Films & Events

Waterloo will now have its own semi-pro men's hockey team, thus expelling the amateur women's leagues from the arena. To avenge their lost ice time, an impulsive hockey player and a ruthless octogenarian—a former derby champion—have a plan: recruit the city's disenfranchised and form an underground roller derby team. With the help of the Women's Club, they will prove that women's sports can also inspire crowds and that sisterhood is the ultimate act of resistance.

Chandler Levack’s widely anticipated follow-up to her directorial debut, I Like Movies (TIFF ’22), stars Barbie Ferreira as a young music critic writing for a male-centric indie publication who takes a leap into adulthood, even though she is little prepared. With shades of Almost Famous — both feature Jay Baruchel and follow a music journalist — Mile End Kicks, set in 2011 Montreal, instead offers a feminine point of view. Ferreira shines as Grace Pine, a driven though easily distracted 23-year-old. She leaves her quirky parents’ home for a shared apartment found on Craigslist to devote herself to writing the next great book in the 33 1/3 album exploration series. Hers will be on the iconic Alanis Morissette opus Jagged Little Pill. Loft parties introduce Grace to two paramours. Unfortunately, they are members of the same rock band, Bone Patrol. And instead of sequestering herself away to complete her draft, she uses her music industry know-how to get in with the band as their publicist. Through wine-fuelled poetry readings and other ill-advised choices, Grace is in the trenches of self-discovery. Mistakes are made and rent is owed but, along the way Mile End Kicks gives audiences a new romantic comedy to fall in love with. - KELLY BOUTSALIS, TIFF

Fearing they won't be believed, two young Indigenous women go on the run after one's defense of the other results in a violent attack against a police officer.

Questioning the suspicious death of his mother, a university professor and his enigmatic gardener descend into a hypnotic maze of mirrors and memories. As family secrets surface and painful truths emerge, they spiral toward a devastating reckoning with the darkness lurking within us all.