TIFF NEXT WAVE at TIFF Bell Lightbox (350 King West), Friday to Sunday (February 13 to 15). tiff.net/nextwave. Rating: NNNN
Every generation thinks they invented the things they love in literature, movies, music, fashion, sex. That’s because the specific collision of urgency and innovation in any of those disciplines can mirror the pure adrenaline of youthful connection. What you’re into may not be new, but it damn well feels like a discovery.
The TIFF Next Wave festival does its best to lead its young audience to as many discoveries as possible. And there’s some fine stuff on offer.
It kicks off Friday (February 13) at 7 pm with the traditional Battle Of The Scores, in which six high school bands perform their original score for a given short film. That event is followed by the equally traditional opening-night party.
Saturday and Sunday, it’s all about the movies – two screens’ worth, in fact. You can spend all of Saturday in a retro program (Napoleon Dynamite at 12:15 pm, Richard Ayoade’s Submarine at 2:30 pm, Dazed And Confused at 4:45 pm, Moonrise Kingdom at 7:15 pm, Heathers at 9:30 pm) or embrace new young cinema with the Taiwanese mystery Partners In Crime at 1 pm, the British documentary Leave To Remain at 3:30 pm, Céline Sciamma’s Parisian social drama Girlhood at 6 pm and Micael Preysler’s complex BFF drama Lily & Kat at 9 pm.
Sunday’s offerings focus specifically on contemporary teenagers, with Anna Kazejak’s psychological thriller The Word at 12:15 pm and a pair of coming-of-age pictures harvested from the festival circuit: Toronto director Lindsay Mackay’s delicate Wet Bum (which I loved at TIFF last year, and which opens commercially this spring) at 1:15 pm, and Sophie Hyde’s Australian trans-parent drama 52 Tuesdays, which closed Inside Out 2014, at 2:45 pm.
You want more? James Marcus Haney’s personal doc No Cameras Allowed – a hyperactive record of one college student’s decision to sneak into any and every music festival he can – screens at 2 pm. Lourens Blok’s Boy 7, at 5:45 pm is a Danish thriller that plays like a baby Bourne Identity, with two young amnesiacs (Matthijs van de Sande Bakhuyzen, Ella-June Henrard) on the run from every law enforcement officer in the Netherlands.
The festival closes at 7 pm with a sneak peek at Disney’s upcoming true-life sports drama McFarland, directed by Whale Rider’s Niki Caro and starring Kevin Costner as a white coach who led a small California high school’s predominantly Latino track team to glory in the late 80s. It opens next week, though, so don’t worry about rushing this one if it sells out.
