New Release : Sundowners (Opening August 25th)

A Must-See: Diamond Tongues

How's Pavan Moondi and Brian Robertson's Diamond Tongues? Fucking great! It's a lot more polished than their previous film Everyday Is Like Sunday and it confirms the duo's ability to work with actors, direct and edit. It's the story of Edith, a young actress in Toronto, who struggles to move on after a break-up and to find work. The lead actress Leah Goldstein, from the band July Talk, steals the show as she brings a vulnerability and charm to the more selfish and unlikable character. And the music composers Brendan Canning and Ohad Benchetrit layer over the film an impressive selection of Canadian indie music that would make any other mainstream feature film jealous.

Similar to Matt Johnson's Nirvana The Band it's about the struggle for an artistic breakthrough in a city that's not always welcoming. (Johnson, whose upcoming Operation Avalanche is still awaiting a premiere announcement, even has a great small role in the titular experimental film-within-the-film). Diamond Tongues asks questions about the creation of media in Toronto, and in Canada in general, as Edith struggles to get a role on a low budget horror film Blood Sausage while all of her friends are either acting in features, writing scripts, doing web-series etc. Edith’s problems include not getting called back from auditions, an agent that's not helpful, and an acting coach that just wants to sleep with her. But Moondi and Robertson raises the film beyond the realistic as there's a boil-water advisory sub-plot that pushes Diamond Tongues closer to the surreal and reminds one of another Toronto apocalypse-like film, Don McKellar’s Last Night.

Calum Marsh has compared Diamond Tongues to the New York DIY films and there are definitively similarities to Robert Greene's Actress and Nathan Silver's Soft in the Head, as well as to, just for the theater scenes, Matt Porterfield's I Used to be Darker.

The film showcases the cool spots of downtown Toronto and its bar scenes and neighborhoods are extremely recognizable.

Diamond Tongues is Pavan Moondi and Brian Robertson's best film and the Toronto film of 2015.

New Posts: Blake Willians and Pavan Moondi

"Against this, the works that most clearly mark his maturation, his anaglyph 3D films made since 2012, are built through more filmic impulses, through editorial strategies, in juxtapositions and apparently heterodox sequencing, given coherence by Williams’ overarching themes. At the time of my writing, his anaglyph works comprise a suite of three films: Many a Swan (2012), in which the folding processes of origami are mirrored in a broad array of natural formations and human contrivances; Baby Blue (2013), in which multidimensional depth is forced on its images, images otherwise governed by threatening, monocular presences suggesting celestial, earthly, and fantastic sources; and Red Capriccio (2014), in which unusual consonances are formed between receding highways, dance floors, security lights, doughnut maneuvers, and the blinding red and blue strobe of a siren light on a police cruiser."

Follow to the link to read Stephen Broomer's newest Speaking Lightly interview, after a great one with Clint Ens, with Blake Williams. Broomer is also the subject of a great new book The Transformable Moment (CFI).

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Pavan Moondi and Brian Robertson are taking their new feature film, Diamond Tongues, to the Slamdance Film Festival, and for this great event the National Post are publishing their diary of the experience. Here are the first two entries: I, II.

Post-Grad Dilemmas

Everyday Is Like Sunday, which is named after a Morrissey song, is a breath of fresh air. It's about a depressed post-graduate, who is trying to find a job, and his roommates, a couple whose relationship is on the rocks. Its portrayal is free of the condescension and use of stereotypes that are so prevalent elsewhere. Instead, it attempts to honestly portray the characters with depth and generosity, with the end result being somewhere between Cassavetes and Curb Your Enthusiasm. The performances by its lead actors David Dineen-Porter, Adam Gurfinkel, and Coral Osborne are all really good (especially considering none of them are professional), and the local Toronto settings - whether a shared apartment, a park, or one of the city's many bars - provide a social setting for the actors to respond to. Its short-comings are typical of many independent features (e.g. awkward ADR, dramatic annoyances) and one can talk about its production problems, but it is the positive qualities that outweigh the faults. After a sold-out premiere at the Carlton, its great after-party, and positive reception in the local press, the point is that Everyday Is Like Sunday is a film that got noticed and its director Pavan Moondi is someone to look out for. With Every Day is Like Sunday the Toronto DIY now has its Heartbeats.

Everyday Is Like Sunday at the Carlton (Aug 16 - 22)

Everyday is Like Sunday will have a week-long theatrical run at the Carlton Cinema from Friday August 16th to Thursday 22nd. For more information on Everyday is Like Sunday see its website.

Recommended Reading:

• Everyday Is Like Sunday, but Every Day on Set Felt Like Monday by Alan Jones (Toronto Standard)