By John Corrado

The 20th anniversary edition of the Canadian Film Fest begins tonight and runs until March 29th at the Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto. I’ve had the privilege of covering this festival a number of times in the past, and I’m always impressed by the range of homegrown films on display.

This year’s milestone festival is no different, and will be screening a total of sixteen features and forty shorts across the full six days of programming. I’ve had the chance to preview four of these features that I personally think are worth checking out, including the opening and closing night films.

The festival kicks off tonight with the Canadian premiere of action thriller Plan C (Tuesday, March 24th, 7:00pm), directed by actor Scott Anthony Cavalheiro in his feature directoral debut. The film stars his wife Claire Cavalheiro as a woman named Claire, who is on the run after a robbery gone wrong, and trying to save the life of her brother Danny (Daniel DeSanto). Scott Cavalheiro packs a lot of twists and action into 89 minutes, guided by Claire Cavalheiro’s tough performance. In a bit of marquee casting, actress Vivica A. Fox has a supporting role as the nurse at a plastic surgery clinic that gets held hostage out of necessity by our heroes.

The festival will also have two world premieres. The first of which is Mihnea (Wednesday, March 25th, 6:30pm), the feature debut of writer-director-star Mike Doaga. Doaga stars in the film as a Romanian-Canadian college student dealing with recurrent panic attacks and cracking under the pressure of exams, first love, and his demanding father (Raresh DiMofte). Bolstered by naturalistic performances from Doaga and the rest of his cast, it’s an engaging college drama that does a lot in just 73 minutes, while serving as a promising feature debut for the still baby-faced Doaga. A nice discovery.

The second world premiere is Los Ríos (Sunday, March 29th, 5:00pm), a documentary from co-directors Ryan Fyfe-Brown and Dale Bailey that follows the politically contentious 2018 migrant caravan travelling from the Honduras. Their film unfolds through a mix of news clips and on-the-ground footage, following three young sisters and their mother who are making the dangerous trek across the Honduras and Mexico towards the United States border, to escape the poverty and brutal gang violence in their country.

The festival closes on Sunday with the Ontario premiere of The Bearded Girl (Sunday, March 29th, 7:30pm), a whimsical mix of fantasy, modern fairy tale, and coming-of-age romance directed by Canadian visual effects artist Jody Wilson. Wilson’s film follows Cleo (Anwen O’Driscoll), a young woman with facial hair who is next in line to take her mother’s (Jessica Paré) place as the bearded women in a matriarchal society of circus performers. But Cleo wants to break out on her own to experience romance and a quote-unquote “normal” life. The film features vibrant colours, a quirky, campy sense of humour, and a charming performance from O’Driscoll as the titular bearded girl.

Other buzzy titles include director Alex Caulfield’s family drama What Comes Next starring Mena Suvari, and Chad Faust’s thriller Ballistic starring Lena Headey. The full schedule and list of films screening at this year’s Canadian Film Fest can be found right here.