The largest annual celebration of international cinema in the region
MSPIFF43 Volume 4
Writing about film for more than ten years has allowed me to cover movies from blockbusters to indies. It’s also given me the privilege of attending major events like TIFF in Toronto and Sundance in Utah. While traveling around the country is nice, it’s the ultimate thrill to be on my home turf, proudly showing off my Minnesota roots and covering the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival (MSPIFF).Â
In its 43rd year, MSPIFF remains a formidable presence in the international film festival circuit. Held at The Main Cinema from April 11 – 25, it has become respected for its meticulously curated selection of world cinema and its exceptional hospitality.  In addition to screening 200+ films, they offer panels, talkbacks, hosted events, and opportunities to hear artists discuss their work. Each screening becomes a singular celebration of artistic innovation, all tailored to engage our discerning audiences in the Twin Cities.
Attending MSPIFF resonates with me personally, and it’s not just the comfort of returning to my bed each night and celebrating international stories. The amplification of voices in underrepresented communities and cultures makes this a vibrant two weeks every Spring.
Follow along for capsule reviews of the films I’ve seen at the festival.
Lies We Tell
An orphaned heiress Maud, still a minor, ignores the concerns of her late father’s trustees and agrees to be the ward of his estranged brother, only to find that the rumors about Silas’s shadowy and possibly murderous past are true and then some.
Ah, here it is. There’s always one at every festival. The film that catches you off guard and shoots to the top of your favorites. I wondered when it would show up, and LIES WE TELL is the surprise slam-dunk of MSPIFF43 for me.
Adapted from Uncle Silas, the gothic mystery by Irish writer J. Sheridan Le Fanu published in 1864, director Lisa Mulcahy’s film is 90 minutes of razor-sharp dialogue that’s been intelligently recentered for a female perspective by screenwriter Elisabeth Gooch.
An orphaned teenage heiress becomes the ward of her uncle, who moves into her large country estate with his two children and imperious governess. Initially expecting comfort from her relatives, she discovers that her uncle has returned with a wicked plan that puts her in grave danger. Despite her young age and the limited power of women in that era, she fights back against the barbarians who have taken over her home, using the tricks that have trapped her to turn the tables and protect herself.
This movie plays exceptionally well in every way, exuding confidence from the first frame of Eleanor Bowman’s gorgeous cinematography and reflected in Joanne O’Brien’s detailed costumes. Agnes O’Casey (The Miracle Club) gives a performance that burns white hot, often seething under a still expression while horrible men seek to one-up her. While the film’s fast pace adds to its overall excitement and entertainment, it can overwhelm, causing some of the more nuanced dialogue to be missed. However, this is a minor issue considering the film’s numerous strengths, which climax in a stunningly staged, creepy final act. Keep your eyes open for this one.
Copa '71
Told by the pioneering women who participated, this is the extraordinary story of the 1971 Women's Soccer World Cup, a tournament witnessed by record crowds that has been written out of sporting history - until now.
The evolution of organized sports and their institutions to be more inclusive of all genders has been slow, but progress is made each time a new contract is signed. With women’s football popularity at an all-time high worldwide, the timing is perfect for a documentary like COPA 71’, one of three recently released docs covering a rarely-told chapter in sports history.
Interviewing players from six teams across Europe, Mexico, and South America, directors Rachel Ramsay and James Erskine shed light on a privately-funded international tournament that took place in Mexico in 1971. The documentary features recently unearthed footage of the event that had been hidden away for nearly fifty years, including the problematic erasure of the tournament from public memory. The matches were not recognized by FIFA, as they shared similar views about women in sports with the male-dominated football federations in the countries the teams represented. However, these matches served as unifying experiences for both the players on the field and the fans in the stands.
The directors don’t need to search through a lot of footage to showcase the female athletes as exceptional sportspeople. The game clips and interviews, even after all these years, serve as a reminder that these players are fierce competitors with a genuine passion for the sport. In listening to the recaps, audiences will likely be moved by the wins and losses, with Italy’s players proving to be an entertainingly rowdy team then and now. Juggling interviews, introducing new people, and keeping up with the subtitles can prove to be quite tricky. However, the footage is so spectacular that it hardly matters what you hear, as long as you travel back in time to witness this game-changing event along with 110,000 cheering fans at the final. I could easily see Netflix swooping in, picking this one up, and taking it to a championship stage.
The Electric Indian
Henry Boucha was a legendary hockey player from Warroad, MN and member of the Ojibwe Nation, playing in the NHL, for the Minnesota North Stars and Detroit Red Wings, and on the 1972 USA Olympic hockey team before he was assaulted on the ice, resulting in a debilitating eye injury and a controversial court case. Temporarily lost without his hockey career, he was forced to start again and find his true self off the ice.
There comes a point in a festival where you start choosing films less for their marquee value and more for how they fit into your schedule. 99% of the time, that’s when you stumble across a movie that should have been on your radar from the start, and in the waning days of #MSPIFF43, I’ve come across a few gems. I wound up at a late afternoon screening of THE ELECTRIC INDIAN partly because of its runtime (57 minutes) and somewhat because one of my colleagues is from Warroad, MN, where Olympic hockey player Henry Boucha began his career on the ice. This documentary, produced for TPT (Twin Cities PBS) and directed by Leya Hale, has been in the works since Boucha first broached the idea in 2018.
Working with Hale to select which moments to feature in his life growing up in Warroad and his time as a professional hockey player, Boucha is candid, reflective, and humble but recognizes his contributions to the sport. It is evident from how Hale shot and edited her film (skillfully, I might add) that this documentary aims to uplift the viewer and avoid dwelling on Boucha’s difficult childhood in a community where he could not embrace his Ojibwe culture. Although he hints at the bitter disappointment he initially felt when his professional career was ended due to a cheap shot to the eye by a player on an opposing team he had previously gone into a scuffle with, there is no attempt to use the spotlight to condemn his attacker.
Instead, Hale uses a variety of old film clips and present-day interviews to showcase Boucha’s resilience and dedication. Unfortunately, Boucha passed away in September 2023 before he could see the film warmly received in a theater. However, he did watch a near-final cut of the film and, according to Hale, was pleased with it. Is it as deep as it could have gone as a true investigative documentary? Not really. But considering that it was a project Boucha worked on to tell his story how he wanted, it ticks all the right boxes.
You can watch the film via the link to TPT above.
Janet Planet
In rural Western Massachusetts, 11-year-old Lacy spends the summer of 1991 at home, enthralled by her own imagination and the attention of her mother, Janet. As the months pass, three visitors enter their orbit, all captivated by Janet.
The Chatty Kathy and Talking Tina behind me spent the first ten minutes of JANET PLANET complaining over their breath that they couldn’t hear what the actors were saying. This was after they spent the ten minutes before the movie arguing if the movie was PLANET JANET, JANET’S PLANET, or JANET PLANETS. The man beside me even asked the staff to turn the movie up. The thing is, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Baker (in her feature film directing debut) has made a quiet movie that doesn’t need actors to shout or raise their voices because not everyone yells when speaking to someone a foot away from them. (I take that back; the women behind me in the movie did.)
Starring Julianne Nicholson as an earthy single mom living in rural Massachusetts who does acupuncture out of her home in between being the best friend of her daughter Lacey (Zoe Ziegler, in a lightning bolt of a performance) and occasional girlfriend to men who are beneath her, this is a movie that is OK with quiet, silence, and stillness. The movie allows characters time to think before speaking, creating emotional depth. Despite being somewhat slow-paced, the mother-daughter relationship is unequivocally moving, a stirring example of how superb acting and well-written dialogue can make a lasting impression.
Nicholson (Blonde) and Ziegler’s performances are truly remarkable, and Baker’s writing is refreshing and surprising. Adding Sophie Okonedo‘s character as Nicholson’s old friend adds an exciting dynamic to the plot, helps create a well-rounded story, and gives the family more people to bounce off of. Overall, the film is an excellent example of quality filmmaking. It may feel like a coda gilds the lily a tad, but it allows Baker to utilize Ziegler’s ability to convey pages of dialogue with just her facial expressions…and it leaves the viewer floating out of the theater in orbit.
The Successor
When his father dies suddenly of a heart attack, Ellias, an up-and-coming Parisian fashion designer, is forced to return home only to discover secrets so horrifying they threaten to drag him from his gilded pedestal.
I saw this French-Canadian-Belgian production as a late-night film at the end of a very long day. A very long day. All I wanted was to sit back, relax, and enjoy a movie that wasn’t out to educate me (documentary), move me to tears (Holocaust drama), or insist I track a large ensemble of characters over several years (historical epic). Thankfully, THE SUCCESSOR is a tightly wound commercial thriller with a tiny cast and the bare minimum of a plot thread that locks in your attention early and may keep you guessing for a good portion of its 107 minutes, even if the road it winds up on becomes frustratingly long(winded).
Ellias, the new artistic director of a Parisian fashion house, suffers from panic attacks that turn out to be chest pains. He consults a physician who advises him to check his family history of heart problems. He hasn’t spoken to his father in years but soon after learns he has passed away and travels to Canada to settle his estate. While there, he discovers a locked door in his father’s house…never a good sign. To say more about director Xavier Legrand’s twisty thriller would spoil the fun and twitchy tension, but go in as blindly as possible to ensure nothing is revealed beforehand.
Legrand’s film adaptation of Alexandre Postel’s novel is compelling in its development, keeping the audience off-balance throughout the first two acts. Marc-André Grondin is a bundle of nervous energy as a son returning home to say goodbye to a father he never had closure with. Grondin’s portrayal is impressive, although he tends to overdo emotional overload to the point where audience members laughed. Speaking of laughter, the film’s final shot is a humdinger, but bad acting and melodrama ruined the previous ten minutes. Several genuinely frightening moments will scare even the bravest horror fans, making it worth watching for that fact alone.
High & Low - John Galliano
In fashion circles, the name John Galliano is fraught with contrasts: one of the highest profile fashion designers, an icon of British culture, and a man whose antisemitic outburst brought it all down. High & Low: John Galliano is Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin Macdonald’s gripping examination of one of the most influential people in fashion and cultural history.
As the world grapples with how to address the public figures they have witnessed fall from grace, it’s important to question their eventual path to forgiveness. After all, if we can’t learn from our mistakes, when can the healing begin?
That’s the eventual question director Kevin Macdonald gets around to exploring in HIGH & LOW – JOHN GALLIANO, an intimate look at the Enfant terrible fashion designer’s spectacular rise, dramatic fall, and the challenging path toward rehabilitation after his well-publicized antisemitic comments.
Through candid interviews with John Galliano and previously unseen footage well edited into a whirling dervish of color and reminders of Galliano’s visionary work, viewers are offered a unique glimpse into the struggles and successes Galliano faces as he works to rebuild his reputation and career. While Macdonald’s (Whitney) crafted a compelling documentary that attempts to take a somewhat objective view (as objective as a doc produced by Condé Nast, a conglomerate with leaders who gave their support to Galliano throughout his career), it does tend to want to humanize first, explain second the actions of someone who had it all and was overwhelmed by their vices.
Forgiveness and second chances always make for grand narratives, though, and Macdonald’s an experienced enough filmmaker (both in documentary and big-budget studio films) to bring a poignancy to this catwalk.
Blaga's Lessons
A teacher falls victim to a phone scam that robs her of her life savings, then realizes that there is no way to get the money back. The tables turn as cash begins rolling in as she transforms into a scammer herself.
It’s not nice to scam older adults. If one theme is emerging in film in 2024, that’s the central mantra I’ve picked up. In January, I saw The Beekeeper, starring Jason Statham, getting revenge for a senior neighbor whose bank account was drained by an online fraud. Then, at Sundance, June Squibb’s starring role in Thelma introduced us to a wily nonagenarian taking a road trip by scooter to find the bums who tricked her into sending them cash.
Now we have BLAGA’S LESSONS, a terse Bulgarian-German drama that feels like a mash-up of the best elements lifted from those earlier films. Uncompromising and ultimately devastatingly bleak (I did mention it was Bulgarian and German, right?), it features a remarkable performance by Eli Skorcheva as a recently widowed retired teacher making ends meet by giving language lessons to immigrants. Wanting to bury her deceased husband before the 40th day of his death, as is the tradition of their religion, Blaga has moved funds and property around to buy an elaborate tombstone and a choice plot of land for his final resting place as well as hers. Those funds become part of a scam that sounds so false that it’s hard to believe a cautious and intelligent woman wouldn’t question the situation more before handing over all her cash and some jewelry. Humiliated when her community, friends, and family find out what she’s done and with a deadline looming before her hold on the land wears off, Blaga is backed into a corner with a lack of options to free herself. Desperate times…
Skorcheva is mesmerizing to watch, especially as she grows more resolute in her disillusionment with the kindness of others. Director and co-writer Stephan Komandarev’s film is almost two hours long but could benefit from trimming about 10 minutes for a more fast-paced experience. However, if you enjoy a slowly developing plot that gradually becomes more suspenseful, the movie will keep you on the edge of your seat throughout.
Ghostlight
When a construction worker unexpectedly joins a local theater's production of Romeo and Juliet, the drama onstage starts to mirror his own life.
(Republished from my Sundance review from 1/18/24)
When a construction worker unexpectedly joins a local theater’s production of Romeo and Juliet, the drama onstage starts to mirror his own life. Tender, raw, surprising, and filled with moments of organically grown humor that could only spring from the seasoned pros directors Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson have cast, GHOSTLIGHT is the heart-on-its-sleeve weepie audiences brought their Kleenex to Park City for.
There are some terrifically played emotional beats in this (I was choking back sobs early. Like, first act early.), and while the cast is uniformly excellent in every way, this is star Keith Kupferer’s show from the quiet start to its blazing finish. With his wife and daughter playing his onscreen family, Kupferer goes on a journey that’s honestly played and fully lived in. O’Sullivan’s script offers dignity instead of digs at the amateur theater troupe Kupferer joins, and when he winds up playing Romeo opposite the exquisite Dolly De Leon’s Juliet, it becomes an opportunity for the blue-collar worker to heal a wound that has grown infected and is slowly poisoning his life.
A celebrated actress who had flown under the radar for years, De Leon arrived on the scene with 2022’s Triangle of Sadness, but with GHOSTLIGHT she’s established herself as a formidable leading lady. Edited to give it expert shape and directed with intelligent freedom, this is proof on film of the healing power of theater. Acquired by IFC, I’m hoping they can give this moving film the release (and awards push) it deserves.
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