The 49th Toronto International Film Festival unveiled August 8 the documentaries selected for its Wavelengths secton. These comprise four feature docs, including Chapters two and three of Wang Bing’s Youth trilogy (which come hot from their world prems at Locarno and Venice respectively) and seven shorts of which three are world premieres. These are Archipelago of Earthen Bones – To Bunya(Canada, Australia, Chile) by Malena Szlam; Being John Smith (UK) by John Smith, and Go Between by Chris Kennedy (Canada, Australia).
TIFF Classics also presents the world premiere of the 4K restoration of Frederick Wiseman’s Essene (1972), which follows daily life in a Benedictine monastery as the brothers reconcile the tension between their collectivist religious traditions and contemporary 1970s American individualism.
Wavelength features
- Collective Monologue (Monólogo Colectivo} by Jessica Sarah Rinland. North American premiere. Argentina, United Kingdom | 2024 | 104m | Spanish-language. Wavelengths alumna Jessica Sarah Rinland pursues her ongoing concerns with the relationship between humans and the natural world in this intricate portrait of Buenos Aires zoos and animal shelters.
- exergue – on documenta 14 by Dimitris Athiridis. North American premiere. Greece | 2024 | 848m | English-language. In 14 compulsively watchable episodes (screening over three consecutive days), exergue – on documenta 14 goes behind the scenes at an international contemporary art exhibition to see artist studios visits, negotiations with partners, historical excavations, and the rising ideological tension between creative expression and economic demands.
- Youth (Hard Times) by Wang Bing. North American premiere. France, Luxembourg, Netherlands | 2024 | 226m | Chinese-language. The second chapter of Wang Bing’s monumental Youth series continues to explore the harsh living conditions of young migrant workers in the Yangtze Delta’s garment district while offering a broader perspective on the local economy’s dynamics.
- Youth (Homecoming) by Wang Bing. North American premiere. France, Luxembourg, Netherlands | 2024 | 152m | Chinese-language. The final chapter of Wang Bing’s Youth series follows young textile workers from Zhili workshops to their rural homes for New Year’s celebrations. It’s a powerful documentary and an unprecedented record of the young labour force that fuels the global economy.
Wavelength shorts
- Revolving Rounds by Johann Lurf, Christina Jauernik. North American premiere. Austria | 2024 | 11m | No Dialogue. A collaboration between Wavelengths alum Johann Lurf and artist-academic Christina Jauernik as part of an experimental research project, Revolving Rounds incorporates the vintage Cyclostéréoscope apparatus in an oblique, dizzying immersion into the act of plant growth and cultivation. The film was realized as part of the FWF research project “Unstable Bodies” at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
- The Diary of a Sky by Lawrence Abu Hamdan. North American premiere. Lebanon | 2024 | 45m | Arabic. By turns graceful and incensed, The Diary of a Sky artist — and self-described “private ear” — Lawrence Abu Hamdan employs collaboratively sourced smartphone videos and his typically lucid analysis to examine the sonic terrorism routinely effectuated over the citizens of Lebanon.
- Archipelago of Earthen Bones – To Bunya by Malena Szlam. World premiere. Canada, Australia, Chile | 2024 | 20m | No Dialogue. Forming part of a film constellation that stretches from Chile across the Pacific, in which Malena Szlam trains her camera on far-flung volcanic landscapes — by turns barren and verdant — the dazzling in-camera multiple exposures of Archipelago of Earthen Bones — To Bunya evoke the layered histories of the titular Bunya Mountains in eastern Australia’s Beerwah region, further deepened by sonified atmospheres from artist Lawrence English.
- Exposé du film annonce du film “Scénario” by Jean-Luc Godard. North American Premiere. France, Japan | 2024 | 36m | French. The last completed film by the veteran Jean-Luc Godard, finalized the day before his assisted death in September 2022, Scénarios folds together many of his lifelong inquiries into a precise, sober treatise on art, cinema, language, and death.
- Being John Smith by John Smith. World Premiere. United Kingdom | 2024 | 27m | English. A deceptively wry and deeply felt work by the English avant-garde legend, in which Smith reflects on his life and career by way of his generic name, grappling with his own mortality and legacy, through a minimal, unassuming deployment of text, image, and voice.
- Go Between by Chris Kennedy. World Premiere. Canada, Australia | 2024 | 6m | No Dialogue. Elegant and rigorous, while surprisingly playful, Chis Kennedy’s Go Between observes the Brisbane River, passing boats, and cars on the William Jolly Bridge through an intoxicating play of masking and superimpositions.
- The Sojourn / 暫棲 by Tiffany Sia. Canadian Premiere. United States of America | 2024 | 32m | Mandarin Chinese, English. At once a treatise on landscape, translation, and indigeneity, The Sojourn, from recent Baloise Art Prize winner Tiffany Sia, responds to the work of wuxia legend King Hu by way of his collaborators and the misty mountain panoramas of rural Taiwan.
As recently announced, the TIFF Docs programme will comprise 21 titles from 24 countries across the world, opening with Eddie Huang’s Vice is Broke, in which the former Vice contributor investigates the media company’s rise and fall.
