“DESCENDANT”
Director: Peter Cilella

In this intriguing, unnerving psychological thriller from writer-director Peter Cilella, Sean (Ross Marquand) and Andrea (Sarah Bolger) are a middle-class Angeleno couple preparing for the arrival of their first child.  Sean begins seeing an unexplained light in the sky, and one evening, that said extra-natural light causes him to black out while working on a roof.  Sean wakes up in the hospital, bringing back with him terrible memories of being forcibly held down by unseen beings.  Aliens, perhaps, or was it just the doctors working on him, enhanced with morphine-induced hallucinations?  Things get stranger, and soon neither Sean nor the viewer can tell the difference between reality and fantasy.

Cilella twists the dial up slowly and cunningly, crafting a tense atmosphere of dread—all of it underlined by a minimalist score from Tyler Strickland.

“SISTERS OF UKRAINE”
Director: Mike Dorsey

Dorsey’s intense documentary follows the journey of Ukrainian refugees brought to Spain by dedicated activists.  Eduardo Llop and Rafael “Rafa” Moreno travel from Spain to Warsaw and then on into Ukraine to conduct their humanitarian mission to Ivano-Frankivsk.  It is there they rendezvous with nuns at a convent who have been helping refugees to flee the fighting.  From there, the sisters become the “stars,” delivering not only supplies to desperate people but also the hope of a better tomorrow, teaching at a school filled with refugee children from the country’s embattled east.  Soon, it is time for Llop and Moreno to head back to Poland, with their busload of children and some of their parents (nearly all mothers) in tow, on their way west to safety in Spain.  The refugees hug their relatives and friends when they arrive in Barcelona, and Llop and Moreno also give each other a celebratory embrace.

We can’t help everyone, one of the nuns observes, but we can help those “who God puts in our way.”  Something to keep in mind as the rocky peace process continues.

“VINDICATION SWIM”
Director: Elliott Hasler

Someone had to do it, and so Mercedes Gleitze (Kirsten Callaghan) decreed she would be the first British woman to swim the English Channel.  Many doubted her, not only because of her gender but also for being the daughter of a German immigrant in the tense interwar years.  But swim the channel she did, only to be promptly doubted yet again when a more photogenic and more married competitor (Victoria Summer) claims to have beaten Gleitze’s time by several hours.  What else could Gleitze do but prove the doubters wrong by taking to the chilly waters between France and England a second time?

Writer-director Elliott Hasler hits all the familiar overcoming-the-odds dramatic beats without taking too many chances.  Certain cliches of surprise revelation ensue, and there’s even Gleitze’s creepy boss making unwanted advances at her, thrown in for good measure.  Callaghan does her best with an underwritten role, and she goes for broke by actually performing her own swims in the English Channel, which is certainly to be admired.

This is largely unknown history to those of us outside the swimming community, but I’d wager there’s a better film (possibly a documentary?) somewhere in the future to dramatize Gleitze’s herculean efforts more satisfyingly.

“IGUALADA: REFUSING TO KNOW YOUR PLACE”
Director: Juan Mejía Botero

“Igualada,” roughly translated as “not equal,” is a slur in Colombia for people who have the temerity to demand their rights.  Racism is alive and well in that South American country, where descendants of the European conquerors look down upon the descendants of slaves.  However, Francia Márquez decrees that she and other Black citizens of Colombia have as much right to the democratic process in their nation as anyone else.  She has ambitions to be president, but no shortage of obstacles in her path.

It’s a tall order in a country riven for decades by sectarian violence, narcotraffickers and corruption.  Though the FARC has by now come into the government, the violence continues, and Márquez herself even survived a 2019 assassination attempt.  We see residents of La Toma, mostly people of color, standing up against multinational corporations seeking to exploit their land for resources while moving the people elsewhere, where precisely is never explained, and those who ask questions or protest too loudly turn up dead.

Márquez and her team push and push at the grass-roots to get her onto the ballot.  Incredibly, she became the vice-presidential candidate after a stunning run in the first round of elections.  Then she was vice president under Gustavo Petro, where she continues to serve as the first Black person in that office.

Hers is an unlikely journey from the poorer segments of Colombian society to the second-highest office in her country.  Márquez also shows that transcending the legacy of colonialism is not only possible, but it is necessary for ensuring a better, far more democratic future.

“NAKED AMBITION”
Directors: Dennis Scholl & Kareem Tabsch

Bunny Yeager started out as a model, but righteously asked why a woman couldn’t take such photos too.  She had the eye for spotting talent and, unlike too many of her male contemporaries, wanted to create a safe atmosphere for models.  The models are less objects than “friends,” as several of the documentary’s subjects relate.

One anecdote involves Sammy Davis Jr. being afraid to be in the front scene of Yeager’s car, a justified fear in segregated Florida, but Yeager (similar to Frank Sinatra insisting Davis use the same Vegas venues entrances he did) found ways to make integration “normal” simply by saying this is happening, like it or not.

Interviewees include the late Larry King, whose first talk show was broadcast from Miami.  Dita Von Teese relates wanting to be the “new” Betty Page after Yeager photographed Page in the famous “cheetah photos,” which became among her most popular images—and set the stage for Yeager’s Christmas photos of Page for Playboy shortly thereafter.  Thus began her long association with the magazine, which served her well over a lengthy career.

One of the documentary’s more interesting points is that housewives without careers could make a decent bit of cash—and recapture some “agency”—by being photographed.  And they trusted Yeager to do the job.  (We also learn that her husband, a cop, often served on shoots as protective detail for the models.)

Yeager’s style soon became passe as hardcore magazines such as Penthouse and Hustler came into vogue.  (Full disclosure: I worked at Hustler from 2006-2010.)   She still needed work, and found it shooting more explicit sexual content, which got her into trouble for obscenity charges.  Yeager, almost certainly targeted because of her gender, was eventually cleared.

Yeager’s two daughters appear and discuss the boom as well as the lean years, when their parents didn’t have the money to even keep the pool clean.  Yeager tried to find her footing as a cabaret singer and even wrote diet books.  (The family kept much of this from their deaf daughter, who was far more perceptive than they realized.)  Tragedy comes for the family, and when Yeager’s daughters become mothers themselves, they seek to keep their own children away from their mother’s work.

Yeager’s granddaughter says Yeager effectively created what we now know of as the selfie and the “Instagram aesthetic.”  Her legacy lives on, then, in a strange way that we see every day.

“MEADOWLARKS”
Director: Tasha Hubbard

Four estranged First Nations Canadian siblings who were sent to live in various White families reunite in the Rockies for an attempt at forming a new type of family unit.  However, secrets will come to the fore, and long-buried hurts will surface both within and among this ersatz new family.  The four Native actors bring a gravitas and poignancy to this seemingly simple story from director and co-writer Tasha Hubbard and Emil Sher.  “Meadowlarks” also features stunning location work in the Canadian Rockies lensed by James Klopko.

The film premiered at TIFF on September 7th.

(featured image: “NAKED AMBITION”)