Beauty + Complexity in Friendships: More SIFF Highlights

This year’s SIFF has served us a remarkable collection of films. Three of my favorite films from this year all have friendship as a core theme: Ka Whawhai Tonu, The Balconettes, and She’s the He.  

Set in 1864 New Zealand during the last siege of Ōrākau, Ka Whawhai Tonu is the directorial debut from Māori director Mike Jonathan. The film stars Paku Fernandez as Haki, a teenage boy who has been captured by Māori resistance forces. Haki quickly forms a friendship with Kōpū (Hinerangi Harawira-Nicholas), a teenage girl with spiritual powers who has been selected as a medium to the Māori god of war, and is often called “creepy” and a witch by members of her community.

Hinerangi Harawira-Nicholas as Kōpū in Ka Whawhai Tonu

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The two teens find common ground over their shared social isolation. Kōpū’s powers enable her to sense Haki’s backstory through physical touch, and she learns that he has fought on both sides of the war, being the son of a Māori mother and a British father. But despite their differing allegiances, Haki and Kōpū’s immediate trust and protection of each other both saves each others’ lives and grounds this epic story of resistance and endurance. 

The film depicts the devastating brutality of war from a Māori point of view, but it also has a humorous edge that comes out in character dynamics and dialogue. Even while running through trenches as gunshots fire around them, the characters swap lively banter and quick-witted jokes to lighten the mood. A standout performance is Temuera Morrison as war leader Rewi Maniapoto, who has a twinkle in his eye when Haki asks him for advice on finding purpose in meaninglessness and not knowing what is ahead of him. But it is ultimately the lead actors’ open-hearted friendship which make Ka Whawhai Tonu one of the most strikingly effective films of this year’s festival. 

In The Balconettes, director Noémie Merlant takes us to Marseille, France, on a sickly hot afternoon, following a trio of friends who are intrigued by a mysterious neighbor they see from across their balcony. The night quickly turns disastrous when Ruby (Souheila Yacoub) commits a murder in self-defense, and the three friends enter an extravagant, gore-filled quest to remove the evidence. Oscillating between comedy-satire, pure horror, and something far stranger in between, this film is a wild ride, and I was not expecting the gutting ache it left me with. 

Noémie Merlant, Sanda Codreanu, and Souheila Yacoub in The Balconettes

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The Balconettes is a movie for and by women. Ruby, Nicole (Sanda Codreanu), and Elise (Merlant) are the final girls in a dark tale that feels uncannily real even while it turns the absurdity all the way up. The best part of The Balconettes is that the women in this film are allowed to be messy, even gross; they masturbate, vomit, eat with their hands, and a lot more than that. It is just very real. These three friends feel lived-in, grounded in the physical comedy of everyday life, and as they lug two suitcases in broad daylight filled with a man’s mutilated body parts onto a boat to throw into the ocean, we cheer for them. 

And finally, closing out my favorite SIFF films is Siobhan McCarthy’s directorial debut, She’s the He, a trans buddy comedy with a tremendous emotional core. Influenced by the nineties and early 2000s era of high school movies like Easy A, Mean Girls, and obviously She’s the Man, this film takes place at the very end of senior spring for best friends Ethan (Misha Osherovich) and Alex (Nico Carney). Alex persuades Ethan to join him in pretending to come out as trans in order to be allowed into the girls’ locker room. In the process, Ethan discovers that she is trans.

Created and acted by almost entirely trans, nonbinary, and queer people, the layers of commentary in this film run deep. For instance, Carney, the actor who plays the well-intentioned but ignorant straight boy Alex, is trans-masc, as is Emmett Preciado, who plays Jacob, the school bully and quarterback. The film was also shot and edited in the midst of a 2024 presidential campaign where attacks on trans people were rampant.

Producer Vic Brandt said during a SIFF Q&A, “We just had all gay people around all the time so that it felt really safe for everyone.” The heart of the film is Ethan’s journey with her gender identity, but another highlight is the way Carney and Osherovich play off of each other with sharply funny dialogue and so much chaos as their characters’ friendship is fractured and then repaired. I truly think everyone should see this movie full of queer joy that will make you laugh until you start crying and then cry some more. 

Misha Osherovich and Nico Carney in She’s the He

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Even while grappling with macro-level topics such as the ongoing fight for social and environmental justice and human rights, this year’s features at SIFF have also contained narratives of humor, joy, and laughter that feel like a warm hug that we desperately needed.