TIFF13 Day 7

Fresh blogs are best blogs…so as exhausted as I am after a full day of TIFF, here goes…

Part of the TIFF experience is making friends with strangers. I mean really, you wait in line with strangers, you sit next to strangers, it’s a great time of year to befriend strangers in the TDot! Today’s first film was no exception.

I met this woman sitting next to me in Ryerson theatre. She and I bonded over giggling at a woman who clearly was a “princess” and not a “regular” TIFF-goer. A poor TIFF volunteer was getting an earful. The woman next to me apologized for laughing at first, but then she realized we were on the same page. 

We went through the obligatory TIFF questions: How many films are you seeing? Is this your first one of the day? Which has been your favourite? We got past those and questions and then realized we both had seen Third Person yesterday afternoon. She gave me a little more insight and we traded notes on the “clues” Director Paul Haggis gave us. Very insightful. I now understand the film a lot better! Thanks stranger!

Peter Chan, moderator, Du Juan

First film of the day was directed by Peter Ho-Sun Chan, titled American Dreams in China. It was not what I expected. Although, I’m not sure what I expected. TIFF called it the Social Network of China…I think it was more about Chinese “best friends” with a dream. The actors in the film were incredible, bringing out amazing raw emotion and I have to say, I’ve never seen Chinese people display so much emotion before….(just sayin’ and I’m half Chinese, so I can say this!) The film’s director introduced the film and answered questions about the real life story the film was based on. He also brought the film’s main actress Du Juan, who is a Chinese supermodel and SUPER tall!

Director Yuval Adler

Second film of the day was Bethlehem, directed by first time directed Yuval Adler. It tells the story of an Israeli secret service agent and his young informant in Bethlehem. Truly, the story gets to the heart of the struggle between those who you “should” be loyal to and those you can trust. All the main actors in the film were just real people, as opposed to professional actors. They were beautiful and so natural. It made it easy for you to “relate” with the characters. Adler put it simply, he wanted to make a film that just “showed” audiences something, not “told” them something. And in true Israeli fashion, this is what he did.

My last film today was titled The Dinner from the Netherlands. To me it seemed to be a very “Hollywood” film if there could be a “Dutch-Hollywood” film. It was quite dark and for a good hour after the film I think was a little depressed. It tells a bizarre tale of an extremely dysfunctional family and at its core it deals with what lengths you go to, to protect those you love…My TIFF buddy Phil says it reminded him of this amazing film we saw years ago called the Method/el Metodo (2005), but nah…I LOVED that film, this one I just liked.

TIFF13 Rundown

Cute Dog on the Subway

1.     Third Person – True love must be experienced to be understood.

2.     American Dreams in China – best friends go into business and live the “Chinese Dream”

3.     Bethlehem – the struggle between trust and betrayal between an Israeli secret service agent and his young informant

4.     Exit Marrakech – wanderlust, relationships, and coming of age in Morocco

5.     Ilo Ilo – A nanny from the Philippines changes home relationships in Singapore

6.     The Dinner – the lengths we go through to protect those we love