Day #9 -Fri., Sept. 15th, 2023

By The BKONTHESCENE Team

We started the day at the Scotiabank Theatre for Smugglers.

It’s a timepiece movie set in 1970’s South Korea, where smuggling is rampant and considered a heinous crime. However, it might be the only option for some haenyeo — women free divers who have harvested shellfish and other sea treasures for hundreds of years — suffering a threat to their livelihoods after a chemical factory opens in their seaside village.

Using their speciality in diving and knowledge of the waters, old friends Choon-ja (Kim Hye-soo) and Jin-sook (Yum Jung-ah) start to smuggle goods. But when notorious smuggler and criminal Mr. Kwon (Zo In-sung) expands into their territory, a violent confrontation results. With the help of Jin-sook and their haenyeo friends, Choon-ja risks her life to plan for the most mind-bending and dangerous job, one that could become her biggest break — or the end of it all.

Ryoo Seung-wan directs Kim and Yum in a strong female-led action film that’s filled with smart tactics, deceptive mind games, and exciting action choreography — some underwater. This is a fresh approach to the crime-action genre that takes viewers on a rollercoaster ride of sheer entertainment.

Colourfully recreating the period aesthetics, the costumes, the sets, and even the music submerge us in a different time and place, a seaside town that once feigned innocence.

We didn’t have to go far to view CONCRETE UTOPIA, as it was also showing at the Scotiabank Theatre.

Korean director, Um Tae-hwa’s Concrete Utopia, is a story of survival in the aftermath of a disastrous earthquake, with a storyline that includes murder, corruption, deceit, lies, slick violence and astronomical challenges. The disaster movie focuses on the survivors as they try to create a some sense law in the last apartment complex still standing in Seoul. With rations and necessities diminishing, and no sign of help arriving from the outside world, someone needs to take charge of the situation.

Kim Young-Tak (Lee Byung-Hun) is elected “Mr. Delegate” for the complex, and is soon laying down the law and arranging rationing. Also a policy that the complex should be for residents only, with everyone else, were referred to as outcast and rats, banished to their fate in the freezing cold ruins of Seoul.

The film shows that even an apartment is your domain and always worth defending, no matter what. A very somber mood through out the movie and how resilience can prevail in such extraordinary circumstances. The quest to survive, corrupt leaders, and things we take for granted; hope and honor, are all showcased in this post apocalyptic film.

We arrived for Monica Sorelle’s film, Mountains, an American film in Haitian Creole, French and English. The acting is superb, truly excellent, with the three actors and director tackling racism in Miami’s Haitian community, being presented in Haitian Creole and Spanish.

The story of an immigrant worker and family man gradually accepting his class aspirations and housing insecurities in a neighbourhood which is rapidly gentrifying in the immigrant enclave of Little Haiti in Miami.

Xavier is a middle-aged, working-class Haitian demolition worker who hopes to one day buy his loving seamstress wife, Esperance, a larger new suburban home. Their college-dropout son Junior however struggles against his father’s rigid expectations by day while secretly pursuing a career as a stand-up comic at night. Scenes take place with kitchen chatter, marital pillow talk, community festivity, workplace friendships and neighbourhood gossip with a natural ease.

The amazing demolition cinematography captures the driver’s-seat viewpoint of shifting residential landscapes: the debris-laden vastness of the demolition sites and a warmth in the home. A film with wonderful acting and truth to its storyline. Such an honour to meet the actors and director for the Q&A after the film screening.

The afternoon included In Conversation with Sylvester Stallone at TIFF Bell Lightbox

What an honour to be in the presence of Rocky! A full house – with every seat taken (once the TIFF rush ticket fans arrived). Cameron Bailey had an ‘In Conversation with Sylvester Stallone”, discussing past films and his film involvement from 1969 to present day 2023. Cameron asked about his beginnings as a struggling actor for a number of years when first arriving in New York City in 1969 and later Hollywood in 1974, when Stallone won his first acclaim as an actor for co-starring as Stanley Rosiello in The Lords of Flatbush.

Stallone was amazed at how Cameron Bailey had done his research on him. (We weren’t! We know how Bailey prepares and knows his films!) The audience all went together down memory lane watching movie clips and hearing the conversation between them. So many films we’ve seen and remembered well. It truly felt miraculous being with such a famous actor.

The time flew by and it was time for Sly to leave… but not before a group of fans armed with photos and movie memorabilia gathered near the stage front for autographs. And Stallone truly appreciates his fans – he spent time signing and saying hello to those who admire him most. Beautiful to see.

We attended the night time RED CARPET and film screening for The Movie Teller (In Spanish, La Contadora de Películas), a film from Spain, France and Chile by director Lone Scherfig, at The Royal Alexandra Theatre. Excitement charged the night as the film cast took to the Red Carpet, and dressed to impress.

A young woman uses her storytelling gifts to share the magic of the pictures she has seen in the cinema with the poor inhabitants of a desert mining community, in director Lone Scherfig’s inspirational drama.

In the nitrate salt flats of Chile’s Atacama Desert, mine workers have created a community amidst a harsh, difficult life in the driest place on Earth. For María Magnolia (Bérénice Bejo, also at the Festival in Sisterhood), wife to one such miner (Antonio de La Torre, The Last Circus, TIFF ’10), the desire for something more than just hardship runs deep. Her passion for film, music and entertainment enchants Nansen (Daniel Brühl, All Quiet on the Western Front, TIFF ’22), the mine’s soft-spoken, but respected, administrator. It also signals her secret longing to fulfill her dream of pursuing the arts.

After a while, she is painfully compelled to leave her family behind in search of the bright lights of the big city.

Left behind is her daughter, María Margarita (Sara Becker), who has inherited her mother’s love for movies. She’s also a gifted performer, transforming herself on stage when she recounts to her family (who can only afford one ticket among them) the pictures she has seen in the town’s cinema.

Soon she becomes the community’s most prominent star. As the “movie teller” she transports her audience to the new, exotic, and epic worlds she discovers on screen, allowing them to escape their daily lives.

As the changing times threaten to erode the community, and despite the hardships that life throws at her, María defiantly continues to breathe life into the people of this unforgiving land, immortalizing their struggles in her stories of drama, humour, romance, and courage.

The Movie Teller is a celebration of our capacity to defy even the harshest circumstances, to find love, inspiration, and hope where none seem possible. The film was loved by the audience, especially since many in the audience were Spanish-speaking. Cast and director received much applause as they took to the stage for the Q&A where they answered questions about making the film and the storyline. Magnificent.