News

Seagrass isn’t your typical horror movie; I’d say it’s more haunting in other ways if you ask me. It would make you see things in a way that we often overlook. We run from the truth because we fear facing it, worried that what we find might not be good enough. Here, a woman named Judith comes to a couples retreat with her husband Steve and her daughters Emmy and Stephanie because, after losing her mother, she feels disconnected from her husband. She starts questioning everything about their relationship, wondering if she really loves him or if they’re just together to fulfill her responsibilities as a mother and a wife. Is their relationship worth fighting for? – Let’s find out.

Spoilers Ahead

Why Does Judith Feel Close To Pat?

At the beginning of Seagrass, we met a family of four who seemed like your typical, normal...

Actress Ally Maki has demonstrated her comedy chops on TV’s Hacks, 10 Things I Hate About You, Wrecked, and as the voice of “Giggle McDimples” in the Pixar film Toy Story 4. But lately, her work has taken a dramatic turn – in the serio-comic Apple TV+ show The Big Door Prize, and especially in her new film, Seagrass.

The feature, now playing in theaters in the U.S. and Canada, stars Maki as Judith, a Japanese Canadian woman whose sense of certainty about her life begins to crumble after the death of her mother. A fraying connection to her husband Steve (Luke Roberts), a handsome but emotionally constricted white guy, prompts the couple to head to a resort in British Columbia with their two young daughters – Stephanie (Nyha Breitkreuz) and Emmy (Remy Marthaller). While the kids keep busy with other children on the beach, Judith and Steve participate in group couples’ therapy,...

There is a certain type of movie that will either make you want to call your dad or strangle him. Precise in detail when it comes to both character and theme, writer-director Meredith Hama-Brown’s Seagrass is one such film. This may sound harsh, but it is the best descriptor of what is an emotionally painful yet revealing journey for a family that goes on a retreat hoping for healing. It is a gentle ghost story of sorts about the loss that comes not only from death, but the potential end of a marriage. While there are plenty of great films that have been about this subject, Seagrass is one that takes familiar elements and infuses them with something often closer to horror. It doesn’t fully leap into it as much as it falls into its oddly haunting beauty. The result is a film that leaves a distinct impression,...

"Listen to me... ghosts don't exist, okay?" Game Theory Films has revealed an official trailer for an unique indie drama titled Seagrass, from filmmaker Meredith Hama-Brown making her feature directorial debut. This Canadian production originally premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last year, and will open in both Canadian and US art house cinemas later this month. The film was the TIFF Fipresci prize winner, and a TIFF Top Ten pick. Set a decade or so in the past, Seagrass follows a Japanese-Canadian woman grappling with the death of her mother as she brings her family to a retreat. When her relationship with her husband begins to affect the children's emotional security, the family is forever changed. The film stars Ally Maki as Judith, Luke Roberts, Chris Pang, Sarah Gadon, Nyha Huang Breitkreuz, and Remy Marthaller. This film has some really strong, grainy cinematography in it - with some shots better than others.

Meredith Hama-Brown’s feature debut “Seagrass,” starring Ally Maki, will debut in U.S. theaters on Feb. 22, beginning with special screenings with the cast and director.

Q&a’s will be held at New York’s Roxy Cinema and Los Angeles’ Laemmle Royal on Feb. 22 and Las Vegas’ Regal Theatre on Feb. 23. Maki will be in Los Angeles, Hama-Brown and cinematographer Norm Li will be in New York, and actor Chris Pang will be in Las Vegas. The film will also have its U.S. festival premiere at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, screening on Feb. 12 and Feb. 13.

The synopsis for “Seagrass” reads, “Set in the mid 1990’s, a Japanese Canadian woman (Maki) grappling with the recent death of her mother brings her family to a self-development retreat. When her distressed relationship with her husband begins to affect the children’s emotional security, the family is forever changed.”

In addition to Maki and Pang,...

The traditionally celebrity-heavy Toronto Film Festival has unveiled its list of Canada’s best indie films for 2023, which includes a host of first-time directors that have come to the fore as the Hollywood actors strike put local movies and talent front and center at TIFF last September.

Canadian filmmakers were able to grab the spotlight after SAG-AFTRA members barred from promoting studio or streamer projects allowed them to fill the vacuum on TIFF red carpets and at industry events.

New directors were also favorites of Toronto programmers as a shifting TIFF film market with few American celebrities in town also allowed the marquee festival to double down on finding new creative voices.

So here’s the top Canadian feature films of 2023, as decided by film pickers in Toronto.

1. BlackBerry

Matt Johnson’s drama about the meteoric rise of the world’s first smartphone, before its competitive collapse, bowed in Berlin.

Exclusive: Cameras have started rolling in Tokyo on Akashi, the debut feature from Japanese and Canadian writer-director Mayumi Yoshida.

Yoshida, best known as an actor for her role in The Man in The High Castle, will also star in the film alongside veteran performers Hana Kino, Chieko Matsubara, Kunio Murai, and rising performer Ryo Tajima.

Described as a “coming-of-age love story,” Akashi follows Kana (Yoshida), an artist who is at a crossroads in her career. After finding out her Grandmother (Kino) has passed, she returns home to Tokyo for the funeral, where she rekindles a romance with childhood love Hiro (Tajima) and uncovers a family secret about her Grandpa (Murai).

Akashi is written and directed by Yoshida, who developed the script through the TIFF Writer’s Studio. The pic produced by Nach Dudsdeemaytha,...

Everything you need to know about Judith (Ally Maki) and Steve’s (Luke Roberts) marriage arrives during their first “share” at the summer retreat where they’ve brought their daughters (Nyha Huang Breitkreuz’s Stephanie and Remy Marthaller’s Emmy) to play while repairing whatever has broken between them. After Steve passes the buck by saying she wanted them to come, Judith attempts to honestly organize her thoughts around her mother’s recent passing. Before she can finish, however, he forcefully interjects: “Five months ago.

What a simple yet telling interaction––one writer-director Meredith Hama-Brown must be intimately familiar with to so poignantly and effortlessly depict. Is that not recent enough? Is there a guidebook to how long you’re allowed to mourn? Or how long you’re expected to wait for sex without ever truly seeming engaged enough to help guide your spouse through the emotional minefield making her numb?...

American Fiction, Cord Jefferson’s drama starring Jeffrey Wright, Sterling K. Brown and Tracee Ellis Ross has officially moved ahead in the Best Picture race, winning the People’s Choice Award at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

In a statement, Jefferson said, “My gratitude towards everyone who watched American Fiction, discussed it afterwards among friends and colleagues is endless. The film is now in your hands and I’m so grateful that it was embraced in this way.” The film edged out runners-up The Holdovers (directed by Alexander Payne) and Hayao Miyazaki’s on-again-off-again “final” film The Boy and the Heron.

American Fiction is in some fantastic company by winning the People’s Choice Award at TIFF. Check out the last 10 winners: The Fabelmans, Belfast, Nomadland, Jojo Rabbit, Green Book, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, La La Land, Room, The Imitation Game, and 12 Years a Slave. That...

Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction picked up the top People’s Choice honor Sunday at the Toronto Film Festival, which wrapped up a 48th edition with little Hollywood star wattage amid the uncertainty of dual Hollywood strikes.

Jefferson’s feature directorial debut, an adaptation for Orion of Percival Everett’s 2001 novel Erasure, had its world premiere in Toronto at the Princess Alexandra Theatre on Sept. 8. MRC is the film’s studio and financier.

The American drama about U.S. racial dynamics portrays a Black academic, played by Jeffrey Wright, who grows frustrated that the only “Black books” that seem to find a wide (and white) audience are those that tread on stereotypes.

“My gratitude towards everyone who watched American Fiction [and] discussed it afterwards among friends and colleagues is endless. The film is now in your hands, and I’m so grateful that it was embraced in this way,” Jefferson said in a statement Sunday morning.

After a two week run that included a slew of buzzy world premieres and screenings of previous favorites from the international festival circuit, the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival has come to a close. Toronto is often considered the unofficial kickoff to Oscar season (along with the Venice and Telluride film festivals), so the films that take home the coveted People’s Choice Awards often get an early boost for their award campaigns.

The top prize went to “American Fiction,” Cord Jefferson’s publishing industry satire that stars Jeffrey Wright as a novelist who finds massive success after writing a deliberately stupid novel about Black life. Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers” and Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron” were honored as the first and second runners up, respectively.

The MRC title could have a bright future at the Academy Awards, as 11 of the last 14 People’s Choice Award winners...

by Cláudio Alves

Down the Pacific coast, there’s a place that looks like heaven but is no safe haven. You reach it by boat, sailing over turquoise waves, the wind carrying hopes of healing and promises of solutions to problems that have none. First-time feature director Meredith Hama-Brown and cinematographer Norm Li capture the environment’s full spectrum of color in their new 1990s-set film Seagrass, rendering bleak material beautiful. Skin tones are sun-kissed, while the deepest shadows are cobalt blue. It’s like we’re seeing the shoreline through a painter’s eyes. We’re not.

Rather than the artist’s gaze, we experience a family’s troubled perspective. They’re two girls and their parents, bound to a couple’s retreat where they hope their marriage will find salvation…...