A supporter holds up a copy of Shame by author Salman Rushdie while attending a reading and rally to show solidarity for free expression at the New York Public Library on Aug. 19, 2022.BRENDAN MCDERMID/Reuters
The annual Ageless International Film Festival, dedicated to seniors’ stories and older filmmakers, is aging like fine wine – perhaps a nice cabernet sauvignon.
For its third edition, the Toronto-based event pays particular attention to France. Highlights include Everything Went Fine (François Ozon’s deft meditation on assisted dying) and The Young Lovers (a delicate romantic drama from Cardine Tardieu that stars Fanny Ardant and Melvil Poupard).
The French titles are being screened with the support of the country’s consulate in Toronto. All festival screenings, whether virtual or in person (at various venues), are pay-what-you-can admission and will be followed by a discussion.
Although the screenings take place Oct. 27 to 30, the festival gets its official launch on Oct. 23 at Ted Rogers Hot Docs Cinema, where the freedom of expression will be celebrated. Presented in collaboration with Hot Docs and PEN Canada, the event is in honour of Salman Rushdie, currently recovering from an attack by a knife-wielding man this summer in New York.
The Booker Prize-winning author was about to deliver a lecture about the United States as a safe haven for exiled writers when he was assaulted on stage. Rushdie’s 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses, sparked outrage among some Muslims for its perceived blasphemous content.
Speakers at the festival event feting him include president emeritus of PEN International, John Ralston Saul; filmmaker Deepa Mehta; former Ontario premier and current Canadian ambassador to the United Nations, Bob Rae; and journalist and former governor general of Canada, Adrienne Clarkson.
Clarkson, who is on the festival’s advisory board, will also speak at screenings of Cynthia Scott’s groundbreaking 1990 docudrama, The Company of Strangers, and this year’s rock doc, Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song, from Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine.
Some of themes explored in this year’s films are romantic love between couples with great age differences and the desire of seniors to grow old at home.
Highlights include the Finnish/Irish romantic drama, My Sailor, My Love; the dystopic Japanese science fiction film, Plan 75; and the documentary, Boylesque, about an 83-year-old drag queen.
The Ageless International Film Festival runs Oct. 23 to 30; information at agelessfilmfestival.org
Brad Wheeler