Peter Howell: From a woman fighting zombies to a girl trying to help her parents divorce, Canadian Film Fest returns with a focus on females

The struggles of women and girls dominate the 2023 Canadian Film Fest, the small but carefully curated Toronto celebration of independent Canuck cinema, which returns in a hybrid form for its 17th edition.

Female-focused skirmishes run the gamut from resisting online shaming to fighting a zombie plague — along with #MeToo confrontations plus racial, sexual, marital and bureaucratic battles — in the slate of nine features and 25 shorts screening Tuesday to Saturday at Scotiabank Theatre and concurrently on Super Channel Fuse.

“We’re always mindful of what we’re programming and we try to represent as many diverse voices in our programming as possible,” festival director Ashleigh Rains said in an interview.

“But this year, 66 per cent of our features are directed by women. So it’s no surprise to me that women-led films feature a female protagonist at the core.”

Nowhere is the fraught nature of female existence more evident than in “Bloom” (screening Friday), Montreal filmmaker Fanie Pelletier’s freewheeling documentary on the increasing encroachment of online toxicity into young lives. The standout of this year’s festival, it’s a film that Rains said “made me scared to be a parent to a daughter.”

With scant context and identification, “Bloom” tracks the interactions of three groups of teenage girls as they struggle to define themselves while engaging with social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and the now-defunct Periscope.

“It’s easier to talk to your phone than it is to talk to people,” one teen says, as the camera whirls through a rapid-fire series of online encounters that could induce both euphoria and vertigo in the viewer.

The attempts by the girls to court “likes” on social media, by proudly exhibiting their bodies while also frankly discussing gender identity, eating disorders, alienation and loneliness, are often met with scorn and abuse from unseen online trolls.

No wonder the girls end up sadly stating “I’m sick of guys,” “I’m sick of everything” and “I don’t like anything about myself.” It’s a relief to see some of them later in the film swimming happily at a cottage lake, with nary a screen in sight.

A young girl is also front and centre in “How to Get My Parents to Divorce” (Thursday), a film by Quebec’s Sandrine Brodeur-Desrosiers that is billed as a comedy yet jabs at the heart with its realistic depiction of marital discord and family tragedy.

Twelve-year-old Justine (Charlotte St-Martin) is tired of the constant arguing of her parents (Isabelle Blais and Pierre-Luc Brillant), something they’re good at since they’re both lawyers. Justine decides to take a leaf from their legal playbook and file for divorce on their behalf but without their knowledge or consent.

She conscripts her classmates to help her stage a “youth court” for their end-of-year class project, with predictable hilarity as they conspire to outwit the adults. But behind Justine’s frustrations lies unresolved family sadness that will require more than a mock trial to address.

The sexual reckoning of the #MeToo movement is never far from depictions of current female life and two films address it head on: “Babysitter” (Tuesday) by Quebec actor/director Monia Chokri and “Bystanders” (Wednesday) by Nova Scotia actor/director Koumbie.

The fest’s opening-night film, making its Toronto premiere following its Sundance 2022 unveiling, Chokri’s sophomore feature “Babysitter” is billed as a drama but frequently plays more like French farce.

After drunken doofus Cédric (Patrick Hivon) kisses an unwilling female reporter on live TV, resulting in her fury and his firing, he finds himself housebound with his girlfriend (Chokri) and their baby. Cédric attempts to atone for his sin by co-authoring a confessional book about misogyny. Plans go awry with the arrival of a new babysitter (Nadia Tereszkiewicz), who may be the proverbial devil in disguise.

Koumbie’s “Bystanders,” her feature directing debut, is a raw drama that at first glance looks to be an ensemble sitcom about a group of 20-something friends gathering at a cottage for their annual spring weekend bash.

The group is initially missing its most popular member and dedicated partier, Justin (Taylor Olson), but his sudden arrival — and a drunken “Never Would I Ever” game — unearths secrets and accusations of sexual misconduct that threaten to destroy lifelong bonds. Marlee Sansom’s Ayda mightily impresses as a conflicted woman who, to quote an old Tragically Hip song, may find that “courage … it couldn’t come at a worse time.”

Four of the other five Canadian Film Fest ’23 features are similarly female-centric: “When Time Got Louder” (Connie Cocchia, Wednesday) brings to mind Oscar winner “CODA” in its story of a young woman (Willow Shields) who reluctantly leaves her family and autistic brother to pursue animation studies (and find new love) in California.

“Retrograde” (Adrian Murray, Friday) bears witness with deadpan amusement as a tightly wound woman (Molly Reisman) wrestles with the law — and also her conscience and her friends — after receiving a traffic ticket she thinks is unfair.

“Polarized” (Shamim Sharif, Saturday) starts as a racial clash between two female farmers (Holly Deveaux and Maxine Denis), one a traditional sower and the other an immigrant high-tech grower, before transforming into a perceptive love story.

And closing-night horror rouser “Wintertide” (John Barnard, Saturday) stars Irish-born Torontonian Niamh Carolan as a zombie tracker in a perpetually dark and snowy town who discovers her dreams may hold answers to the mysterious undead plague.

This leaves the sole male-oriented feature at the film fest: “Golden Delicious” (Jason Karman, Thursday), a coming-of-age saga of an Asian-Canadian high schooler, Jake (Cardi Wong), who joins a basketball team to get closer to a classmate (Chris Carson) who, to Jake’s surprise, has inspired romantic desire in him. This runs contrary to the hoop dreams of Jake’s father and the carnal plans of Jake’s longtime girlfriend.

The film arrives with laurels from last fall’s Reelworld Film Festival, where it won Outstanding Feature Film and also prizes for directing (Karman), acting (Wong) and screenwriting (Gorrman Lee).

This year’s Canadian Film Fest will also for the first time screen, online only Tuesday, a digital series: “Streams Flow From a River,” Christopher Yip’s six-part drama about members of a dysfunctional Chinese-Canadian family confronting their past while snowbound in their rural Alberta hometown.

Prizes are awarded at the end of the fest and the winners will be rescreened on Super Channel Fuse on Sunday.

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