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Program
- 2397
Sunday, 24 March 2024, 3:30 pm
Rainbow Cinemas Northumberland Mall
Hirayama feels content with his life as a toilet cleaner in Tokyo. Outside of his structured routine, he cherishes music on cassette tapes, reads books and takes photos. Through unexpected encounters, he reflects on finding beauty in the world.
Cast: Kôji Yakusho, Tokio Emoto. Arisa Nakano
Director: Wim Wenders
Writer: Takuma Takasaki, Wim Wenders
Genre: Drama
Language: Japanese
Rating: PG
Runtime: 2h 3m
Review
By: Louisa Moore
There's a quiet elegance and graceful beauty in the repetition of "Perfect Days," a poetic, visually lyrical character study from director Wim Wenders. With a script co-written by Wenders and Takuma Takasaki, this nuanced film embraces the sadness of one man's isolation, radiating charm through a gorgeously understated lead performance from Koji Yakusho.
- 3037
Sunday 7 April 2024 3:30 pm
Rainbow Cinemas, Northumberland Mall
Young Elsie is surprised by her eccentric mother's last wishes that her ashes be distributed amongst her five ex-husbands to scatter in a place most significant to each of them and is determined to honour her mother's memory. But the trip profoundly changes her trajectory.
- Cast: Léane Labrèche-Dor, Jean-Simon Leduc, Marc Messier
- Director: Anik Jean
- Genre: Drama
- Original Language: French (Canada)
- Writer: Maryse Latendresse
- Runtime: 2h 6m
- Content advisory: Drug and alcohol use, coarse language
Review (TIFF)
My Mother’s Men, Anik Jean’s heartening feature film debut, delves into the curious and poignant world of familial eccentricity, personal growth, and unorthodox last wishes.
At its core lies the story of Elsie (Léane Labrèche-Dor), a 30-something young woman navigating the peculiar legacy left by her mother, Anne, a whimsical soul with an affinity for romance. Anne’s final request of Elsie is far from ordinary: she tasks her daughter with tracking down her five ex-husbands to help scatter her ashes.
- 2508
Sunday, 21 April 2024, 3:30 pm
Rainbow Cinemas, Northumberland Mall
The Monk and The Gun captures the wonder and disruption as Bhutan becomes one of the world's youngest democracies. Known throughout the world for its extraordinary beauty and its emphasis on Gross National Happiness, the remote Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan was the last nation to connect to the internet and television. And if that weren't enough change, the King announced shortly afterwards that he would cede his power to the people via their vote and a new form of government: Democracy.
- Cast: Tandin Wangchuk, Harry Einhorn, Tandin Phubz, Tandin Sonam, Deki Lhamo
- Director: Pawo Choyning Dorji
- Writer: Pawo Choyning Dorji
- Rating: PG-13
- Genre: Drama
- Languages: English, Dzongkha
- Runtime: 1h 47m
Review
By Jocelyn Noveck, The Associated Press
"Why are you teaching us to be so rude?" the elderly village woman asks a Bhutanese election official in "The Monk and the Gun."
It's a question both poignant and biting, because the "teaching" this woman is resisting is something much of the outside world considers a basic human right: the right to vote.
For a piercing refresher lesson on democracy, one wouldn't necessarily think of rural Bhutan as the first place to look. For one thing, democratic elections only came to the tiny, long-isolated Himalayan kingdom in April 2007, when the country held its first mock vote, leading to the real thing late that year and then the first constitution in 2008.
- 2358
Sunday, 5 May 2024, 3:30 pm
Rainbow Cinemas, Northumberland Mall
Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch) is a dedicated, idealistic young teacher in her first job at a German middle school. Her relaxed rapport with her seventh-grade students is put under stress when a series of thefts occur at the school, and a staff investigation leads to accusations and mistrust among outraged parents, opinionated colleagues, and angry students. Caught in the middle of these complex dynamics, Carla tries to mediate—but the more she tries to do everything right, the more desperate her position becomes.
Directed By: Ilker Çatak
Written By: Ilker Çatak, Johannes Duncker
Cast: Leonie Benesch, Michael Klammer, Rafael Stachowiak, Eva Löbau
Rating: PG-13
Language: German
Run time: 1h 34m
Genre: Drama
Review
By Daniel Reynolds
There’s a special stress inherent to school dramas, particularly those that do not operate in an inspirational mode. Director Ilker Çatak’s The Teachers’ Lounge contains (or tries to contain) that specific pressure. While his film is shot from a single perspective, its conflict seems to develop from every direction at once, inspiring only moral chaos for all involved. This is what I mean by special: it’s astounding just how much mess gets made here.
- 2156
Sunday 26 May 2024, 3:30 pm
Rainbow Cinemas, Northumberland Mall
The Queen of My Dreams follows a distant mother and daughter as they come of age in two different eras. Azra, a Pakistani woman living in Toronto, is worlds apart from her conservative Muslim mother. When her father suddenly dies on a trip home to Pakistan, Azra finds herself back home being asked to play the role of perfect daughter. As we move back and forth from her mother’s youth in Karachi to her own coming-of-age in rural Nova Scotia, similarities between two lives that feel so different are revealed.
Director: Fawzia Mirza
Writer: Fawzia Mirza
Cast: Hamza Haq, Amrit Kaur, Nimra Bucha
Runtime: 97 minutes
Language: English, Urdu
Genre: Comedy, drama
Review
By Rebecca at Film Carnage.com
Mother-daughter relationships are inherently complicated, so they will forever make for good film material, and that’s before you bring in sexuality, religion and grief. So, with The Queen of My Dreams combining all of those things, plus a great dose of nostalgia with its flashbacks to the 1960s, it has a winning recipe. It kicks off with this immediate vibrancy and charming energy and impressively, it’s something that it manages to keep going all throughout the film. As the story moves through its different times and chapters, it only becomes more endearing.