Canadian immigrants are showcasing stories through film with audiences in their new home

Hordes of adoring film fans lined up on King Street West in downtown Toronto, rechristened Festival Street for the duration of the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, which was held from Sept. 5 to 15.
They were cheering on their favourite stars, including Hollywood royalty like Angelina Jolie, Denzel Washington, young Australian sensation Jacob Elordi, activist and icon Malala Yousafzai, Korean superstar Hyun-Bin and iconic singer Bruce Springsteen, who all sparkled on their red carpets and indulged their fans with selfies and autographs.
As the excitement unfolded on the streets, the festival showcased a diverse array of 278 films. Among them, Canadian films made by notable immigrant talent garnered praise from critics and audiences alike.
China-born Johnny Ma’s The Mother and The Bear, a touching tale of a Korean widow flying to Winnipeg to care for her comatose daughter, received a standing ovation from its audience. Ma, who does not speak Korean, told the audience after the screening that his unfamiliarity with Korean culture was never a factor because the story was universal.
“I saw my mother through the character of this woman. So, it just felt right to have this woman telling the story I wanted to. The fact that I’m not from Winnipeg also didn’t matter for this very same reason,” he said.
Another heartwarming story about a family navigating an unfamiliar culture was depicted in Oscar-winning animator and Norway-born Torill Kove’s charming film, Maybe Elephants, which was inspired by her own experience of living in Nairobi, Kenya, as a teen.
“In our hometown, in Norway, we were allowed to do what we wanted as long as we were home by supper, but in Nairobi, we had to navigate an enormous sprawling city where our parents’ freewheeling parenting approach was neither practical nor safe,” she said.
“In the middle of all this, we were also just teens being teens, making new friends from all over the world, learning to speak English, exploring an exciting city, going dancing, driving around listening to music, skipping school, experiencing falling in love one day and a broken heart the next,” she said.
Kove was cognizant of the fact that she was making a film set in Kenya and consulted the local Kenyan community during the process.
“I had some concerns about telling a story based in Kenya because I’m not Kenyan. Throughout the production, we were in dialogue with Kenyan Canadians in Montreal, and with their help, I think we managed to set a high bar for respectfulness for the film’s location. Our question was always: What would a Kenyan audience think?” she said.
England-born Jason Buxton’s thriller Sharp Corner, filmed in Halifax, kept its audience on the edges of their seats. The film tells the story of a couple traumatized by car accidents that take place with alarming regularity on the front lawn of their suburban home, with the husband developing an unhealthy obsession about being prepared for the next accident.
TIFF is never without its controversies and this time, Russian-born filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova’s documentary Russians at War was at the centre of one. The documentary is told from the perspective of disillusioned Russian soldiers on the frontlines of the war in Ukraine.
Large protests by members of the Ukrainian community in Toronto, who called the film propaganda aiming to humanise Russian soldiers, along with security threats forced festival organizers to cancel public screenings of the documentary.
Exploring identity and individualism, France-born Halima Elkhatabi has the special distinction of having two of her films showcased at TIFF this year. Her short film, Fantas, and a documentary, Living Together.
In her eye-opening documentary, the filmmaker portrays the life of young people in Montreal looking for accommodation at a time when the housing shortage is at its worst in years. The filmmaker found her interviewees through Facebook ads and was surprised by their openness, especially post-pandemic.
The documentary explores themes of identity, housing and shared living, highlighting the vulnerability of tenants and the power dynamics with landlords.
“I was deeply interested in the concept of home — having a place to live safely and securely. This interest was sparked by the housing crisis in Montreal and other large cities, where many people are forced to share their homes with strangers,” she said.
“It’s not just young people in their 20s facing this; I encountered people in their 40s and 50s too, who, after a divorce or due to being single, find it challenging to afford living alone. I realised there was a unique story to tell about the relationships between tenants, something rarely explored in documentaries,” she said.
Elkhatabi who came to Quebec from France 24 years ago remembers being pleasantly surprised by how welcoming people were here. “At that time, everyone seemed genuinely curious and friendly, which was quite different from what I had experienced in France,” she said.
She finds that things changed after the September 11 attacks, which brought about new laws and political shifts, particularly around immigration. For now, she is looking forward to reconnecting with her culture through her work.
“As I get older, I find myself wanting to make more documentaries about my own roots, like in Morocco. My parents are from there. I realize now that I don’t know as much about my own culture as I’d like, and there’s this urgency to explore and document it before it’s too late,” she said.