Canadian Cinema: My Prairie Home

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about Canadian women filmmakers lately, and their experiences in the Canadian film industry. As part of my future graduate studies in cinema, I want to analyze films made by a diverse range of Canadian women/femmes – what do their films look like? Is it difficult to get them made? What is the critical reception? How have female filmmakers changed their approaches to cinema over the years?

Chelsea McMullan’s My Prairie Home (2013) is a layered and beautiful look at the life and career of transgender musician Rae Spoon. This is a film about the Canadian prairies, about being gender neutral, about music and family and living in liminal spaces. The film opens with upside-down tracking shots of the deep blue sky and the vast fields of the Canadian prairies. Tracking shots dominate the film, highlighting the importance of nature and the Prairies to Rae Spoon’s life, as well as their love for travelling, especially alone on Greyhound buses. Spoon notes that travelling alone puts one in an in-between state: you are not where you came from, and you are not yet where you are going. It is a contemplative and meditative experience for the deeply introspective Spoon, although it sometimes gets lonely.

In her review for NOW Toronto, Carla Gillis notes that the opening song, “Cowboy” is played by Spoon in a Calgary diner, populated by older people and truckers – people who look at Spoon with curiosity, judgement, and possible confusion. At one point, Spoon stops walking through the diner and stands between the doors to the two washrooms: the male side is painted electric blue, and the female side is a bright pink. Spoon occupies a middle space, not conforming to either “traditional” gender identity, here represented by paint colours.

McMullan’s film is particularly special because it is both a documentary and a musical. Spoon talks about experiences from their life, such as their Pentecostal upbringing and their abusive and mentally ill father. Some of Spoon’s experiences are dramatized onscreen – at one point, children’s toys illustrate Spoon’s experience of going to a religious stadium event in Calgary, filmed in the blurry style of a 90s home video. Every so often, the film turns into a music video for one of Spoon’s sparse, beautifully melodic songs. In Gillis’ review, she quotes Chelsea McMullan as saying: “When we began collaborating and they slowly opened up and told me their story, I realized their history is all in their music. Rae carefully wraps secrets in their melodic voice”. Some of Spoon’s experiences are incredibly painful, but they note that music became an important and vital way that they could communicate and connect with other people. Music executives have often told Spoon that they are not “marketable” – this thinly-veiled transphobia has made it difficult for Spoon to get funding for their music videos, but McMullan remedies this with her film, allowing Spoon to perform many of their songs onscreen.

Spoon recounts being a young person and identifying as a lesbian, and then moving to Vancouver and meeting trans people for their first time – where they began playing country music and identifying as male. In one scene, Spoon sits on a hotel bed and tells the camera that people think gender neutrality doesn’t exist. They often feel like a ghost, due to the fact that people don’t even think their gender identity is real even though they are flesh-and-blood proof that it does, and they accurately point out that “gender is stupid”. It was alienating and sometimes terrifying for Spoon to identify as queer and trans in an extremely religious household in the middle of the Prairies. Spoon notes that they feel their gender is their “fault”, and their responsibility to tell people about it. This is such an important point: it is really nobody’s business what your gender is, yet all the time, trans/queer/gender fluid/neutral people feel they need to explain themselves, because that’s all people ever ask them about. It is nobody’s business what bathroom you want to use, but people ask about it. People ask about surgery, sexual partners, and reproductive organs – extremely personal aspects of one’s life. Spoon says they use whatever bathroom they want, whichever one feels safest (usually the women’s).

Spoon felt conflicted about their gender and sexuality, especially in the Christian household they grew up in. They were taught that gay people would not be saved when the rapture eventually happened, and Spoon felt they had made a conscious decision to not be “saved”, simply by living their life. Their father was also mentally ill – which could have been manageable, says Spoon, had he not been so abusive towards them. Spoon recounts the fear they feel towards their father, while McMullan focuses her camera on various fragments of a large cowboy statue. Spoon’s father represents a terrifying, looming threat, and they always fear he will show up at one of their concerts, as they get more well-known (at a show in Saskatchewan, their father apparently does show up, but they do not interact). Spoon bravely talks about their experiences with abuse, and the psychological toll it takes on them to constantly be looking out for him.

As I previously mentioned, the Prairies are so important to Spoon. It is where they grew up, and it is their home and where their history is. Spoon references various reviews of their music in which it is described as “sparse” – an influence of the vast, flat lands they grew up on. The music is sparse, but also deeply layered and very personal. For example, in the song “Sunday Dress”, Spoon sings about having a poster of Kurt Cobain in a wedding dress in their bedroom – an important symbol of gender fluidity. McMullan includes many wide, long shots, with the sky taking up most of the frame, and a focal point towards the bottom. She gives us a sense of what it looks like to be in western Canada, on the Prairies. At one point, Spoon sings in the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta, against the backdrop of dinosaur bones.

Spoon shares experiences from high school, and what it was like to be in a queer couple in a closed-minded community. Spoon met their ex-girlfriend in class, when their ex noticed that Spoon looked like Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club – very cool and mysterious. They became close friends, and Spoon opened up to their ex about their queerness, as well as their father’s abuse and mental illness. The couple never got to attend their prom, as a result of the hateful experiences they had with their classmates. The couple felt fearful of being in public together, as they would attract negative and completely unwanted attention. Spoon wrote a song for their ex, and plays it for her in the movie. They sit on the school stairwell, looking as youthful as they did in high school, and then dance at a staged prom, to make up for their lost experience. This is a very sweet moment, one of hope, friendship, and nostalgia.

Towards the end of the film, Spoon talks about their concept of home, and what they think about when they feel homesick. Home for Spoon is the icy blue light inside of the Athabasca Glacier. It is a specific, beautiful, comforting place. McMullan includes stunning shots of the Glacier, as well as the snow, Rocky Mountains, and caribou. She films Spoon standing in a small space, looking up at the sun shining through the ice, bathing them in the blue glow that they call home. This scene is scored by airy, sparse, floating music, and then Spoon singing “Amy Grant” – a song in which they sing “I wish I’d heard of Freddy Mercury while he was still alive/I would’ve switched sides”. In the final shots, we see Spoon quietly walking through the snow on a mountain. Spoon is home. Spoon is in their happy place, in nature, in Alberta.

McMullan’s film is hopeful and poetic, and she has stated that while she did not intend for the film to be explicitly political, it would please her if the film educated people about the fluidity of gender and sexuality. Spoon shares incredibly personal details, both in their songs and in their voice-overs and interviews. We see people who love Spoon – their ex-girlfriend, and the audiences who dance and smile along with their music. Spoon’s story represents a very specific Canadian experience, and the film shows us their good nature, talent, and bravery in the face of a sometimes harsh and painful world.

Canadian Cinema: Alanis Obomsawin’s Early Films

By the time Alanis Obomsawin made her first film for the NFB, she was a well-known and well-respected First Nations singer and community educator. Writers such as Jerry White have noted that the many facets of Obomsawin’s career are all deeply connected and are part of her life’s goal to tell the stories of First Nations people across Canada. Her films can be used as powerful educational tools, showing young Canadians the violence and injustice that has been done to Native peoples since white European colonizers first arrived on their land in the late 15th century. Obomsawin shows us time and time again that violence and racism against First Nations people are still prevalent today, and throughout all of Canadian history.

Obomsawin makes documentaries, and was inspired by NFB Commissioner and filmmaker John Grierson. She was inspired by his notions that poor people should be given a voice, and be given the chance to be seen in the cinema. Representation is powerful, and Obomsawin is acutely aware of that. She has made it her life’s project to tell the stories of Native peoples in Canada – to portray onscreen the often painful experiences of people who are marginalized on their own territory. Her films are deeply political and deeply subjective – Adrian Harewood writes that her films act as a corrective to the fact that Native subjectivity is basically absent from cinema history. Obomsawin sits quietly behind the camera, letting her subjects speak at length about their personal experiences as Native Canadians. Jerry White notes that she makes her presence known through her voiceovers, and by sometimes turning the camera to face herself, so we know she is present. She is truly an “auteur”, a director whose personal and political world-view are tied together and represented in her films.

The first film she made for the NFB is Christmas at Moose Factory (1971), composed of images of children’s drawings with a voiceover by a little girl sharing her favourite rituals and memories of Christmas time. The experiences she shares are specific to the Cree people who live in Moose Factory, Ontario, near James Bay. She narrates an encounter with a bear, and talks about the joys of tobogganing. She talks about the Christmas presents she wanted, and the happiness she feels when she receives all of the things she asked for. Many children share their wonder of having a Christmas tree with a golden star on top. The combination of her voice and these images provide us with a sense of intimacy. We get to know and see what Christmas is like for the Native children in this community, and then Obomsawin shows still photographs of them smiling for the camera. This is one of Obomsawin’s most joyous films, and it gives detached viewers a truthful look at Native Canadian life in only 13 minutes.

Photo from the NFB

In 1984, she made Incident at Restigouche, about the 1981 raids on the Listuguj Mi’gmaq First Nation by the Sûreté du Québec. This was a violent, unjust attempt by the white Québec government to prevent the First Nations people from fishing for salmon in the Restigouche River – which rightfully belongs to the Mi’gmaq. Obomsawin uses black and white photos of the QPP exerting force over the Mi’gmaq people of Restigouche and their land, and includes many interviews with residents of the reservation, on what they remember about the raids. She highlights the excessive force the police used, and many residents note that their fishing nets were completely destroyed. The Mi’gmaq people of this area depend on salmon fishing for money, and as a source of food. There is absolutely no reason why their fishing should be restricted or controlled in any way, since it is their territory. Obomsawin interviews Minister of Fisheries Lucien Lassard, and calls him out for his racist and incorrect ideas about how Native people cannot have sovereignty since they do not have their own language, land, and culture. She rightfully points out the hypocrisy of Québec fighting for sovereignty at the same time as it suppresses Native peoples. This film is a powerful document exposing the racism present within the Canadian government – in this case, specifically the Québec government.

One of Obomsawin’s most heartbreaking films is Richard Cardinal: Cry from the Diary of a Métis Child (1986) – even more heartbreaking considering its current relevance. Richard Cardinal was a young Métis boy who was taken from his parents (along with his siblings) when he was 4 years old, where he would go on to live in 28 different foster homes. Richard committed suicide when he was 17 years old – a result of the painful dislocation of being passed off to different foster homes and institutions and the trauma of being separated from his community and his family.

Obomsawin interviews his older brother Charlie Cardinal, as well as a number of Richard’s previous foster parents. She punctuates the interviews with scenes of a little boy representing a young Richard, who enacts experiences read in voiceover from Richard’s diary which he left behind. The diary expresses deep pain and isolation, and Richard’s longing for a sense of identity and family. Richard’s experiences are a result of the extremely poor child welfare services for Native children in Alberta. Children are traumatically taken from their parents and separated from their communities and siblings. Charlie Cardinal notes that Richard was depressed for his entire life, and that the siblings were happiest when they lived in a foster home together. Richard’s previous foster parents express frustration at Richard’s bed-wetting (which is a symptom of trauma in children), and concern over his mental health. But there were no good resources available for Richard to get help for his depression and suicidal impulses, and when he attempted suicide, he was released from the hospital a few days later. Obomsawin highlights the emotional and heartbreaking aspects of this story, and calls attention to the way Native children are mistreated and ignored in this country.

In 1988, she made No Address, a film which brings attention to homeless Native people living in Montréal. Obomsawin interviews a number of homeless men and women, as well as people who work at the Native Friendship Center in Montréal. The Friendship Center provides workshops on drug and alcohol addiction, and a sense of community for those who have left their families and their old homes behind and who now feel incredibly isolated. Members of the Kahnawake Mohawk reserve hosted a fundraising radio event in the hopes of receiving enough money to construct a homeless shelter for Native women in Montréal – as they note, Native men and women have much different basic needs than other people in Montréal do, and should have a place to stay and find comfort. Many homeless Native people live in abandoned buildings or have to sleep outside. Some of them even express that they would not mind being put in jail, simply to have a place to sleep. Obomsawin also notes that women become prostitutes, not as a profession, but just so they can meet their basic needs and have a place to sleep. Obomsawin suggests throughout the film that there are things which can be done to ease this problem – the shelter proposed by the Kahnawake, and providing other homeless shelters with funding for comfortable beds for anyone to stay in for free. One women notes that she feels depressed every day, like she is “falling in a hole” – this is yet another instance where Native Canadians’ mental health needs to be addressed and prioritized.

Alanis Obomsawin’s early films are mostly shorts, and represent the beginning of a career which prioritizes the telling of Native stories by Native people. She interviews women, men, elderly people, and young people. She interviews white government officials, and the white foster parents who took care of Richard Cardinal. Obomsawin consistently provides detailed and emotional accounts of the Native experience in Canada, and all the injustices her people endure every single day, all throughout history. Her interviews reveal that Native people are acutely aware that Canada is their territory which was taken from them, and they are to this day marginalized in the country they inhabited before any white European people. These are incredible, political, educational films with an important emotional and subjective undercurrent. I have only outlined a few of her early films, in order to bring attention to the kind of mature and self-assured work Alanis Obomsawin was doing from the beginning of her career as a filmmaker. She is perhaps the best evidence that the NFB is an important, essential institution for Canadian film.

Canadian Cinema: Madeleine Is…

“Everything I do is affected by the fact that I am a woman. I can only speak from my experience and thus I think it is natural that the lead role in my film [Madeleine Is…] was a woman and done completely from her point of view.”
– Sylvia Spring

Sylvia Spring’s 1971 film Madeline Is… is cited as the first Canadian feature film directed by a woman, and was screened at the Women and Film International Film Festival in Toronto in 1973. Reviewers accurately pointed out its feminist sensibility – as the title suggests, this film is all about Madeleine (Nicola Lipman), and her experiences as a Canadian woman. Events are filtered through Madeleine’s point of view, and at various times we have access to her subjectivity. At the beginning of the film, Madeleine walks down the streets of Vancouver, reading an apology letter from her Québécois father, whose voice dominates the soundtrack. Madeleine clearly made the decision to remove herself from her angry father, making a life for herself in Vancouver.

The budget was approximately $100,000 – fairly low, which was and is common for female-directed films in Canada. There are times when the budget restraints are made apparent – the images are a little fuzzy, the editing is choppy, and the soundtrack is tinny. Critics at the time derided the film for both its amateurish technology as well as its content, and it fared very poorly at the box office. However, this film is representative of a vibrant period in the Canadian film industry, and was sponsored by the Canadian Film Development Corporation, a late-60s organization meant to stimulate a successful domestic film industry.

Regardless of amateurish acting and technological aspects, Madeleine Is… is a fascinating feminist work. Sylvia Spring’s camera frames faces in close-ups, with Madeleine getting the most screen time. The camera lingers on Madeleine as she frequently frowns and furrows her brow in reaction to her “political” boyfriend, Toro (John Juliani). Toro is the type of person who is “always organizing” as Madeleine complains: he is unsentimental, seeing friendship and relationships as a way to politically use other people to further one’s agendas. Toro is a shallow chauvinist, who uses words like “organize” and “revolution” but doesn’t seem to have any real political convictions, except for the idea that Madeleine should not wear “pants”, and must always be ready for him when he wants to use her sexually. She frequently calls Toro out for not giving her any credit for knowing things, and for leaving her out of his conversations with other men.

Madeleine is portrayed as sincere, thoughtful, and creative. She is a painter who befriends older people, and frequently has dazzling daydreams about a mysterious clown (of course, when she claims to have met her clown in person, Toro dismisses her fantasies and says they are “fucking crazy”). Madeleine’s clown fantasies add a sense of brightness and experimentation to the film. Film scholar Kay Armatage wrote that the film has a “straightforward warmth”, which she attributes to Spring’s direction. There is truth to this, but Nicola Lipman also deserves credit, as she provides unexpected depth to Madeleine through her facial expressions and optimistic attitude, despite at times over-enunciating her lines. She is perhaps naïve, wanting to believe the best about people who ultimately let her down. When she returns home from her “date” with the clown, David (Wayne Specht), she finds Toro in bed with another woman, framing it as a “surprise” threesome. Madeleine asserts herself, and is devastated, running out of her own apartment.

Spring subtly calls attention to the way women define themselves through men, using Madeleine as an example. The voice of her father haunts her at the beginning of the film, and her live-in boyfriend Toro constantly undermines her. Her fantasy clown is also a man, and she is drawn to David, as she believes him to be the real-life version of her imaginary companion. When Madeleine gets sick from running around Vancouver in a panic all night, her elderly drunken friend John (Gord Robertson) “rescues” her, and Toro’s friend Barry (Ronald Ulrich) takes care of her. Madeleine is not afraid to assert herself, and frequently speaks her mind, but she surrounds herself with men who don’t really want to hear what she’s saying. Madeleine has lots to say, but the men in her life believe what they have to say is much more important. Such is life as a woman.

Perhaps Madeleine’s greatest moment of strength comes when she kicks Toro and his band of hippies out of her apartment. She firmly lets all of them know that she pays for that apartment, and it is her rightful property. She calls out Toro’s empty political “movement”, and her claim that he is “sick with power” could be applied to any number of men. Of course he blames “the system” and compares himself to Machiavelli, which further proves that Toro is just a sexist, megalomaniac, faux-intellectual. The film’s most overtly feminist moment comes when Madeleine forcefully tells Toro, “I am not an object”. Toro’s return toward the end of the film is an example of why women are fearful of men. When a woman rejects a man, the man often turns violent – Toro trespasses into David’s apartment and threatens him and Madeleine with a hammer, drugs them, and forces them to have sex in front of him. Men’s voices echo in her head as she runs along the rocks on her dream beach. She eventually confronts her clown, but this time, it is her laughing self, not David. She is her own dream companion.

Madeleine Is… is an open-ended title, which can be filled in by any number of words. Madeleine is creative, youthful, confused, optimistic, scared, strong, and in the process of learning what she really wants. Madeleine Is is a flawed but earnest and valuable Canadian feature film, showing us what it was to be a woman in Vancouver in the late 60s/early 70s. Regardless of its flaws, this is a genuine portrait of female experience, something not portrayed in Canadian cinema until this point in time.

 

tiff 2016

If you love movies and live in Toronto, September might just be your favourite month. September means TIFF, the “Friendly Festival”, the biggest public film festival in the world – and it is wonderful. I’ve been attending the Festival (and TIFF’s year-round programming, which consists of independent films, retrospectives, and various talks and series) for the past four years, and TIFF16 was one of the best so far.

It could have something to do with the fact that I worked at the Festival this year. I got a short-term job working as a cinema usher at TIFF Bell Lightbox. Not a fancy or glamourous job, but it was a fairly enjoyable experience. The Lightbox is a lovely place to spend time, even if it does mean standing on the hard floors for 10 hours a day. It was almost always crazy busy in the building, and I spent much of my time directing people to their line-ups and their cinemas. At the risk of sounding overly positive, it really was wonderful to spend time around people who love cinema. Everyone I worked with was passionate about movies, which made for interesting conversation throughout our long shifts. It is such an exciting environment to be in, and while it could be stressful, it is absolutely worth it. I think anyone who works for TIFF – at any level – will say the same thing. Festival is busy and stressful, but TIFF always pulls it off and it is always one of the most magical times of year in Toronto.

The best part of the Festival is getting to see all kinds of films by all kinds of people from literally all around the world. I remain astonished at the volume of films that screened at the Festival. There is something for everyone: big Hollywood galas, experimental and adventurous art gallery works, films by young and newly discovered talents, small-budget films from across the globe, challenging documentaries, and creepy, gory, campy midnight movies. Every program features rich, interesting, and valuable work. The programmers work so hard and bring so many unique films to the Festival.

I started off the Festival with Rebecca Zlotowski’s Planetarium, which has been criticized for being incoherent and directionless. I do agree that it introduces so many different narrative threads and themes that it doesn’t care to every follow up on, but for me, it was not off-putting. Natalie Portman is the strength of this film, playing a smart woman who does not fit into any female cinematic stereotypes. She understands business and art, and the most important person in her life is her sister, played by Lily-Rose Depp. This movie is sprawling and strange, but at times it is delightful. Its portrayal of 1930s French cinema, and early(ish) cinema technology is charming.

My sister and I made a double feature of Planetarium and Pedro Almodóvar’s Julieta. What makes Julieta particularly interesting is that it is based off of three Alice Munro short stories. Munro’s stories are frequently set in Southern Ontario, and deal with characters and situations that could be seen as specific to Canada – but this is not the case. Her stories are translated beautifully into Almodóvar’s Spanish settings. The film is lush and visually beautiful, the screen frequently filled with deep reds and blues. Shots of the stormy blue sea through a kitchen window are shocking in their beauty. The story is emotional and melodramatic, and spends much of its running time focused on the bond between a mother and her daughter. This is very much a film about women – the emotional labour of being a mother as well as being a daughter, and how to navigate friendship, family, and loss. As the ever-charming Rossy De Palma shouted out after the screening: “Vive la cinéma!”.

On a sunny Wednesday afternoon, I had some time to kill before my shift, so I got in the rush line to see Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild (1986). This Cinematheque screening was projected on 35mm film, which was rather damaged, but still looked fantastic. Jonathan Demme introduced the film, and he comes across as genuine and thoughtful in person. After the screening, he noted that he really enjoyed watching it again, and talked to the audience about various production aspects. He talked about being bored with only seeing white people in movies, and therefore he included many Black characters – although, no Black actors were cast in leading roles. White people are at the centre of this movie, with Black characters showing up as extras or waitresses. He talked about how African-American culture was prominent in New York in the 1980s, which he addressed in the movie via characters’ outfits, jewellery, and the music they listened to. This film is by no means perfect in its representation of Black people, but clearly Demme respects Black people and Black culture, and even this kind of representation was not (and still is not) seen in most mainstream Hollywood movies. This film and the discussion that followed it reinforced the fact that Hollywood still has work to do in its representation of Black characters, and unique Black experiences.

I also got a chance to see Ana Lily Amirpour’s The Bad Batch, her follow-up to the stunning A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014). Amirpour is establishing herself as an important filmmaker; she is a woman with a wildly active imagination and a seemingly infinite talent for translating her ideas onto the screen. Not to mention, both of her films have a decidedly feminist worldview. Women are the heroes in her movies. Women in her films are complicated, contradictory, violent, ruthless, graceful and quick-witted. Suki Waterhouse plays the lead character, whose arm and leg are amputated and eaten by a group of cannibals early on in the film. Waterhouse’s character, Arlen, demonstrates incredible strength and escapes her captors, dragging herself through the desert to a better place (“Comfort”). The film looks massive and intimidating on the big screen, and the huge desert landscapes make one feel small and fearful. At times the film is dreamy and wandering – and yet, and Amirpour noted herself, the writing is “fucking airtight”. Even without tons of dialogue, the onscreen  action is airtight, much like her first film. She is an incredibly talented director, just beginning her career of making exciting, thoughtful, stylish movies.

Two films I saw focused on chilly landscapes and the struggles of the people who inhabit them: Nathan Morlando’s Mean Dreams, and Kelly Reichardt’s stunning Certain Women. Morlando notes that his film is a “fable set in the heart of the Great Lakes region”. It has some beautiful autumnal cinematography, and tells a tense and emotional story about two teenagers who run away from abusive and distant adults in their lives. Morlando notes that it is a take on Bonnie and Clyde, but with “good” kids who spend much of their time contemplating morality.

Certain Women is my favourite film of the Festival. Kelly Reichardt is such a gifted storyteller, and she makes beautiful films that consistently focus on the difficulties and experiences of being a woman. Nature encroaches on her characters’ lives in almost all of her films (such as Wendy and Lucy and Night Moves), and the same is true of Certain Woman, which takes place in snowy, vast, mountainous Montana. Reichardt edits her own films, cutting between three different stories about 3 women (Laura Dern, Michelle Williams, and Lily Gladstone, respectively), all of whom face professional and personal difficulties. This is another film about the emotional labour of being a woman. It is not easy to be a mother, a lawyer, a rancher, a teacher, or a romantic partner. It is difficult to communicate one’s true feelings, which often leads to awkward, painful encounters. This is an exceptional film, with the expansive landscapes and intimate close-ups of the three (well, four – Kristen Stewart gives a superb performance, as she always does) women beautifully shot on 16mm.

I also saw the Midnight Madness “horror documentary” Rats by Morgan Spurlock. This is not a movie for the squeamish – but really, are any Midnight Madness movies for the squeamish? Rats have always been one of my favourite animals, and I believe they are mistreated and marginalized in unfair ways. The film explores areas of various countries (Britain, Vietnam, India, the United States), and how rats are treated over the world. Most places see rats as nothing more than disease-carriers (which they are, to be sure), and make great attempts to eradicate all rats (which turns out to be futile). The “horror documentary” approach is the perfect way to tell a story about animals who carry parasites, live in sewers, and come out at night to rummage through garbage bags. Spurlock provides many differing views on how rats should be thought of and treated, and the film is quite enjoyable in a Discovery Channel kind of way.

It is impossible to not feel like I have missed out on something at TIFF. There are parties I wish I was at, meetings and conferences and tons of films I did not attend. There are people I wished I’d met, connected with, even gotten a glimpse of. I had some amazing experiences at TIFF16, and met some really great people, but of course I feel like I missed out on a million things. I look up to so many critics and programmers and filmmakers at TIFF, and at this point I can only dream of being as talented and articulate as any of them. I love cinema, and TIFF is a dream. I am so lucky to be able to attend the Festival and the programming throughout the year. I was very fortunate to work at the Festival this year. I do not know what this next year holds for me, but one sentiment from the Festival sticks with me: Vive la cinéma.