This week has been the Canadian Screen Awards, with the film awards being handed out on Sunday June 1st and hosted by Lisa Gilroy. Covering and supporting Canadian film is a core tenet of Contra Zoom, and this past year we did more reviews than ever. Last year I collected reviews for CSA nominated films, and I was blown away by the fact that 5 different writers reviewed 9 films! This year, we more than doubled that count with coverage of 21 films by 6 different contributors. This includes 3/6 of the Best Motion Picture nominees and 7 of the top 14 most nominated films. If you are interested in knowing more about the nominees, check out Jeff Bulmer’s Letterboxd list and Matthew Simpson put together where to watch all of the nominees. Click on the titles to check out the coverage for each film!

If you haven’t listen yet, check out podcast episode 303: 2025 Canadian Screen Awards Nomination Reactions to hear us talk about this year’s nominees with a post show podcast coming soon!

Reviews

Universal Language – 13 nominations

Rankin creates a city that feels lived in, while his use of relatively simple set-pieces encourages the audience to project their own home onto his. The universal language so integral to the film is neither Farsi nor French, it’s nostalgia, shared between Rankin and the audience. 

• Jeff Bulmer

Universal Language second review

The snow-capped scenery of Winnipeg is very bland, and many of the shots are framed in a very Wes Anderson manner, minus the bright flourishes as the city’s various districts (gray, brown, and beige) are (to state the obvious) not particularly colourful. The characters often speak in a manner reminiscent to his films as well. This is mostly epitomized by the film’s quirky sense of humour (ie: avian beauty pageant winning turkeys) stemming from these offbeat asides, and matter of fact dialogue delivery. Much like Anderson’s various projects it will work better for some than others, but is a reasonable place to start were you looking to describe the sense one derives from it.  

• Brodie Cotnam

Darkest Miriam – 6 nominations

Eschewing genre and storytelling conventions, Jaye favours filmmaking choices to bring the audience into the head of the titular character: not every plot thread has an obvious resolution; the story structure changes multiple times. While it’s not always satisfying in the moment, Darkest Miriam sticks around long after the credits roll.

• Jeff Bulmer

Paying For It – 5 nominations

Paying, at its core, is a portrait of a relationship changing over time, with Sonny as integral to that relationship as Chester. Sonny (a video jockey at the barely-fictional MaxMusic) begins the film in a relationship with Chester, and doesn’t spend a minute outside of a relationship before the end of the film. Lê brings an enduring sense of dissatisfaction to the character. She’s unsure of what she wants in life, and equally unsure of how to broaden her horizons. 

• Jeff Bulmer

Paying For It second review

Where the movie excels, is finding humanity in this odd period in both Sonny and Chester’s lives. Throughout the many, many intimate interactions with the characters in the movie, none of them have a picture perfect Hollywood feeling. These are all very real people just trying to get through life, and find some solace in these small, intimate moments. Which then helps us take a look at our own lives, and wonder whether the various relationships we have give us what we want, or what we are supposed to want. 

• Pierre Frigon

The Apprentice – 5 nominations

Over the course of the film, we see his reverence of Cohn turn to disgust, his kind heartedness towards his brother Fred, Jr. turn to contempt. With only minimal changes to its framing, Apprentice could be an uplifting film about a man refusing to break in the face of adversity. In a way, it’s a story of Trump achieving the American Dream. But Abbasi’s vision of that American Dream is cynical, one in which no Great Man becomes such without leaving a horrific trail of bodies in his wake.

• Jeff Bulmer

Humane – 4 nominations

With it being a Cronenberg film, the first question one might ask is if there will be body horror elements like both her father and brother are famous for. Sure enough as the comedy starts to slip away, the grotesque comes to play. We get a character pulling out a tooth, someone literally gets stabbed in the back and enough bodily harm is injected to make you squirm in your seat. 

• Dakota Arsenault

Rumours – 4 nominations

This is a film where the rating does not really matter. It is not a typical Guy Maddin film as it features a more famous cast than he usually makes movies with and a (slightly) higher budget. If the humour works for the audience, then it doesn’t matter that the movie is beyond irreverent. But if the jokes fall flat, then nothing will click. The film could have used a bit of a tighter edit, and perhaps less repetition of certain jokes but if you are on its wavelength it will be a memorable film.   

• Dakota Arsenault

Seeds – 4 nominations

There’s a lot to like in Seeds. The performances are charming, and Horn is an inventive storyteller. That said, a rough script and a lack of polish when it comes to action keep Seeds from excelling. 

• Jeff Bulmer

Matt and Mara – 3 nominations

The strength of the story is that it introduces organically the issues that the characters are facing, the nature of an artist’s inner conflicts, and makes us think about what we would do in similar situations. However, many aren’t as fleshed out as they could be and don’t quite resonate as powerfully as they could were we to spend more time focusing on their individual relationships.

• Brodie Cotnam

Sharp Corner – 3 nominations

Ben Foster, always a committed performer, turns in a masterful performance of a man hell bent on self destruction. The opening scenes show him playful, dorky and romantic. His attraction and chemistry with Smulders is unmistakable, with their sex scene one of intense passion. As his madness overtakes all facets of his personality we see Foster turn Josh into a shell of himself. You see him engaging in the world, but in his eyes, he is somewhere else completely. 

• Dakota Arsenault

Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story – 2 nominations

Thankfully Shane was appreciated in her time, but it is still sad to think that the world missed out on so much great music after she retreated from public life in 1971. She was planning a comeback in 2019, one that unfortunately was never fully realized due to her untimely death. At least we still have a few records and this touching documentary to remember her by.

• Dakota Arsenault

Backspot – 2 nominations

Though the story in Backdrop is familiar, the depth of the characters and attention to detail by the team in front of and behind the camera elevate it. Waterson’s direction and editing move the film along fluidly, never lacking for momentum as it builds to a marvellously cathartic ending.

• Ryan Beaupit

Disco’s Revenge – 2 nominations

Majeed and Mishara collected incredible interviews and amazing footage to build their disco retrospective. The fatal flaw of Disco’s Revenge is that it simply doesn’t go deep enough. If ever there was a documentary film that ought to be a four-episode docuseries, Disco’s Revenge is it.

• Jeff Bulmer

Hunting Daze – 2 nominations

However, the film thrives in large part thanks to Nahéma Ricci’s facial expressions. She beautifully conveys how familiar these circumstances are for Nina in the film’s many close ups. As an exotic dancer, she presumably finds herself in a space dominated by hypermasculinity frequently. The remarkable part is how Ricci never lets that familiarity cross over into comfort. Nina is not comfortable with the situation, but she can’t express that feeling or else the situation will, by all appearances, get worse.

• Ryan Beaupit

I Don’t Know Who You Are – 2 nominations

Benjamin’s journey leaves him a different person over the course of a single weekend, but it also brings him closer to the people in his life who care about him. For its serious subject matter, I Don’t Know never becomes bleak. And yet the message of the film takes just as much from what’s said as what’s left unsaid. Benjamin’s situation is not unique, and neither is his assailant.

• Jeff Bulmer

Mongrels – 2 nominations

Where most of the aforementioned rural-immigrant films show the serenity and peace that can be found in nature with sweeping panoramas, cinematographer Jayrl Lim starts off the film with relatively claustrophobic framing of the forest, as if even despite changing countries, Sonny is still haunted by the loss of his wife and trapped by his grief. We also see difficulties he has in integrating to his new society; for example he and his children partake in ancestor worship (making do with offering local beer instead of Korean makgeolli/rice wine), which contrasts with the Christian services of his employer. 

• Paulo Bautista

Shepherds – 2 nominations

This film is of epic proportions and should easily go down as a new Canadian classic. Learning at the end of the film in a title card epilogue that Mathyas continued to shepherd, wrote his book and in fact is a real person made me enjoy this film even more being a sneaky biopic. The narration that Duval speaks throughout the film felt like excerpts pulled from a book of poetry rather than some kind of guide adding to the romanticism.

• Dakota Arsenault

The Silent Planet – 2 nominations

Theodore is an unreliable main character, and when Niyya’s suspensions start to rise, the viewers will too. Is he who he says he is, or is he surpassing his traumatic past and creating a new identity to keep some semblance of sanity intact. Jeffrey St. Jules has created a moody slow burn thriller that keeps you guessing with trouble deciding who you should align with at every turn. 

• Dakota Arsenault

Can I Get A Witness? – 1 nomination

The film serves as a warning to our current state of affairs. It seems like every year there are weather events like atmospheric floods, wide sweeping forest fires, increased tsunamis, ice caps melting, all things that should be happening once every hundred years or so. Instead they are now a regular occurrence, with the planet screaming in our ears that we must change or things will get much worse. We skip over a Children of Men like situation, which has been depicted many times on film and instead look at how society recovers and moves forward.

• Dakota Arsenault

Dark Match – 1 nomination

Wrestling, but deadly, is a solid horror concept. Add the occult, and you’ve got the makings of a fun movie where over-the-top performers get to lean all the way into classic tropes while also having an excuse to beat each other up. There’s an exciting, schlocky potential to Dark Match as a campy midnight movie. Unfortunately, that potential is all there is.

• Jeff Bulmer

Young Werther – 1 nomination

Werther is a fantastic debut for Lourenço, both as a writer, and as a visual storyteller. Lourenço captures a vibrant portrait of Toronto as a bright, beautiful city. During the day, Werther and Charlotte’s walks through parks feel right out of a period piece, while at night, the city is vibrant and arresting. Like Werther, Lourenço’s view of this story is rosy, lingering on beauty just a little longer than advisable. Though Werther ultimately contains a message of letting go, it’s nevertheless a movie that relishes in nostalgia.

• Jeff Bulmer

Interviews

I Used To Be Funny – 1 nomination

We wrap up our Vancouver International Film Festival coverage with two excellent interviews. First is Caitlyn Sponheimer, the writer, director and lead actor from ⁠Wild Goat Surf⁠. We follow that up with Olga Petsa, an actor from ⁠I Used To Be Funny⁠.

• Episode 256: VIFF Interviews – Wild Goat Surf and I Used To Be Funny