Top 20 Alternative Picks for TIFF 2013: Caroline Strubbe’s I’m the same I’m an other

I’m the same I’m an other – Caroline Strubbe

Section: Wavelengths
Dates: Monday 9th, Tuesday 10th, Friday 13th

Buzz: Belgium might be best known for their brewing hops skills, but with the likes of Felix van Groeningen, Bouli Lanners, Joachim Lafosse and Michaël R. Roskam, we could say that national cinema belongs to more than the Dardennes and Chantal Akermans. While she is only one film into her filmmaking career with the Cannes preemed Lost Persons Area (2009), with her sophomore pic Caroline Strubbe might be padding this nouveau Belgian film front. Utilizing the exact same players as in her debut film with Zoltán Miklós Hajdu being now joined by the teen actress Kimke Desart, I think we might be in for some aesthetically drab looking, tonally heavy turf with this road trip number.

The Gist: A man in his thirties is on the run with a young girl. As they take a ferry to the UK, traces of a common past come to light – a past filled with loss and sorrow. Fleeing in secret, they end up hiding in a small apartment on the seaside, where they live day-to-day, exploring each other’s emotional territories. Mourning and grief will bind them, but is this alliance of dependence appropriate for them and for the outside world?

Alain Guiraudie is one of the most interesting French filmmakers almost no one in North America has heard of, winning the praises of Jean-Luc Godard for his short 2001 feature, That Old Dream That Moves (“The best film at the Festival de Cannes.”) and continuing on to make some of the freshest, most vibrant, and complex queer films the cinema has ever seen. His last film – 2009′s Directors’ Fortnight alum, The King of Escape – hardly stole the show upon it’s premiere four years ago, but it has gone on to become somewhat of a dark horse critical darling among American critics such as Dan Sallitt and Vadim Rizov. Hopefully this anticipated follow-up will deliver the goods, and be duly lauded.