Must Watch: Stories From Around The World

The Toronto International Film Festival heralds the beginning of the Fall awards season as films from the earlier festivals in Berlin, Cannes, Venice and Telluride compete with new projects launched by studios and producers. This year was no different with a rich crop of films as well as a set of new series directed by leading international film-makers.

Many of the frontrunners for the 2025 Oscar race like Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Saoirse Ronan, Ralph Fiennes and the new kids on the block Mikey Madison (star of one of the most anticipated Hollywood films Anora) and Karla Sofia Gascón (a trans actress from Emilia Perez, France's official Oscar entry) had their films shown at Toronto.

There were a few important international films shown at TIFF that were essentially coming from the Cannes Film Festival like The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Iranian film, but German's Oscar entry), Santosh (an Indian film, but Britain's Oscar entry) and All We Imagine As Light (a French-Indian production that is not being courted by both those countries).

Aseem Chhabra's Top 10 Films/ Series from TIFF 2024 includes films that he watched for the first time in Toronto. The films were impressive due to their rigor, passion, unique storytelling style and sometimes exploring the vulnerable sides of big name stars.

 

Boong (India)

Boong is a sweet Manipuri film produced by Farhan Akhtar's production company, a sort of thank you to the first-time film-maker Lakshmipriya Devi, who has worked as an assistant on many Excel Entertainment projects going back to Lakshya and Talaash.

A young boy (first-time actor Gugun Kipgen) longs for the return of his missing father and to reunite his parents.

But as years go by, there is no word from the father.

So he sets out on a journey with a friend to find his father in a Manipuri town that borders Myanmar.

With the backdrop of conflicts in the region, Boong is Devi's homage to Manipuri culture and other outside influences that are impacting the society.

Particularly charming is Boong's fascination with Madonna and a recreation of the singer's hit song Like a Virgin with Manipuri dancers and musicians.

Boong is a rare experience that people across India should watch, to understand life in a remote part of the country.

Conclave (US/UK)

German director Edward Berger has followed up his 2022 epic war film All Quiet On The Western Front (Oscar winner for Best International Film) with a thoroughly entertaining take on the secrecies surrounding the selection of the Pope.

As a Pope dies, cardinals from across the world gather to select the new successor.

Locked up from the rest of the world, the cardinals form groups, which is no different than political parties, campaigning for their candidates and securing votes. There are scandals and revelations.

It is hard to say how of much of what Conclave shows actually happens behind the closed doors, but the film works like a thriller with a star cast which includes Ralph Fiennes (his best performance in years that might earn him an Oscar nomination), Stanley Tucci, Isabella Rossellini and John Lithgow.

The stunning, audacious conclusion will not make the Roman Catholic Church happy. But most audiences should be satisfied with the ending.

 

Families Like Ours (Denmark)

Imagine if one day you have to leave your country, not for better opportunities, but because everything is shutting down and your government wants you out.

Thomas Vinterberg (The Hunt, Another Round) works on a seven-part series (his first foray into long-form story-telling) and develops a gripping drama about regular Danish people, some wealthy, others middle class and also poor. But they all are asked to get out of Denmark because the water levels are rising and the country is going to shut down.

Families are divided, scattered across Europe.

The privilege of being Danish citizens vanishes overnight and Danes face similar discrimination in other European countries as recent undocumented immigrants from Africa and Asia.

Families Like Ours is a brilliant series -- set in the near future, but so believable, as it focuses on real characters with beating hearts, desires and insecurities.

 

Disclaimer (UK)

Just like Thomas Vinterberg, four-time Oscar-winning Mexican film-maker Alfonso Cuarón has also walks into the unchartered territory of developing a seven-part series.

A psychological thriller with some intense graphic sex scenes, Disclaimer is based on Renée Knight's 2015 novel.

The show stars Cate Blanchett as Catherine, a hard nosed journalist, whose life and marriage to Nicholas (Sacha Baron Cohen in a totally different persona) is rattled by the publishing of a book. The book reveals a dark secret from Catherine's past.

The worlds collide as other characters are also affected by the details of the book.

Kevin Kline, who plays Stephen, has not been seen on screen for a long while and like Cohen, sheds his comic screen image for a dark, tragic, role.

Disclaimer is clear proof of Cuarón's rich talent where every film he works on, including Y Tu Mamá También, Children of Men, Gravity and Roma, is vastly different from the other.

Disclaimer premieres on Apple TV+ on October 11.

 

Queer (Italy/US)

Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name) has had quite a year with not one, but two films.

Earlier this year, he released the sexually charged, tennis game film called Challengers. Now, he is back with his second gay drama, Queer, based on an autobiographical novel of the same name by the Beatnik writer William S Burroughs.

In Queer, Daniel Craig plays William Lee, a middle-aged American on a hallucinogenic journey through Latin America. The film starts in Mexico City, as Lee, a heroin addict, hangs around in gay bars frequented by American expats.

The object of his desire is a young gay man from Oklahoma, named Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). Together, they set off on a journey in search of a natural drug called ayahuasca that is supposed to enhance a person's telepathic powers.

Much of the latter parts of Queer are about Lee's and Allerton's drug experimentation.

But Queer's heart is set in the sad, desperate life of an older man desiring younger male sexual companions.

After the release of Call Me By Your Name, Guadagnino was criticised by many, including the film's Oscar winning screenplay writer James Ivory, for shying away from showing male nudity. With Queer, the director takes a different approach in narrating an LGBTQ story, with explicit gay scenes rarely portrayed in English films.

 

The Brutalist (US)

Brady Corbet's The Brutalist is a three-and-a-half hour long (with an intermission) American epic shot on 70mm film stock, which gives the film's texture a historic feel.

Adrien Brody (in his best performance since The Pianist) plays László Toth, a Jewish Hungarian architect, who arrives in Philadelphia having survived the Second World War.

In this unknown land, Toth hopes to rebuild his career while he awaits the arrival of his wife (Felicity Jones) from Europe.

In Philadelphia, Toth meets a wealthy man Harrison Lee Van Buren (a bitingly sharp Guy Pearce).

Together, they plan an ambitious project, a collaboration which will make and then break up their relationship.

The Brutalist is a spectacular film, made with a much smaller budget in comparison to Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis, a similar themed film, but an artistic failure.

The positive reception at Toronto and Venice film festivals has created a strong Oscar buzz for The Brutalist.

 

Bound in Heaven (China)

First-time Chinese director Huo Xin's Bound in Heaven is a gorgeously shot story of a successful woman, Xia You, supposedly in control of her life.

But beneath her bright career in finance, Xia suffers in an abusive relationship.

One night desperate to catch the concert of her favourite star Faye Wong, Xia accidentally meets a food delivery man, Xu Zitai. Their sexual encounter in a dark alley follows a chance meeting in another city.

When she learns that Xu is suffering from a terminal illness, Xia suddenly breaks off all bonds to live with him.

Xu takes Xia to his village to meet his estranged parents, and the film changes its tone and mood from an urban narrative to breathtaking rural landscapes.

Bound in Heaven remains a deeply romantic film that is a pure joy to watch.

 

No Other Land (Israel/Palestine)

Winner of the top documentary award at this year's Berlinale, this urgent film is a rare collaboration between two men: Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham and Palestinian activist Basel Adra.

Since the age of 14, Adra had been recording the Israeli encroachment on his village, Masafer Yatta. He witnessed homes being destroyed, raids by Israeli soldiers and the arrest of his political activist father.

Years later, Adra became friends with Abraham who made frequent visits to the village to report on the forced removal of Palestinians and the destruction of their homes by Israeli bulldozers.

Adra's family accepted Abraham as one of their own, but it was always an unequal friendship.

Abraham could move freely between the Palestinian territory, often crossing the border and entering Israel, but Adra was a captive in his own homeland.

No Other Land was made before the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 2023, followed by the ongoing genocide in Gaza and now in Lebanon. But it is a reminder that peace in that region can only come about when there is an understanding between the Palestinians and Israelis.

 

Little Jaffna (France)

Inspired by Martin Scorsese's The Departed and Anurag Kashyap's Gangs of Wasseypur, Little Jaffna is French-Tamil actor/film-maker Lawrence Valin's ode to his community.

Valin plays Michael, a Tamil cop, who is assigned to the job to infiltrate the Sri Lankan Tigers in Paris.

He is supposed to make friends with the group, win their confidence to learn how they raise money and fund the LTTE in Sri Lanka.

Little Jaffna is a stunning action thriller, one of the best South Asian Diaspora films in a long time.

It is packed with colourful street scenes in Paris' Little Jaffna neighbourhood, the local festivals, parades and even a scene inside a movie theatre where Michael and his friends watch Tamil star Vijay in Attlee's film Theri.

 

Babygirl (US/Netherlands)

Inspired by the films of Dutch film-maker Paul Verhoeven (Total Recall), Director Halina Reijn (Bodies, Bodies, Bodies) has created a gripping thriller for the 21st century. Babygirl is the Basic Instinct (also directed by Verhoeven) of our times.

High-powered CEO Romy (Nicole Kidman) is sexually dissatisfied in her marriage to Jacob (Antonio Banderas).

Quite unexpectedly, she starts an intense relationship with a young intern in her office, Samuel, played by British actor Harris Dickenson (Beach Rats and the Cannes Palme d'Or winner Triangle of Sadness).

Kidman has not been this sexy and vulnerable since she acted opposite ex-husband Tom Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut.

Here, she walks a dangerous line of a caring mother, wife and business executive, who loses control of her sense of what is right and wrong as she becomes obsessed with her young lover.

Towards the middle of the film, Dickenson does a seductive shirtless dance twirling around Kidman. She is wrapped in a bathrobe.

Dickenson picks her up like a baby and cradles her.

In the background, George Michael's song Father Figure is playing. That dance alone is worth the price of the ticket for the film.