Two down: TIFF 2017

The Toronto International Film Festival is in full swing.

Friday I saw The Final Year, about the foreign policy team of Barack Obama's government in 2016. Sad ending, of course, but really, really interesting.

That's Samantha Power, right there! (second from the left) The best part of the program was listening to her and Ben Rhodes (left) talk after the movie. They, of course, were disappointed and shocked at last year's election results, and see friends in the civil and foreign service struggling to work in the new government. But somehow they seemed optimistic that people will return to "caring and trying," as they said. This movie certainly showed them caring and trying.

Saturday I actually bought a full-price ticket to see a program of shorts. All these films dealt with people trying, and interacting, and sometimes succeeding, sometimes not.

All the directors of the shorts

Fifteen was about a boy in Cairo whose parents have been in an accident, and he finds himself looking after his baby brother. (We were assured that they used a doll for the motorcycle scene!) For Nonna Anna was a really quite moving picture of a family: the old grandma who needs help with a lot of personal care; the mom, busy but loving; the girl Chris, born Christopher, who is smart and patient and honest. The President's Visit is about Lebanon, and politics, and people. Bird deals with parents and caring and freedom.... Others in the program were Grandmother (sad) and Still Water Runs Deep (also sad). Drop by Drop was animated, and a bit sad...  Creatura Dada was not sad!

Before I went to the movie, we had a walk along King Street with all the fans and maybe even movie stars (whom we didn't recognize if they were there!) and people lining up to have their pictures taken in front of the TIFF sign. Note the lineup at the right! So we just took a picture of the back of the sign...

But we can flip it and if you don't look at the sign in the background, it's fine.