Day 10 Tiff Blog

One more day to go. Exhaused now to be honest. Scaled it back today.

Fig Tree was an Israeli film set around the lives of Ethopian Jews living in Ethiopia during the Civil War. It is a moving and realistic view through the eyes of a 15 year old Jewish girl as she tries to save her Christian boyfriend from being drafted into the army. I’m not sure this is for everyone, but it was a movie which was well selected by Tiff. A good story taking you on a journey, and educating a little bit through telling you this story. For any of you who have African, or particularly, an Ethiopian friend, it is in Amharic, and I can recommend.

The Green Book. Get out the awards. This was my favourite movie at this festival, and maybe in the past several years. It is also based on a true story of an Italian tough guy, who is laid off from a ‘bouncer’ position at a club, and is subsequently hired by a highly educated black virtuoso piano player, who decides to tour the deep south with a small trio in the early 1960’s. It is brilliantly crafted. The evolution of both characters is wonderfully on display, completely believable and full of little nuggets of funny interations. The typical fare of horrible discrimination is there, but somewhat muted, as it takes a back seat to the relationship that forms between the two, and the complex world the black virtuoso lives in, where in reality, he fits into neither a black community, nor a white one. It make me think of some of the criticism Obama got from the black community. It is truly wonderful. Go this this movie. It will win awards.

Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy was the closing Tiff film. A strange one, boring and with a script I could have written on the back of a napkin. Lady writes a good book. Young lady reads it. Curiously, writer asks young girl to pose as man, and to be writer, and who story is about. They get discovered. Crap ensues. Crap being the operative word.