Film Fellows @ TIFF 2014

Below is their recollections from what sounds like an amazing trip with a little bit of everything.

Overall, going to Toronto was an amazing experience; a major highlight was going to the Remix office and meeting with the staff. The Remix Project is basically an arts program aiming to "level the playing field for young people from disadvantaged, marginalized, and under-served communities" and bring out their talents. We visited their office on Saturday and were given a tour of the facility (which had a recording studio as well as a photography studio!) and then sat down in a very cosy room to individually share our work samples and scripts with some of the staff members. We received great feedback from the staff as well as Tamar from city life! It was awesome to present our ideas to adults in the film/mixed media business and was similar to the pitching that we did in April.—Amani Smith

Throughout our trip in Toronto, we had many cultural experiences, one of them being food! Toronto is an extremely diverse city, resulting it in having a wide variety of restaurants. During our stay, we had Korean Tacos, Vietnamese Sandwiches, Canada’s famous Poutine dish, as well as dim sum and some classic breakfast foods! The food was very delicious and greatly prepared. We were all open to trying foods we’ve never had before and expanding our horizons to different options!—

Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi's film, What We Do In The Shadows is the funniest film I've seen in a long time. It's a rare thing to see a comedy that is relentless; an onslaught of jokes that pile one on top of the other, pummeling the audience into a state of comic submission. The film is a joke machine, pure and unconstrained.

But for the most part, story is unimportant in the film. What makes it funny, and ultimately affecting, is the interaction between the lead characters, and how well the actors inhabit their characters. In one of the first scenes of the film, Viago (Waititi) complains to the others that they are not doing their fair share of chores. The two vociferously disagree, while Viago complains "The dishes haven't been cleaned in five years!" We then cut to a massive mountain of bloodied dishes. It's a funny joke, because it contrasts a mundane argument with the over the top gore of the dishes, and the surreal situation of vampires arguing over house chores. The film never treats it's supernatural content as anything extraordinary; there are no moments in the film where the characters wink at the audience or make a cheap joke. Instead, Clement and Waititi commit fully to the world they've created, and craft an endearing movie about friendship and male bonding, cloaked in a horror-comedy-mockumentary.

I saw this movie as part of TIFF's Midnight Madness series, and I was in a sour mood. I had been wandering around Toronto in the cold night for hours. I struggled to find a seat. The audience was loud and ornery, tossing balloons and honking air horns. I was tired, jet-lagged, ill and angry. The last thing I wanted to do was watch what I expected to be an interminably unfunny movie. But as soon as the film began, I started to laugh. And laugh. And laugh. At the end of the film, I felt transformed; I was so ebulliently happy, I couldn't contain myself. I babbled on and on about the film to my friends, quoting lines, discussing shots, trying to process the comic gem I had just seen. I felt happy, full of life. This kind of transformative experience speaks to the power of movies to uplift, to change, to move people. The ability to experience a movie like What We Do In The Shadows is what makes an event like TIFF special, and is why we need to watch and treasure movies; to have ourselves be moved by something when we least expect it.—

Along with being able to see amazing movies at TIFF, meet amazing people from the Remix Project and eating amazing food we were able to have our fair share of adventure and make some Canadian friends.  We explored the busy store filled streets of Toronto along Queen Street in which we got to know very well.  We went to Toronto’s very own “Times Square” and compared it to our own here in New York and it was…different, not as bright and crowded but much bigger and spacious which us New Yorkers love deep down.  We were able to check out Canada’s famous Tim Horton’s and were rather pleased except for one mistake of not getting a donut order right.  On our way to the intriguing Bata Shoe Museum we were able to catch the University of Toronto’s gigantic victory against York in a 47-0 point football game right in the middle of the city.  In our free time we were able to enjoy walks through China Town, thrift shops and cafes in Kensington market and both the city and suburban streets combined to form Toronto.  Through out this time we were able to make friends with some locals that worked in a shop we went to almost every day because we loved it so much.  The owner Don and his employee Max were more than kind to us and gave us tips and directions around Toronto when ever we needed them, we shared interests and experiences in Toronto and New York and left an impression that caused them to want to stay in contact and hopefully remember us forever.  Although our trip was only 4 days it felt like an entire week, we all had such an amazing time with our fun filled days and plan to return in the future!—