LUZZU – ★★★★

It’s odd how there seem to be themes that occur during MIFF. This year fishing seems to be one of them, with this being the third film featuring it (the others being ‘CODA’ and ‘Gaza Mon Amour’. Luzzu is a beautiful Maltese film with plenty of heart. It tells the story of a fisherman whose lineage goes back generations, finishing from the same boat. He’s faced with several challenges, from his infant son needing medical care, to the challenges of modern fishing, shady dealings by others for out of season fish, and natural decline of fish in the sea due to global warming. A pleasant surprise.

SISTERS WITH TRANSISTORS – ★★☆

Documentary about women and their place in the history of electronic music. It was narrated by Laurie Anderson, and I was pretty excited to watch this. It wasn’t a terrible film, but I felt it was a little bit dry, and generally found the most interesting parts were relating to Suzanne Ciani. There was a previous documentary about her at MIFF in 2017 (‘A Life in Waves’) though. So, this was worth checking out, but I preferred A Life in Waves.

GAZA MON AMOUR – ★★

I can only imagine that something was lost in translation, as the reviews for this seemed so positive. Story of an old Palestinian fisherman who has spent his life as a single man, but who decides to approach a woman that has caught his eye. Maybe I’m missing something, or maybe I was just the wrong demographic for this one, but nothing much seemed to happen.

THE GIG IS UP – ★

This documentary was about gig economy jobs like Uber, Lyft, Deliveroo, etc. So much not to like about the documentary. Someone from *Microsoft* of all places talking about the evils of these companies (ha!). It was too long, without enough content – it could have been half the length. No scenes with representatives of the other side sharing any views (nor reference to whether they were asked and refused). The poverty-porn scenes of the guy from Florida and his mother – what else was the purpose in the long scenes with his mother and her lottery tickets? And it wasn’t really telling us anything that most of us don’t know – that many companies will exploit whatever they can to make profits. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, *is* the gig up? The movie ended without showing that anything of note had actually been achieved in reaching fairness for employees of these kinds of jobs. I’m sure there’s a story to tell, I just don’t think this documentary achieved it.

NINJABABY – ★★★★

Enjoyable Norwegian film about a young girl who discovers she’s pregnant, and her juggling around what to do with the baby, as well as the relationships around her. A good sense of humour to the film, and the animated augmentation was well used.

CAPTAINS OF ZA’ATARI – ★★☆

Documentary about two Syrian refugees who hope to make it as professional football (soccer) players. Really nicely filmed, and the filmmakers managed to capture several human moments that made me double-check whether it was a scripted film or not. I’d have liked a little more narrative though, to find out more about the background, their situation, and sometimes what was playing out before me.

PLAYLIST – ★★★

French film with many similar themes to the film I watched earlier in the day, Ninjababy. A twenty-something girl wants to be an graphic novelist, gets pregnant (though in this one it’s not as core to the story), and similarly has a scene where she fakes being someone else in a meeting. While it wasn’t terrible, after Ninjababy, it paled in comparison. I did like the soundtrack, and that in the black and white film, some colour shading was used on the movie she watched in the theatre.

LA VERONICA – ★★

If you want to watch a film about a woman who wants to be a lipstick brand ambassador more than anything else, and willing to pretty much sacrifice anything to do so, then I guess maybe this movie is for you. While it was interestingly filmed, with the lead in the centre of the frame throughout, it wasn’t enough to make up for the lack of character development or depth to keep me interested.

FRESHMAN YEAR (aka “Shithouse”) – ★★★☆

Pretty amazing film given that it was screen-written, directed, co-edited, and acted by Cooper Raiff who’s in his early 20s as far as I can tell. In the first minute I feared that I was going to be subjected to a mumblecore bore, but it quickly turned around. It’s about a freshman who’s having trouble adjusting to his first year of college, and has some resemblance to ‘Before Sunrise’. If I could have changed one thing, I would have ended it five minutes sooner than it did and cut the epilogue out. But I am looking forward to seeing what he does next.