Victoria Silman | Assistant News Editor
Featured Image: This year, York alumni and students are playing important roles in TIFF both on and offscreen. | Victoria Silman
2018
With the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) happening, King West—an already-busy street within the city—is the temporary home to some of the world’s best new films. Between University and Spadina Avenues, which is currently closed to street traffic, movie-lovers are filling the street to enjoy the festivities, watch some new flicks, and possibly catch a glimpse of their favourite celebrities attending the festival.
TIFF runs for 10 days, from September 6 to 16, and welcomes a variety of new films. According to the fact sheet, of the 7926 film submissions, 342 films were chosen—254 features and 88 short films. Of those 88 short films, a York alumnus and a York graduate student made the cut.
Director Ian Harnarine, a former York student, is debuting his short film, Caroni, in Short Cuts Programme 08, while York graduate student, and director and writer Sophy Romvari’s short film, Norman Norman, had its international debut in Short Cuts Programme 03.
Norman Norman by Sophy Romvari
Norman Norman explores the inevitability of loss and change. The film revolves around a night of research as Norman, Romvari’s 16-year-old Shih Tzu, watches his owner explore the possibility of cloning.
Viewers, such as fifth-year digital media student, Basma Elbahnasawy, describes the film to be one that is comedic and thought- provoking.
“The film focuses on the dog’s eyes to express emotion and reaction. The owner, who is never shown, watches videos regarding genetic replication of dogs while the camera continues to focus on the dog’s facial reactions,” Elbahnasawy explains. “The film is both comedic and opens the perspective of the audience to the fact that perhaps dogs, too, have emotions.”
Though viewers may reflect on the film in different ways, Romvari’s intention for the film is to explore the conflict of coming to terms with the death of her beloved Norman.
According to Romvari, “the film is about a character, which is myself, who is researching dog-cloning. It’s meant to depict the contrast between the human desperation to keep an animal alive and not wanting to accept its mortality, and the animals ambivalence to its own mortality.
“For me, most of my films are made based on personal experience, and more directly, an experience I am currently going through as a way to process what I’m feeling,” she further explains.
With Norman’s age, the film is an outlet for Romvari to explore and come to terms with the inevitable. “He’s doing quite well considering his age—basically I’m coming to terms with the fact that he’s going to pass some time soon and sort of realizing how much that might affect me and my anxiety,” Romvari says.
She continues: “Growing up with him from age 11 to 27, my formative life has been with him and he’s moved with me everywhere I’ve been. I’ve had deaths in the family and I’ve moved to different provinces, and he’s been the constant in my life. There is a lot connected to it beyond losing a pet.”
Romvari is currently a film production graduate student. York’d with the rest of the student population, Romvari made the best of her time during the strike by writing and producing the film. “My time at York has been great because I’ve had a lot of progress with my filmmaking. Unfortunately a lot has been outside of school because of the strike,” explains Romvari.
“I made Norman Norman during the strike because I had a bunch of extra time on my hands.”
Not necessarily intended for TIFF, Romvari submitted the piece on a whim: “Because time is of the essence with Norman’s age, we shot it and then it came together very quickly.
“A friend of mine said ‘why don’t you just submit it to TIFF’ and I was floored when it was accepted.”
Viewers can catch Norman Norman playing once more at the festival on September 14 at 6:30 p.m. as part of the Short Cuts Programme 03.
Caroni by Ian Harnarine
In TIFF this year, Ian Harnarine’s Caroni is making its international debut. According to Harnarine, the film depicts the relationship between a mother and daughter, both living in different parts of the world. The main character, Rajni, faces the dilemma of not being with her daughter, Mosaic, who lives in Trinidad and Tobago. Rajni begins to work out how she can be with Mosaic for her birthday.
“It’s the story of a West-Indian nanny that lives in New York, and she has to figure out how to connect with her daughter who she is going back to Trinidad to see. Her birthday is coming up, and it’s sort of the practical issues that arise from that,” describes Harnarine.
With West-Indian parents, the film has personal ties to Harnarine’s life,however the concept arose from his time living in New York.
“I was born and raised in Toronto,” Harnarine explains. “But I’ve been living in New York for the past 15 years. Living in New York, if you’re ever in a middle- class neighbourhood like Brooklyn or Manhattan,
you always see white children being pushed in a stroller by West-Indian nannies.
“I always wondered who these women are or what their stories are.”
Attending York from 1997 to 2002, Harnarine studied physics and astronomy. Due to the restrictions placed on taking film courses at York, Harnarine came across a humanities film course that allowed him to explore his interest. “It was a class that opened up my eyes to storytelling, and introduced me to the art form.”
Harnarine eventually went on to New York University, where he received an MFA from their graduate school. His film, Doubles With Slight Pepper, premiered at TIFF in 2011, winning the award for Best Canadian Short Film.
Caroni made its international debut on September 11 as part of the Short Cuts Programme 08. It also screens twice more on September 12 for press and industry, and the public can view it again on September 16 at 7:15 p.m.
Last year at TIFF, York talent was also featured. Emmanuel John, an actor and a third-year professional writing student, appeared in Cory Bowles controversial feature film Black Cop. The film depicts the struggle between racialization and police brutality in a way that would be considered unconventional. “Black Cop is about a black cop who, while off-duty, is racially profiled which causes him to take out his frustration on the
predominantly white privileged community. It’s a bit of a psychological drama that explores that,” John explains.
John, who played a character called Blipster (Black Hipster), continues: “I had a small supporting role in the film. I think I had like two scenes in the movie, so I didn’t play a major role in it. But it was an interesting scene—it’s a moment where the audience laughs a lot; I didn’t know it was a comedy when I shot it, but it turned out to be a bit of a comedic scene.”
As he describes it, the film is sort of a thriller-drama.
John says: “It’s not very genre-specific, but that’s a good way of describing it, because it essentially follows this one person, this black cop who is criticized by his community—the black community—deemed a sell-out because of the violence that is happening to black people. So he’s dealing with that, and he also gets profiled.
“That sets him up where he feels he has to set out on a path for vengeance, and he psychologically struggles with that. I enjoyed watching the movie; I thought the performance from the lead was incredible, and I thought it was a good portrayal of someone going through something psychologically.”
Attending the world premiere was also quite the experience for John and the crew. According to him: “We all met for dinner just down the street from the theatre, and the goal was to just calm our nerves, because it was sold out—it’s a controversial film.
“It’s an image you’ve never seen—this black cop essentially was exercising police brutality on the white community, and yet as an audience, that’s a very off-putting image, but that was the filmmaker’s point—why isn’t it off-putting when we see a white cop brutalizing a black person?”
With critical acclaim, John notes after the premiere the reactions were diverse. Standing outside of the premiere, John was approached by a reporter who appeared to be shocked by what he had just watched.
“I remember I was outside Richmond Theatre downtown, and this reporter walked out of the theatre, he looked traumatized. He recognized me, and he came up to me and said, ‘you were in the film. Are they gonna screen this in the States?’ I said, ‘yeah, they plan to.’ He replied, ‘my god.’”
With TIFF in his back pocket, John is continuing his acting career. John, who landed a role as a supporting actor (and love interest) in the romantic comedy, Hopeless Romantic, will be attending the Atlantic Film Festival (FIN) on September 15 for the film’s international debut.
