When TIFF grande fromage Cameron Bailey introduced writer-director Annemarie Jacir this afternoon for the premiere of her new feature, Palestine 36, he mentioned other films of hers that had been programmed at TIFF in years past. When she came out to introduce her film, joined by members of her cast, her crew, and her producers, she said this one was the hardest to get made due to what’s happening in her Palestinian homeland right now.
It’s a historical drama that starts like a western — complete with masked men on horseback intercepting a train — and finishes as a war movie. It describes what was going on in Palestine in 1936 and ’37 from the perspective of the Palestinians under the boot heel of the British Empire while Jewish settlers arrived in the country, claiming land Palestinian farmers had worked for generations around Jerusalem, now known as the West Bank. One of those farmers takes the train to Tel Aviv-Jaffa to work with a wealthy, urban Palestinian family who own a newspaper.
The urban/rural perspective is interesting — we also get to know English bureaucrats and soldiers tasked with staunching the uprising to colonial rule — but the cast is sprawling, which is to the detriment of the film’s focus. Fewer characters might’ve provided more emotional investment in their fate, which is looming and dark. This might make a compelling double-feature with Michael Winterbottom’s Shoshana, set in the same era, which screened at TIFF in 2023 but never had a North American release. Palestine 36 will be the Palestinian entry to the Best International category at the Oscars in 2026.
Annemarie Jacir
The director, cast, and producers of Palestine 36 at #TIFF
John Candy: I Like Me is a tribute to the late, great Canadian funnyman who died at age 43 in 1994. It’s a wildly affectionate love-in from all his old friends and colleagues, including Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, Bill Murray, Dave Thomas, Steve Martin, Macaulay Culkin and Tom Hanks, whose son Colin directs.
It’s lovely to hear that nobody can find anything bad to say about Candy — Murray stretches a little, but fails. The testimonials are affecting — especially the anecdote told by Conan O’Brien, who met Candy just once — and to see all the clips from his well-remembered, and lesser, feature films. By the end my teeth were starting to ache from a super-manipulative score, but it’s hard to otherwise find fault in this documentary of a performer who clearly deserved all his flowers. It’ll be on Amazon Prime in October.
