THE FEMALE EYE FILM FESTIVAL from Wednesday (March 24) to March 28. See Indie & Rep Film. femaleeyefilmfestival.com. Rating: NNN
Kathryn Bigelow’s groundbreaking Oscar win earlier this month casts new light on the eighth annual Female Eye Film Festival. But if you’re expecting anything in the lineup to pack the impact of The Hurt Locker, you’ll come away disappointed.
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The opening-night gala, Penelope Buitenhuis’s A Wake (March 25, 7 pm rating: NNN), is an improvised drama about a troupe of actors reunited at a memorial service for their director and forced to finish the production of Hamlet they abandoned years earlier. Strong performances by Martha Burns, Tara Nicodemo and Graham Abbey do a lot to compensate for the uneven tone and wobbly concept, which leans as much on Thomas Vinterberg’s The Celebration as it does on Shakespeare.
Other offerings include Katarzyna Roslaniec’s Mall Girls (March 26, 9 pm rating: NN), an uncomfortably broad cautionary tale about Polish teens in trouble, and Sherry White’s wretched East Coast drama Crackie (March 26, 7 pm rating: N), which somehow made it onto Canada’s Top Ten last year despite having no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
Also screening over the weekend: Ruth Somalo’s banal James Blunt documentary Till You’re Told To Stop (March 27, 5 pm rating: NN) Becky Smith’s 16 To Life (March 27, 7 pm rating: NNN), a middling coming-of-age comedy sparked by a bright performance by Hailee Hirsh and Alison Rose’s documentary Love At The Twilight Motel (March 28, 3:30 pm rating: NNNN), a study of loneliness that made a splash at last year’s Hot Docs festival.
The festival also launches a new interview series, Female Eye – An Intimate Conversation With The Best In The Biz. The inaugural subject, Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke, gets feted at a “networking brunch” Sunday at noon at the Novotel. Tickets are $20, available at ticketbreak.com or by calling 1-866-943-8849.
normw@nowtoronto.com
