November 1, 2024

By Marriska Fernandes

The Windsor International Film Festival is an intimate gathering of moviegoers, filmmakers, and critics who get to enjoy the range of movies offered by the festival. As someone who took the trip for the first time to attend the fest, I was pleasantly surprised by the tight-knit community and range of films, including many French-language entries, slated in their programming.

The WIFF Prize in Canadian Film competition is committed to celebrating excellence from across the country by honouring filmmakers with an annual cash prize of $25,000, a whopping sum that beats many other festivals.

This year, the Canadian nominees included Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story (Michael Mabbott & Lucah Rosenberg-Lee), Hunting Daze (Annick Blanc), Lucy Grizzli Sophie (Anne Émond), On Earth as in Heaven (Nathalie Saint-Pierre), Paying for It (Sook-Yin Lee), Really Happy Someday (J. Stevens), Russians at War (Anastasia Trofimova), Sharp Corner (Jason Buxton), Universal Language (Matthew Rankin), and Who Do I Belong To? (Meryam Joobeur).

My top three films in the competition were:

Universal Language

The second feature by Canadian filmmaker Matthew Rankin is a bizarre experiential comedy where Tehran, Winnipeg, and Quebec are one and the only languages spoken are French and Farsi. It’s also Canada’s official entry for Best International Feature consideration for the Oscars. In this cross-cultural caper, Rankin, who also stars in the film, brings the best of Iranian cinema enveloped in an absurd comedy. It’s undeniably original and watching it at a festival seems like a good idea for anyone looking for a sense of true discovery.

 

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Paying for It

Sook-Yin Lee makes her third directorial venture with Paying for It. It’s an adaptation of Chester Brown’s graphic novel that filmmaker/musician Lee wrote and directed. It follows their own story: after their relationship ended, Brown decided to hire sex workers rather than look for another girlfriend. The film destigmatizes sex work, while showing a flawed yet human characters and relationships at the centre of it all, without making any judgement.

Who Do I Belong To?

Meryam Joobeur‘s feature-length debut Who Do I Belong To? builds on her Oscar-nominated short, Brotherhood. The Arabic drama follows a Tunisian woman as she’s struggling between her maternal love and her search for the truth when her son returns home from war and unleashes a darkness throughout their village. It transitions to a horror film in the last act, which was unexpected. The film switches gears quite a bit, but is quite a gut punch nevertheless. The film picked up the Canadian prize at the festival.

Get more highlights from WIFF here.