TIFF 2025: Day Eight

A blast rings through the air to shroud the Earth in darkness. It's not until twenty-four hours later that the sun reappears on the horizon in Australia before the planet turns for it to reach the Red River Valley in Manitoba. There we meet a sculptor (Val Vint) whose newest work has just been unveiled and a civil servant (Andrina Turenne) on the case to discover the cause of the unexplained solar phenomenon. The latter wonders if the former might be responsible, digging through the commission's invoices to find a smoking gun.

Shot on three broken Bolex cameras with five lights, Rhayne Vermette's Levers is often shadowed in darkness. The grainy textures lend it a gorgeous aesthetic, though, while moving from these two characters to a security guard, blindfolded tears, bears, mirrors, and more. What does it all mean? That's in the eye of the beholder as the film itself is born from a script of what the filmmaker describes as "poetry and obscured symbolic events." Use the tarot-like drawings delineating each vignette to find your bearings or simply let the mood consume you.

I personally wondered if the numbers on those cards were supposed to be sequential—as though the deck had been shuffled so the events on-screen can be revealed out of order. If so, we are able to hypothesize what caused that initial bang from the other instances throughout. Was it the breaking of stone for the sculpture (potentially a piece cleaved from a mysterious wedge discovered by hikers)? Perhaps the crash of a car hitting an animal? Maybe just a perfectly timed shotgun blast as the sun dips below the horizon?

It's a very DIY production for which Vermette says everyone wore multiple hats. They are all held as equal in the credits too with actors and crew listed in alphabetical order amongst themselves under the statement: "We are all levers." Each name is an arm working to craft this movie from the raw material of its film. Each scene is a representation of what the filmmaker calls "the act of the human hand which turns rock into stone." At one point I even saw a person in the frame wearing what looked to be a shirt with the film's title treatment on it.

Everything was shot silent with sound recorded and synched in post. The effects are done in-camera with double exposures (rockets soaring into the sun or twin moons) and scratches animating faux snow when the real stuff isn't falling. And the conversations float between the innocuous and the silly (one woman thinks the sun disappeared again only to discover she'd slept the whole day and what she thought was noon was really midnight). There's a funeral, media scrum, and surveillance footage elucidating, confounding, and simply existing.

Will it be for everyone? No. I was a fan of its atmospheric nature and visual style, but Levers is definitely less accessible than Vermette's previous film Ste. Anne. It will speak to those willing to listen and surely serve as a subjective tonal poem for which to mine its spiritual and emotional caverns. Just don't expect any answers insofar as that lost day is concerned. Nor for the tall rock fenced off and turned into a tourist attraction atop its hill. Characters simply come and go, crossing paths and searching for meaning via Death, Judgment, and the Hanged Man.

It starts with an arrest. Mariam (Nadhira Mohamed) has been living in Spain well past her visa and the authorities finally caught up with her out at a club. The next thing we see is her in a Moroccan prison wherein the guard is berating her for following in her father's footsteps before telling her to leave because he doesn't care whether she returns to Western Sahara alive or dead. That's when Mariam's drug dealer brother Alwali (Suleiman Filali)—he really did follow in dad's footsteps—arrives to pick her up and take her home.

But it's not home and all she wants to do is go back. Mariam calls a well-to-do Spanish friend to raise money for her return. She visits her fisherman uncle (Chekh Mehdi's Abdallah) to see if he'll transport her across the water like he did so long ago. She even begs her younger sister (Khadija Najem Allal's Selka) to get her a job where she's interning to start raising capital for her own legal travel. But Mariam isn't a child anymore. Her family isn't going to give her the benefit of the doubt. She tried to escape and failed. Now is time for acceptance.

As writer/director Eimi Imanishi reveals during her feature debut Nomad Shadow, however, it's time for shame and blame too. Most of Mariam's Sahrawi family who remain hold her and Abdallah responsible for her father's death. They see her as selfish and manipulative. They correctly presume her motivation for every action she takes is solely to get back to Europe. And they grow tired of her refusal to remember that she isn't currently there. The clothes. Nose ring. Tattoo. Attitude. Her presence is causing them undue strife.

It does the same for her friend Sidahmed (Omar Salem). His camel herder traveled with Mariam during that first crossing and her desire to never go back to Africa inevitably made it so he was thrown to the wolves. Sidahmed is a pariah now in Western Sahara and tells her it's all her fault. Should he accept some of the blame too? Sure, but it's difficult to separate the fact that Mariam's dream has left so much pain in its wake. Especially because it often doesn't appear as though she feels any guilt. In her mind, you either assist her goal or become an "asshole."

The film is thus an awakening of sorts both to her complicity in so much sorrow and the reality that she's become a pariah too regardless of her inability to let anyone treat her like one. That headstrong nature begins to get her into trouble as the political statement of her existence ruffles the feathers of acquaintances and strangers alike. It's one thing to engage in such rebellion if you're a part of the community. It's another to seemingly exploit it as a steppingstone to leave. Because Mariam wasn't living in exile. Her exile was being forced to return.

It's a fascinating subject considering the cultural backdrop and Mariam's specific familial history. Selka isn't against her sister's autonomy (she witnessed their mother's struggle as a wife without love), but context cannot simply be thrown out the window. Alwali enjoys his sister's brashness, but the tenuous nature of his work isn't conducive to the extra attention it brings. And while Sidahmed would love to put their past behind him and enjoy his friend's company, this world will not allow it. His reputation has become a constant reminder of her betrayal.

Mariam's dreams unsurprisingly find her bobbing alone in a boat. Not because everyone abandoned her, but because she abandoned them. Don't assume that means Imanishi is making an example of the character, though. This truth is more about the complexity of the situation and the impossibly oppressive nature of being a woman within a conservative patriarchal culture and of an ethnic group forced to live between nations. It's why she gravitates towards her brother's secret Moroccan girlfriend (Ghizlane Lkoucha's Ghalia) to keep one foot in both worlds.

Set during Eid to bring the conflict between Mariam's warring halves to the forefront, Nomad Shadow ultimately becomes a reminder of the cost of our actions. That nothing we do occurs in a vacuum. That forgiveness isn't easily won when all involved have the visible and invisible scars to remind them of the pain. Mohamed delivers a captivating performance, gliding through these disparate realms to better position herself for an escape only to end up causing more trouble to those around her. Mariam doesn't belong here anymore.

7/10

"Described as a heart-warming tale of a farmer who saves and befriends an injured white stork in North Macedonia, Tamara Kotevska’s The Tale of Silyan is actually a harrowing and sadly resonant story about survival during an era of increasing wealth disparity."

Full thoughts at The Film Stage.