Toronto Film Review Presents : That DMX Feeling

“Of all the recent American films that were set in Las Vegas, Showgirls was the only one that was real – take my word for it. I who have never set foot in the place!” - Jacques Rivette 

A story recently broke that the city of Vancouver now defines “affordable” rent as $1,750 and $2,505 per month for a one and two bedroom apartment respectively. For a city with a population of well under a million people, one gets the sense that living there must be an experience of extreme alienation, at least for those belonging to a less than affluent background. Would it not seem that the city is not outwardly pushing you out if you’re not a condo-residing hotshot? 

Though forgive this writer for making any big claims about Vancouver, as he’ll admit he hasn’t visited since he was a young child. Yet the three films being shown as part of the latest screening in the Toronto Film Review Presents, Neil Bahadur’s From Nine to Nine, Sophy Romvari’s It’s Him and Heather McDonald’s ReZoning Love, paint a vivid picture for anyone who’s never even been. 

Forming somewhat of a collective, the three millennial directors dramatize one of the most filmed yet not depicted (well with the exception of maybe um, Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever) cities in the last thirty years of cinema, and put it through the lens of youth escaping trauma, or rather the painful everyday experience of living paycheque to paycheque. As taking us through fried food joints, movie theatres, parks, libraries, sketchy audition rooms, malls and euphorically in Bahadur’s film, “da club”, we get a sense of the lives lived by a greater portion of the 647,540 who call Van home than we’d care to think. - Ethan Vestby