The Toronto International Film Festival is back for another year amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but if you're not quite comfortable watching a film inside a theatre, there's a plethora of diverse and innovative digital screenings you can watch at home.
Last year, the festival had to pivot their usual star-studded event to a predominantly digital festival as the coronavirus halted in-person gatherings for most of 2020.
Although nearly 80 per cent of eligible Ontarians are fully vaccinated and most public health restrictions have been lifted across the province, TIFF opted to host a hybrid event this year with both in-person and digital screenings.
"I think the digital platform is really smooth and really intuitive to kind of maneuver and the presentation of the films is very good. I think that's what you know people are concerned about, like are these films going to look like I want them to look and is the sound going to be what I expect out of a film festival and I think we've definitely achieved it," Senior Manager of Festival Programming Robyn Citizen told CP24.
TIFF's online platform offers over 100 films that the public can rent and view from the comfort of their home.
But with so many options to choose from, it may be daunting to decide what to watch.
To help narrow down your options, Citizen provided her top five must-see digital screenings that TIFF is offering this year.
Mlungu Wam (Good Madam)
The South African film directed by Jenna Cato Bass is a psychological thriller that addresses the daily violence in the nation long after the end of apartheid.
"It's so smart, it's about the legacy of apartheid in South Africa and kind of how that's affected generations of families and obviously relationships between white and Black South Africans," Citizen says.
The film follows Tsidi and her daughter, who are forced to move in with Tsidi's estranged mother following her grandmother's death. Tsidi's mother, Mavis, works in the wealthy suburbs of Cape Town at a property owned by Diane, a mysterious white "Madam." Mavis has worked at the house for most of Tsidi's life, but with the house feeling more eerie than Tsidi remembers, and with Mavis' weird infatuation for Diane, Tsidi tries to convince Mavis that she should leave.
Citizen says the film's sound design is impressive, which she says is an important element in a horror film.
"It has women at the centre of the story, and the sound design, it's a weird thing to like gush about, sound design is so important in horror films, and it's just brilliantly done."
Snakehead
After 10 years of production, documentary filmmaker Evan Jackson Leong is finally debuting his crime thriller "Snakehead" at TIFF this year.
Inspired by the real-life story of Cheng Chui Ping, also known as Sister Ping, the film details her role in running one of the largest snakehead (foreign human traffickers) operations in New York's Chinatown.
The film follows Sister Tse, who pays a snakehead to get her to the city so she can search for her daughter, who was adopted by a Chinese American family while Tse was in prison.
Although "Snakehead" is a low-budget film, Citizen says the audience wouldn't know it based on its superior filming and editing quality.
"It's a really kind of fast-paced crime thriller with these very poetic moments, like the way he shoots it. Sometimes there's a lot of poetry in it, even though it's quite gritty. The time he took to bring this to the screen and the performances by Shuya Chang and Jade Wu, and also Sung Kang, who's in the Fast & Furious films, he's also in it, it's great."
The Game
Similar to "Snakehead," Citizen's next pick also follows the story of a human trafficker in the discovery drama "The Game."
Based in The Balkans, trafficker Strahija helps to smuggle refugees and migrants to pay for his gambling habit and expensive lifestyle. Strahinja's estranged wife, however, is not impressed with his career choice or his parenting of their son, Luka.
Strahinja meets refugee teen Yousef and his younger brother and tries to smuggle them into Turkey but is met by an unexpected police encounter.
Citizen says the film tells a timely tale of the ongoing adversity immigrants face to start a new life in another country.
"In the process, the trafficker stops seeing it as a job and becomes quite invested in the boys and it's a really beautiful story of kind of what's happening now with immigration, our complicity and the current immigration policies and kind of finding connections in unexpected places," she says.
The Wheel
Next on Citizen's list is Steve Pink's "The Wheel," an intimate drama that tells the story of two traumatized young adults navigating how to grow up without growing apart.
The main characters, Walker and Albee, met while living in a children's group home and quickly became attached to each other. They decided to get married at the age of 16, but eight years later, they're contemplating divorce.
Walker hopes that a mountain Airbnb getaway will help save their marriage. However, as the couple tries to repair their bond, they draw the newly engaged Airbnb hosts Ben and Carly into their drama.
"It's played by two young actors, Amber Midthunder, who's also a rising star at TIFF this year, and Taylor Gray. And they give just a creeping, touching, poignant performance together," Citizen says.
OUT OF SYNC
The fifth pick from Citizen is the contemporary film "OUT OF SYNC," directed by Spanish filmmaker Juanjo Giménez.
The film follows a woman who is a sound editor and foley artist at a post-production studio and develops a rare medical condition where her hearing starts to "fall behind" the sounds she perceives.
"The sound in her life, she starts hearing things in a delay and the delay gets worse and worse until she's like hearing sounds and conversations from the past. It endangers her because your sound alerts you to what's happening around you," Citizen says.
The woman soon realizes that the more she is under duress, the further sounds seem to go away from her to the point where she ends up listening to "the past" of any given place.
She discovers that her supernatural disorder can be used as a superpower and she continues to search for the deeper meaning of her ability.
As a bonus pick, Citizen also suggested the Canadian film "Scarborough" based on Catherine Hernandez's critically acclaimed novel of the same name.
"Scarborough" details the story of three children from low-income families struggling to survive and thrive in the diverse Toronto-area neighbourhood. Taking place over the span of a school year, the families fight an uphill struggle against debt, addiction and job insecurity.
"The child actors are really amazing, and it keeps everything that people would love about the book intact," Citizen says.
For a full list of digital screenings available this year, visit TIFF's website.
