A scene from Amy George
Directed by Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas (Canada)
Shot on a budget so low as to be subterranean, this first-time feature by a couple of Sheridan College-trained cineastes nevertheless has its charms, including a pitch-perfect performance by Gabriel del Castillo Mullally as Jesse, the film's cherubic, artistically minded 13-year-old protagonist who wanders Toronto's leafy Riverdale in a state of sexual inquisitiveness/frustration. For all its seeming waywardness, the movie is, in fact, quite tightly structured, its milieu well-observed, the dialogue smart, occasionally hilarious. However, its production values are often onerously funky, the lighting, in particular, so murky as to make a Dogme 95 feature seem positively luminous in comparison.
Sept. 13, 6 p.m., AMC 9; Sept. 15, 9:15 p.m., AMC 2; Sept. 17, 12:30 p.m., AMC 10