"Adapted from the critically acclaimed novel by Catherine Hernandez, SCARBOROUGH is an unflinching portrait of three low-income families struggling to endure within a system that’s set them up for failure. It shows the love and perseverance communities can foster, lifting up families to overcome the obstacles placed in their way....
The triptych story centers on three characters: Bing, a Filipino boy living under the shadow of his father’s abuse and mental illness; Sylvie, an Indigenous girl whose family struggles to find permanent housing; and Laura, afflicted by her parents’ neglect. The trio is connected through their neighbourhood and the morning school program they all attend, run by Ms. Hina, a caring teacher and a figure of inspiration in their lives."

"A bundle of good humour and nervous energy, Ali (Adeel Akhtar) is a British Pakistani working-class landlord who forges close bonds with his tenants. One day, while picking up one of his tenants’ children from school, he offers a lift to Ava (Claire Rushbrook), an Irish-born teacher and single mother of five. They bond almost instantly through their love of music, though Ali favours the high energy of Buzzcocks and hip-hop while Ava takes refuge in the quieter comforts of Bob Dylan and Karen Dalton. Despite their divergent backgrounds, differences in their stages of life, and the colour of their skin, despite the fact of Ali’s failing marriage and Ava’s fraught relationship with her adult and adolescent children, each finds themself irresistibly drawn to the other. But can their mutual desire transcend a barrage of personal obstacles?

Inspired by people Barnard encountered while making her acclaimed features The Arbor and The Selfish Giant, Ali & Ava is a film that feels profoundly rooted in lived experience, blending a tender emotional complexity with an at times bracing depiction of trauma and grief. Akhtar and Rushbrook’s finely hued performances speak to the setting’s cultural diversity and tribal loyalties while yielding a vulnerability that’s alternately heart-wrenching and joyous. Their story serves as a reminder that it is sometimes the least likely connections that are the ones most worth pursuing."

"Staring down the barrel of unemployment as the shipbuilding industry becomes nationalized in the UK, perpetual hobbyist and unrelenting optimist Maurice Flitcroft (Mark Rylance) applies to enter the 1976 British Open with the encouragement of his wife (Sally Hawkins). There’s just one problem: he’s never played golf before. With pluckiness and his twin sons ― who happen to be champion disco dancers ― at his side, Maurice pulls off a series of stunning, hilarious, and heartwarming attempts to compete at the highest level of professional golf, all without success and much to the annoyance of the elitist golfing community. But despite his failures, Maurice rises to folkloric fame, delighting fans worldwide with his sunniness rather than his skills.

Based on a true story, The Phantom of the Open finds the extraordinary in the ordinary, and proves that whether our attempts are birdies or bogeys (or perhaps even worse), there’s always something to be found in simply trying."

Run time: 1h 58min

Here's the scoop: "In this documentary directed by Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine, the story of Canadian legend Leonard Cohen is told through his magnum opus “Hallelujah” and its journey from record-label reject to a beloved international hit. Though it may be recognized today as one of pop music’s most internationally renowned hymns, Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” didn’t initially strike a chord with audiences or music executives. The song was first featured on the 1984 album Various Positions, which was rejected by Columbia Records and initially only saw a limited release in the US. Though it later launched a late-career renaissance for the Canadian poet and musician, influencing musicians around the world and inspiring covers by his admirers, the early failure “Hallelujah” represents, to the documentary’s directors, the creative frustration of a brilliant artist ahead of his time."