It took Tonya Lee Williams, best known as Dr. Olivia B. Winters on The Young and the Restless, to found Canada’s most diverse film festival in 2001. Now in its eighth year, ReelWorld celebrates international cinema with 57 screenings over the next four days, as filmmakers from Korea, Senegal and Pakistan mingle with homegrown cinephiles.
While the festival’s April 2 opener Spinning Into Butter — a Sarah Jessica Parker vehicle adapted from Rebecca Gilman’s Broadway play — suggests a focus on star power, ReelWorld also boasts 15 documentaries to satiate those looking for more sobering, introspective fare: the devastation of an industrialized Shanghai is shown from a bird’s eye view in Under Construction (April 4, 7:30pm), while ’60s activist Buffy Sainte-Marie has her story told by CineFocus founder Joan Prowse in Buffy Sainte-Marie: A Multimedia Life (April 6, 11am).
In an increasingly globalized society, international cinema is imperative to defining cultural identity; collectively, ReelWorld examines the medium’s potential, questioning the boundaries of race and nationality. These films aren’t didactic, employing humour and well-drawn characters to showcase the humanity of a nationality, rather than rote representation.
A lighter take on racial stereotypes is found in the indie comedy I’m Through With White Girls (HHH, April 3, 7pm) penned by Arrested Development writer Courtney Lilly and directed by Tisch alum Jennifer Sharp. When 30-year-old commitment-phobe Jay Brooks (Anthony Montgomery) flees from his latest relationship with a pale redhead, he embarks on “Operation Brown Sugar,” determined to find the “sistah” of his dreams. She turns up in the form of neurotic novelist Catherine (Lia Johnson), a “Half-Rican Canadian” with an affectation for chain-smoking and “like, you know” Valley-Girl speak.
A likeable cast and clever screenplay transcend the usual rom-com conventions. Jay insists that he can’t measure up to his fellow black suitors, but it’s maturity this carless (in Los Angeles), jobless loser can’t deliver. Lilly produces a formidable match in Catherine, from her ever-changing multi-coloured dreads to her morning-after critiques.
The equally lighthearted Souvenirs From Asia (HHHH, April 4, 7:30pm), a 12-minute short by Toronto filmmaker Joyce Wong, examines the barriers faced by “alien” adoptees as they assimilate into North American culture. Wong takes a sardonic stance, playing up eager-to-please 10-year-old Serenity’s fear of Korean terrorists, while outfitting the sulky teenaged HanJoo with literal antennae, the product of a WASPy adoptive mother’s who insists on turning her daughter’s identity into art. With lush cinematography and clever visual puns (chopsticks make the perfect hair accessory), Souvenirs doesn’t hold back on its orientalist thesis: Chinese children always feel like outsiders, especially when their white mom is trying to rock a kimono.
For a more serious look at similar issues of otherness, the slick Canadian production Ocean of Pearls (HHH, April 5, 6:30pm) must be commended for depicting the challenges second-generation Sikhs face in the workforce. When the ambitious physician Amrit Singh (Omid Abtahi) is offered a position at a Detroit hospital helming an organ-transplant program, his turban sparks controversy among his conservative co-workers. Airport racial profiling, a Catholic competitor and a strained long-distance relationship with his traditional girlfriend (played by The OC’s Navi Rawat) force Singh to buckle under the pressures of assimilation. Notably, the film features the unveiling of a Sikh’s turban, as Singh shears himself in sacrifice.
Taking it to the streets, underground hip-hoppers produce an oral history in documentary This Is the Life (HHHH, April 4, 8:30pm), directed by Figures of Speech MC Ava DuVernay, a.k.a. Eve. The trail-blazing open mic nights at the vegetarian Good Life Café in South Central Los Angeles produced some of the scene’s most innovative rappers, as up-and-coming crews Jurassic 5, Freestyle Fellowship and Chillin Villian Empire threw down against participants Kurupt, Skee-Lo and Ganjah K. Championing a conscious style where cussing is barred and performers are forbidden from leaning against the wall art, the Good Life proved an intriguing alternative to Compton’s gangster-rap renown.
Live footage from Fat Joe (whose a capella performance gets a brutal “pass the mic” reaction), Cut Chemist and Pigeon John is interchanged with portraits rendered in chalk on a blackboard. It’s refreshing to see such experimental lyricism flourish in a scene devoted to the expansion of the word.
But if you see any film at ReelWorld, let it be closing gala Apna Asmann (My Own Sky) (HHHH, April 6, 6pm, Scotiabank Theatre, 259 Richmond W.). This haunting film from India is a top-notch melodrama, reminiscent of the work of Vincente Minnelli with a Bollywood bent. Newcomer Dhruv Piyush Panjuani is spellbinding as Buddhi, a teenager afflicted with autism and the unrealistic expectations of his demanding parents Ravi (Irrfan Khan) and Padmini (Shobana). Coping with the dissolution of their marriage, the only light is offered by the mysterious Dr. Sathya’s “brain booster” drug, with which he claims he can turn Buddhi into the mathematical genius his mother has always wanted. In this subversive look into the realities of enterprising parents, Ravi instead pledges his faith to the industry he works for: plastic.