum planted in the lagoon that gives Lagos its name. Just as rumours begin circulating regarding government plans for new developments that would raze their homes, Jawu spies a corrupt politician (Adebowale Adedayo, also at the Festival in Freedom Way) burying a nest egg of cash. Struck by her good fortune, she takes the money for herself, thinking this might be her way out. Jawu doesn’t know that she is destined for a bigger battle that is yet to come.
THE VILLAGE NEXT TO PARADISE - Directed by Mo Harawe
The cast includes Ahmed Ali Farah, Mohamed Mohamud Jama
Mamargade (Ahmed Ali Farah) lives in Paradise — a windswept desert countryside under the constant threat of drone strikes. To support his family, including his gifted son Cigaal (Ahmed Mohamud Saleban), the humble and steadfast single father does what his sister Araweelo (Anab Ahmed Ibrahim) calls “social work” — driving, digging graves, repairing vehicles. But when death comes often from the sky, it is not uncommon for people to simply disappear. After Cigaal’s instructor stops showing up, Mamargade is encouraged to enroll him in a nearby boarding school, against Cigaal’s wishes.
Araweelo dreams of independence, most urgently in the form of a divorce, and then a shop where she can make and sell clothing. But when she learns she cannot get a loan as an unmarried woman, she must hatch a new plan to make her aspirations come true.
DISCOVERY
FREEDOM WAY - Directed by Afolabi Olalekan
The cast includes Adebowale Adedayo, Bimbo Akintola, Jesse Suntele, Meg Otanwa, Femi Jacobs, Mike Afolarin, Jable Ogranya, Teniola Aladese, Taye Arimoro, Tiwalola Adebola-Walter, Akin Lewis
Software developers Themba (Jesse Suntele) and Tayo (Mike Afolarin) have finally launched their latest venture, Easy Go — a new rideshare app to connect Lagos State’s busy commercial motorcyclists (“Okada riders”) with customers in their area. Riding high on capital investments and credible government assurances, the young South African and Nigerian duo can finally envision the fruits of their labour. But after a night of celebrating, the business partners confront a pernicious roadblock familiar to all Nigerian youth — the police. This routine extortion, however, will turn out to be the least of their concerns.
While Easy Go’s developers are street-taxed out of their success, the app takes off. For Abiola (played by Mr. Macaroni, Adebowale Adedayo), a young father and rider, it has been a godsend. That is until the government announces a total ban on Okada, leaving Abiola without his livelihood and the developers feeling as though they’ve been used as political pawns.
MOTHER MOTHER - Directed by K'naan Warsame
The cast includes Maan Youssouf Ahmed, Hassan Najib, Elmi Rashid Elmi, Ubah Egal
On a lonely farm in rural Somalia, the widowed Qalifo (Maan Youssouf Ahmed) and her college-age son Asad (Elmi Rashid Elmi) raise camels. Asad lives in the shadow of his late father’s violent reputation and bristles at Qalifo’s strict parenting, escaping to a nearby village whenever he can. And when Asad learns his girlfriend has been seeing another boy, the American visitor Liban (Hassan Najib), a confrontation is inevitable.
THE PARTY’S OVER - Directed by Elena Manrique
The cast includes Sonia Barba, Edith Martínez, Beatriz Arjona
A complete rara avis within her own bourgeois milieu in southern Spain, Carmina’s lifestyle benefits from inherited wealth. Ensconced in her lofty manor, the divorced empty-nester enjoys respect and power but doesn’t much care for anything apart from her fitness routine and frequent soirées with her friends.
Things soon turn upside down with the arrival of young, smart, and sensitive Bilal. The immigrant from Senegal takes shelter in Carmina’s toolshed and quickly becomes a (mostly unwilling) personal companion. Carmina’s charming, capricious ways entrap not only Bilal but also her housekeeper, Lupe. A stern, salt of the earth local woman, Lupe at first distrusts the newcomer, but ends up finding solidarity with Bilal as they try to help each other escape from the manipulative gilded cage Carmina offers.
VILLAGE KEEPER - Directed by Karen Chapman
The cast includes Olunike Adeliyi, Maxine Simpson, Zahra Bentham, Micah Mensah-Jatoe, Oyin Oladejo, d'bi.young anitafrika, Ethan Burnett, Shiloh O'Reilly
With her first dramatic feature, writer-director Karen Chapman creates an emotional and authentic study of a single mother trying to hold herself together.
Jean is the provider and (over)protector of her two teen children, Tamika and Tristin, and begrudgingly lives with her mother in a crowded Lawrence Heights apartment complex. Despite the kids learning to become more self-sufficient, Jean’s vision is too clouded by the past to see that they're growing. She is haunted by violence in both their past and their present, and must help her children cope.
MIDNIGHT MADNESS
DEAD MAIL - Directed by Joe DeBoer, Kyle McConaghy
The cast includes Sterling Macer, Jr., John Fleck, Tomas Boykin, Susan Priver, Micki Jackson, Nick Heyman
When an ominous cry for help on a blood-stained scrap of mail is clocked by the staff of a country post office in the American Midwest, it spurs an investigation that circuitously reveals the sordid story of a struggling synthesizer engineer (Sterling Macer Jr.) and his possessive benefactor (John Fleck). Shrewdly set at the precipice of the digital age — that nebulous twilight between the late 1970s and the early 1980s — this analogue-textured thriller borders its central psychodrama within an idiosyncratic community of amateur gumshoes who all keenly contribute to cracking the case.
The most immediately prominent sleuth is Jasper (Tomas Boykin), a diligent mailroom clerk with a knack for rectifying “dead letters,” to use the parlance of the postal service. Aided by his two plucky colleagues (Micki Jackson, Susan Priver) and a Scandinavian hacker (Nick Heyman) thus ensues a genre-bending caper spun with the fetishistic minutiae of a Peter Strickland film and the askew Americana of the Coen Brothers.
WAVELENGTHS
The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire - Directed by Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich
The cast includes Zita Hanrot, Motell Foster, Josué Gutierrez, Reese Antoinette, Melisa Lopez
Born in Martinique, Suzanne Césaire was an anti-colonialist activist and writer who contributed — alongside her husband Aimé Césaire — to the Négritude movement, and whose limited but forceful writings resonate to the present day. Less biopic than critical deconstruction and inviting reverie, Hunt-Ehrlich’s evocations of the words and life of Suzanne Césaire provoke rich and fragmentary reflections on art, love, politics, and even the nature of filmmaking.
As a group of actors gather to embody the roles of Suzanne (Zita Hanrot), Aimé (Motell Foster), and their famed Surrealist friend André Breton (Josué Gutierrez) who was inspired by her work, vintage-tinged staged sequences bleed into reflexive considerations about the essence of Suzanne’s writing, her reputation, her desires, and her intersectional identity. That there are several interpretations of Suzanne is indicative of her prismatic and elusive legacy.
TV
THE LISTENERS - Directed by Janicza Bravo
The cast includes Rebecca Hall, Prasanna Puwanarajah, Gayle Rankin, Amr Waked, Mia Tharia, Ollie West, Franc Ashman, Samuel Edward-Cook, Karen Henthorn, Lucy Sheen, Ian Mercer
Claire (Rebecca Hall, Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, TIFF ’17) is perfectly contented, if sometimes slightly underwhelmed, by the tranquil life she leads. As an English teacher with a loving husband (Prasanna Puwanarajah, The Crown, Patrick Melrose) and daughter, Claire’s life holds few surprises. When she suddenly begins hearing a low, persistent humming sound — which, it appears, no one else around her can hear or account for — Claire begins to withdraw into herself, suddenly knocked off-balance by the bizarre shift in her life.
In her search for answers, Claire comes to learn that her student Kyle (Ollie West, The Sparrow) can also hear the sound. They embark on a tentative, faltering journey together, leading them towards a neighbourhood support group led by a mysterious but compelling couple, and away from their own respective families. As Claire and Kyle each navigate their own experiences of the sound, and its impact on their lives, they begin to unravel its meaning — is it a hoax? A curse? A gift?
SHORT FILMS
ON SUNDAY AT ELEVEN - Directed by Alicia K. Harris
Facing the pressures to conform to Eurocentric beauty standards, a young Black ballerina finds a powerful source of pride and confidence, in Alicia K. Harris’ inspiring and visually stunning short.
AFTER SUNDAY - Directed by Omolola Ajao
In Omolola Ajao’s enthralling story of the ghosts of migration, a young woman takes a hard look into her family’s past and exposes difficult truths beneath the surface of her African Canadian church community.