I attended two screenings hosted by Humber College's Film and Television Production program: the Graduate Film Showcase consisting of shorts, documentaries, and PSAs created by their final year students; and their Portfolio Screening featuring work produced in collaboration with the college's Acting for Film and Television Students. As usual, I am impressed with the calibre of talent that goes into these productions.

I thought the shorts that worked best this year came from directors who trusted their actors and gave them proper breathing room to flesh out the stories. Toronto Youth Shorts alumni, Jevon Boreland, created one such example in To Kill A Secret, starring Mark Taylor of Flashpoint and Student Bodies fame. The short doesn't explore new territory narratively but audiences are drawn into this world because of the strong performances, which also includes those by Glenn Cashin and Melissa Cultraro. Same can be said about Zac Pinto-Lobo's Where Monsters Live, a short that again doesn't tread any new waters and potentially could've been very hammy but it works because of its cast, in particular child actor Jonah Vogel. Stephanie Brister carries What Memories Hold directed by Ryan Doyle with a performance that make audiences empathetic and frustrated at the same time. 

I was even more impressed overall with the slate of Portfolio Screening films. Despite bigger constraints that included a limited run time (everything is under 8 minutes), a max of only two days to shoot, and must feature students in lead roles so they couldn't rely on experienced ACTRA performers to take the reign, the end result worked for the most part. Writer and actor, Robert Ryan Reyes, showed off his physical comedic chops in the hilarious Landed Citizen by Lara Cordiano. Matt Takatsch's Oscar did very well in creating atmosphere and building tension, scaring the theatre audiences to a point where many of them were screaming. Diego Perez Del Rio enhanced Simone DaSilva's wordless performance with his score in Staccato, which he also directed.

With an industry that is trying to more and more to satiate a young audience with over the top action pieces, it's nice to see the next generation of filmmaking talent recognize the small moments that can be cinematically compelling. 

​-Henry

This was the inaugural year for the Gen Zed Film Festival, organized by students of Ryerson’s Creative Industries program and for a first-year festival prepared by students, there was quite the turnout. Almost a hundred people were munching on free pizza, candy, popcorn and snacks, and purchasing glasses of wine and beer from the cash bar. The addition of the cash bar had everyone mingling and networking before and after the films were screened.

There were nine films screened at the event and most of the filmmakers took part in a little Q&A afterward where they discussed inspirations for their work. All the filmmakers delivered intelligent answers that offered some more insight into each of their films.

Jonny Micay’s brilliant short documentary Life Via Rail was one of the standout short films screened at the festival. The film mixed live action and animation seamlessly, while telling a true and charming Canadian story. Other notable films of the night included The North Woods by Adam Bartley, a short documentary about alleged alien abductions in northern New Hampshire; Your Mileage May Vary by Hollie Olenik, a touching LGBTQ+ story that isn’t often seen depicted on screen and handled with such maturity.

The only award of the night, the People’s Choice Award voted by the audience, was given to the raunchy comedy The Heirloom by A.J. Franchi and Vincent Martino.

Overall, the Gen Zed Film Festival was a resounding success and I look forward to attending the festival again in the future. Congratulations to all the filmmakers and organizers for a memorable night!

- Vincent

This is my 8th year being on the jury for the Zoom Student Film Festival, which makes me the longest standing juror (unless someone proves me otherwise) for this event held at Earl Haig Secondary for the past 23 years. Every year I get asked by the current slate of students producing the event and despite the age gap between myself and the filmmakers growing each passing year, I love being a part of it. It's where I discover gems like Phoebe's Declassified Guide To Unwanted Pickups along with some great talent like Kassy Gascho, Max Shoham, Dylan Vogel, just to name a few.

Each year, the jury has to decide on some awards such as Best Director, Most Promising Filmmaker (one each for junior and senior grades), and so forth with a lot of contenders in the major categories. It was great to see Max Shoham receive Best Animation for Hearth, which is a strong contrast narratively and stylistically to his other piece, The Giant and the Moon, also featured at Zoom. Max Freeman is barely through halfway his high school journey but he made the audience laugh with his punchline piece, Survival.

The heavy hitter of the night goes to Cole London's My Fair Robot, picking up Best Cinematography, Best Picture, and Audience Choice for being a charming, hilarious, and one of the few well-produced shorts that featured a traditional story with a beginning, middle, and end.

Not everyone could make it out to North York on a week night to take in a high school screening of student films but if any of the above titles interest you, keep your eyes peeled because you never know what could end up screening at Toronto Youth Shorts 2019.

-Henry

*still from My Fair Robot by Cole London

After another spring of university and college screenings, I’d like to report the obvious: student filmmakers love fake blood. And it’s easy to see why. From Psycho (in which chocolate syrup was used – since it popped better on black and white film stock) to Carrie, fake blood has been ingrained in the visual grammar of film since the end of the Hays Code era. But is it always worth the mess?

One of the questions that comes up again and again among the TYS programming staff is, “Was it necessary?” The “it” in this case isn’t always the blood itself, but rather the on-screen violence.

As a rule, we don’t shy away from including graphic imagery in the TYS programmes, but we do consider depictions of strong violence through the lens of whether or not they serve their films in an artistic way. Admittedly, as with the rest of film criticism, that’s a vague criterion, but we apply it with the best of intentions. Some of the questions we ask are:

• Does it make narrative sense? Is it a logical development to the story, or is it merely an easy (though messy) way to wrap things up?
• Does it have an emotional purpose beyond shock value?
• Does it fetishize a particular type of violence? Who is on the receiving end, and how does the film ask us to feel about that?

These are all difficult questions for us as programmers to address, so we nearly always err on the side of giving filmmakers the benefit of the doubt.

But, before your next climactic scene turns into a bloodbath, ask yourself whether all the corn syrup is necessary. Your actors will thank you.  
 
-Paul

iOne of the perks of being a Festival Director for a youth-based film festival is gaining access to a lot of work made by students over the past year. Myself along with our programming team have been attending different screenings these last few weeks to see what we can expect to come our way for this year's festival. It’s always interesting to see the distinct styles that those from each school employ. Here are some thoughts based on the screenings I've been to this year.

University of Toronto
The film community at U of T is thriving thanks to the Hart House Film Board and the Raindance on Campus groups. Though they may not have the same resources as their film school counterparts, their productions have no lack of heart. While the premise is a bit out of left field, there was chemistry in Edy Garfinkel's Blowdryin' Sunday. Carla Veldman's Uncle Antlers memorized audiences despite some faulty playback on the Hart House computers. I was hoping to see more from those in Mississauga due to their partnership with Sheridan College. Perhaps at Toronto Youth Shorts this year!
 
York University
I attended three screenings at York and some of these films really made that trek on the Finch bus worth it. From their second year, I found the documentaries to be strongest with The Friendly Giant by Mariah Enarson, Yes I Can by Lalo Nixon-Pasten, and Salamander by Aidan Cheeatow being exceptionally notable for presenting engaging characters with a vulnerability that audiences can empathize with. Same goes for Last Step by Rachel D’Ercole, produced from the third year group. Salmonella by Michele DesLauriers showed a lot of charm with its art direction, colour palette, and kooky characters.
 
The content coming out of 4th year truly impressed me, with Tidal Waves by Kristina Wang being amongst one of my favourite dramas across all the film screenings I’ve attended so far. Emmerek Van Leur’s Tinder Dad rightfully solicited laughs from the crowd and it was crazy to see how much they were able to get away with. And despite being 18 minutes long, there was no lull in the bittersweet story of Christian Harrison's Moods Like Jazz.
 
Humber College
I had the pleasure to see work from the graduating classes of both their Film and Television Production diploma program and their Film and Media Production degree program at the Bloor Cinema. This is the first time in years that I was able to directly compare the work between the two. Some of the best films from both programs are stories based on being an outsider or being different. Both Stall by Ramon Lapshin and Distance by Roya Edalatmand are effective relationship dramas that hit the right emotional notes. Interestingly enough, both programs ended on films about someone who is terminally ill. Both Jacob is Ready by Tatevik Galstyan and Severance by Katie Hill feature beautiful landscape photography to parallel the inner character conflict.
 
OCAD University
Event organizers and filmmaking collaborators, Sanchita Mitra, Jessica Sinopoli, and Molly Shears produced the Next Exit Film Festival, giving me a taste of OCAD's Integrated Media program. In addition to three narrative films that they collaborated on in different roles, the screening featured a lot of video art. Stylistically speaking, they stand out from the rest of the film schools due to the differences in their curriculum and resources. Father’s Story by Sook Jung features still images that are hauntingly beautiful, with a direction that is very different compared to the work seen in industry-based animation schools. As expected of OCAD, a lot of the work do not adhere to traditional formats and artists are more free to experiment. Now that our good friend, Jamie McMillan, is back from overseas to run Augmented Cinema again, I can’t wait to see what other OCAD U projects are out there.
 
I’ll be going to RUFF this week as well and they definitely have some shoes to fill when it comes to my expectations. But if the quality of past content is any indication, I’m sure it’ll be just as amazing. Hopefully we can show some of these films to you at Toronto Youth Shorts this year!

-Henry

The Bloor Cinema is one of my favourite spots in the city to catch a movie. Inside and out, it feels like the kind of authentic, old-school cinema that is becoming increasingly rare. It’s definitely a throwback, which, as it turns out, unexpectedly made it the perfect home for this year’s Spotlight Charity Film Festival.

Now in its third year, Spotlight celebrates the best of local high school filmmaking, handing out awards in the categories of documentary, narrative, and experimental. Spotlight also has some serious philanthropic heft, with this year’s festival raising $8000 for Sketch.

Apart from the social good aspect, though, Spotlight also has a lot of artistic merit to offer. This year’s award winners – picked by a judging panel of industry professionals – were all maturely executed and high-quality offerings from such young filmmakers.

I’m not sure exactly what I expected when I walked into a screening of films made by high school students, but it definitely wasn’t an experimental animated documentary about vintage Hollywood starlet Eartha Kitt. But indeed, James Perry’s You Must Think About That One Again was a standout of the night, bringing Kitt’s fiery and still-relevant monologue on female independence to life through elegant typography and an arresting animation style.

Elsewhere, I saw films that prominently featured Super 8 home movies, old family photographs, and even an old stereo receiver with magical time-traveling abilities. Maybe I’m just a jaded 20-something who will soon be rambling about “the good old days”, but I did find it heartening to see a lot of these young filmmakers looking back and celebrating technology and art that is several decades older than they are.

However, the night wasn’t all about odes to analog technology. One of the other highlights was Carol Nguyen’s This Home is Not Empty, a stunningly filmed examination of intricate 3D paper models that rightfully won the experimental category. Elsewhere, Tristan Surman’s stylish A Dying Man Named Steve tied for first in the narrative category and proved to be an audience favourite thanks to its biting, blackly comic story of a terminally ill young man who just wants to find a home for his unlikeable dog once he’s gone.

In terms of raising money for a great cause and celebrating the next wave of Toronto filmmakers, the night was all-around fun and hopeful. It’s always great to see so much young talent on display.

-Colleen