TIFF 2022 - Digital TIFF

Although TIFF 2022 saw the return of in-person screenings with the arrival of directors and stars to participate in Q&A sessions, a very small number (less than 20?) of the 200+ TIFF films were also available for digital rental.  It is not surprising that most of the festival's movies were not offered for online rental, since the loss of revenue for this distribution method is significant.  Not only is the price of the rental ($18.95+tax) less expensive than that of an in-person ticket ($20-$80+ per person), but the digital movie can be viewed at home by more than one person.  Also, there are significantly fewer pre-movie ads (which can be bypassed via fast-forwarding), making it less attractive to sponsors.  This means that the rental provides much less sponsor revenue as well.  

As a result, the options were limited when we decided to rent a few digital movies to augment our two in-person viewings.  TIFF digital rentals were available for a fixed 48-hour window and once you started watching, you had 24 hours to complete the viewing, although you could re-watch as many times as you wanted during that period.

Our first digital film selection was the Canadian comedy "The End of Sex", starring Emily Hampshire (of Schitt's Creek fame) and Jonas Chernick as a married couple looking to revitalize their sex life while their two children were away at camp for a week. Hijinks and hilarity ensue as they try various ways to spice up their marriage including an awkward, lopsided attempt at a threesome, and checking out a sex club, all while fending off infatuations from colleagues and a former schoolmate.  A running joke involves counting down the days before the kids come home by knocking over one of 7 garden gnomes each day.  This is an excellent, old-fashioned, feel-good, laugh-out-loud comedy, which is a rarity in movies these days, let alone at TIFF.  It is a reunion for the two lead actors plus their director/script writer.  Back in 2012, they are worked on "My Awkward Sexual Adventure" where Jonas' character tries to improve his sexual prowess through lessons from Emily's exotic dancer with a heart of gold.

Our second film was the documentary Casa Susanna, about a popular weekend and vacation destination in the Catskills in the early 1960s that catered to cross-dressing men and transgendered people.  The resort provided them with a sanctuary where they could be themselves without the fear of persecution or prosecution, since cross-dressing in public was a criminal offense back then.  Consisting of a series of bungalow camps set on 150 acres of land, Casa Susanna (originally named Chevalier D'Eon Resort) was run by Susanna Valenti, who was originally a male named Tito with a wife Maria before transitioning into a transgendered woman.  Surprisingly, Maria stayed married to and lived with Susanna even after her transitioning.  In fact, it was mentioned that many other wives would actually drive their mates to Casa Susanna each weekend or would occasionally stay there as well.  I am not sure that wives today would be as understanding or accommodating.

The documentary focused on the memories of two transgendered women (Katherine who came all the way from Australia and Diana from Indiana) as they recalled their childhoods as males, what they went through to transition and their fond memories of staying at Casa Susanna.  Also featured was Betsy, the daughter of a Science Fiction writer Don Wolheim who was a cross-dresser, and Gregory, the grandson of Susanna and Maria.  Gregory recalls the early days of the resort when drag shows would be hosted and as a child, he would peek through the windows at the action.  This was a fascinating look at a part of American history that I knew nothing about, and now I have a totally different image of the Catskills than I had after watching the movie "Dirty Dancing".

Our final movie was Luxembourg, Luxembourg, about twin brothers Vasily and Kolya who live in Ukraine. Vasily is an upstanding, stable young man who works hard to join and rise in the ranks of the police force, while Kolya is a ne'er-do-well who still lives with their mother, drives a bus and secretly deals drugs.  The movie opens with the twins as children, with Vasily dressed in blue and Kolya in red.  This colour scheme is maintained throughout the entire movie, which was a good thing since the real-life twin brothers who play the characters as adults look so alike that it was difficult to tell them apart without the clothing cues.  Even as children, Vasily was the brave, decisive one who needs to look after and help his brother.  As adults, Kolya is constantly getting into trouble, which adversely impacts Vasily's trajectory in the police force.  When they get word that their estranged gangster father, who deserted them as children, is dying in Luxemboug, they need to decide whether to travel there to pay their final respects. In the end, the trip to find their father is really a Macguffin, as the real crux of the story is the relationship of the two brothers.

It was really interesting to watch this film with our Ukrainian friend, since she could understand the dialogue, commented on the veracity (or lack thereof) of the translation as well as pointing out locations other points of reference that brought back memories for her.   The wallpaper and decor in one setting reminded her of her grandmother's house, while an image on a book made reference to her hometown.  

This movie set in Ukraine takes on extra poignancy given the real-life horrors of the war raging there.  In an interview, the director describes how the Russian invasion caused the filming to pause as cast and crew had to scatter to find shelter or to join the fighting.  Somehow, they were able to get to post-production of the film, but still had to race around Kviv to retrieve portions of it that were stored on different hard drives while bombing was occurring in the city.  Miraculously, the film was completed in time for the Venice Film Festival, and the stars, Amil and Ramil Nasirov (who are also rappers) appeared there proudly holding the Ukranian flag.

Watching these smaller movies that lack major movie stars or buzz, that are often foreign language films or documentaries, and which may or may not secure theatrical distribution, was once the main draw of the Toronto International Film Festival.  In the past, the festival would be our only chance of ever encountering most of these films.  Now with the saturation of streaming service content that comes in all languages and forms, TIFF has lost some of its cache and importance in our movie viewing agenda.  It is becoming more difficult to justify paying continually steeper prices to watch each film at the festival, when high quality fare such as Squid Game (Korean), Money Heist (Spanish) and Call My Agent (French) are so readily available on our streaming services.   We shall see how this all plays out in the future.