Julia Loktev’s The Loneliest Planet Though only a few days remain of the Toronto International Film Festival, it’s not too late to see something. Sure, most of the celebs have gone home and practically all of the remaining big-buzz titles have gone rush, but there are still a lot of promising, under-the-radar offerings that had tickets available as of Friday morning. There’s French director Mia Hansen-Lve’s tender, enveloping Goodbye, First Love (Sun, 6pm), about a 15-year-old girl’s abiding passion for a 19-year-old boy. The film was recently selected to screen at the highly choosy New York Film Festival in October, which adds to the must-see factor. Also selected for NYFF were Argentinean filmmaker Santiago Mitre’s The Student (Sat, 10am), about an aimless undergrad at the University of Buenos Aires who develops a talent for political intimidation, and Julia Loktev’s The Loneliest Planet (Sun, 10am), about a young couple (Gabriel Garca Bernal and Hani Furstenberg) who suffer a romantic rupture while hiking in the Caucasus Mountains on their honeymoon. There are also a number of Venice Film Festival award winners still available: Cai Shangjun’s People Mountain People Sea (Sat, 3:30pm), which won the directing prize and is about five brothers hunting for the man who murdered their sibling; Emanuele Crialese’s exquisitely shot tale of a Sicilian island overrun by tourists, Terraferma (Sun, 9:15am), which won the special jury prize; and Sion Sono’s Himizu (Sat, 9:45am), about two teens struggling to survive in post-earthquake Japan. It landed the best young actor prize for stars Shta Sometani and Fumi Nikaid. For documentary fans there’s director Jonathan Demme’s I’m Carolyn Parker (Sun, 7:30pm), which is said to be a highly stirring look at an aged Hurricane Katrina survivor. There’s the Australian film The Tall Man (Sat, 10am), about an aboriginal man murdered in 2004 for talking back to a police officer. And there’s the beautifully photographed The Last Dogs of Winter (Sat, 10:30am), about a Northern Manitoba man dedicated to preserving the last remaining members of a rare Arctic dog breed. Then we come to the lauded but sure-to-be-depressing movies. If you can hack it, why not try Oslo, August 31 (Sun, 3:45pm), by talented young Norwegian director Joachim Trier (Reprise). It’s about a young Oslo man who spends a day walking around town with the intention to kill himself. Or Irish director Paddy Considine’s Sundance-winner Tyrannosaur (Sat, 4pm), which stars Peter Mullan as a violence-prone man looking for redemption via a Christian charity-shop worker. Or you could try a children-in-peril double-header with Michael (Sun, 4:30pm), an Austrian film about a child molester who keeps a 10-year-old locked in his basement, and Snowtown (Sat, 10pm), an Australian film about a serial killer who takes a young boy under his wing. And if that all sounds too miserable, try the feel-good Peace, Love & Misunderstanding (Sat, noon), which features Jane Fonda as an aging earth-mother and Catherine Keener as her estranged Republican daughter. (Early reviews have been fairly positive.) Or Nancy Savoca’s Union Square (Sat, 9:15pm), about two estranged New York sisters (Mira Sorvino and Tammy Blanchard) who reunite on the eve of major life-altering events. Scott MacDonald is the Toronto Standard Film Critic. __ Brought to you by the Alliance Film, I Don’t Know How She Does It, in theatres September 16th
