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Eloquent and informative, Hajera Sheikh’s documentary Kathak: Dancing With Taboos tells a story of love for one’s culture and perseverance through adversity.

Severance is about breaking down facades and confronting old models that were once frameworks of our lives. The somewhat subtle message to me is it’s never too late to fall in love, no matter your insecurities. 

These confines won’t really encourage you to read the film as a metaphor for the nerve-inducing experience we’ve all been through over the last year, however — and in the interest of maintaining your dignity, you probably shouldn’t. While the sociopolitical commentary may have worked for the similarly-themed Buried (2010), in which we find Ryan Reynolds on his own buried alive in the Middle East, but this futuristic take on the premise is best left as a piece of distracting entertainment. Nevertheless, the atmosphere is no less suffocating, literally and dramatically.

A haunting look at grief, survival, and a mother’s quiet collapse in a world that never gave her room to fall.

'Midnight at the Paradise' premieres tomorrow at Toronto's Paradise Theatre! I had the pleasure to sit down with Vanessa Matsui to discuss the making of this film.