by Anne Brodie
I Swear, the true story John Davidson is wrenchingly hard to watch, but it’s so easy to empathise with him and his struggles. The Edinburgh native suffers from Tourette’s Syndrome, a condition that causes him to shout, swear and say things automatically – he has no control over them. A kind and gentle man, he had a tough time at school and life in general as the condition had not been well understood. The film opens with Queen Elizabeth presenting him with an MBE, the Member of the British Empire honour. He swears at her loudly. She knows to expect it and pays no heed. worked with individuals living with Tourette’s and collaborated with a Tourette’s charity. I Swear makes its North American debut at TIFF, later on Netflix.
Netflix miniseries Wayward casts an intriguingly odd and threatening spell in a remote forest where locals navigate disappearances, murder, kidnapping and child abuse. The series opens with a loudspeaker blaring psychological abuse on teenagers running from a local institution. Laura (Sarah Gadon), who is pregnant and her husband Alex (Mae Martin who also created the show) have just moved into a seemingly idyllic vintage farmhouse in Tall Pines. We witness the psychological torture of young inmates at the local institution which make our hair stand on end. Some idyll, eh? At TIFF and in theatres Sept 25.
Ukrainian filmmaker Valentyn Vasyanovych writes, directs and stars in To the Victory! (За Перемогу!) a post Russian war fantasy about a filmmaker struggling with his wife’s decision to move to Vienna. Its 2026 and Ukraine appears to have won the war and citizens are working on new lives. But we can’t really trust what we see. Scenes turn out to be shot for a movie, they aren’t and they are the story at the same. time we feel somewhat cheated. But it is an amusing cinematic play. One of Valentyn’s films is showing at an out-of-town festival, and he attends digitally on the big screen. His wife is in the audience and they proceed to argue. A trippy kind of experience on at TIFF.
