TIFF 2025 Review: Sk+te’kmujue’katik (At the Place of Ghosts) – “the visual effects elevate the otherworldliness.”

Two Mi’kmaw brothers must properly bury a past traumatic in order for them to have a future.

An encounter with a hooded grim reaper made out of dispersing leaves causes the urban-dwelling Mise’l to seek out his brother Antle, who in turn discovers his daughter being tempted to go into the forest alone by a supernatural presence.  It would appear that the two siblings share a dark history with each other, and for the spiritual order to be made right again, the scene of the crime has to be revisited.

Though it is not stated up front the actual crime can be figured out relatively early on, so what is generating the suspense is whether the brothers can complete their journey and come back alive.  The forest is a character out of a Grimm Fairy tale, with former inhabitants roaming once again like a fevered dream.  The cinematography has a creepy, eerie quality, the visual effects elevate the otherworldliness, and the sound design emphasizes a spiritual discord.

At the heart of the production is the onscreen chemistry between Blake Alec Miranda and Forrest Goodluck as they have to not only interact with each other but also with child versions of themselves. In fact, those are the moments which work the best in comparison to having to deal with the ghosts of those who traversed the terrain long before them.  The line from the healer that essentially states that the illness plaguing the brothers comes from the inside out describes the overriding theme, which isthat  individuals have to come to terms with the source of their grief, otherwise it will become all-consuming.

The 50th Toronto International Film Festival runs September 4-14, 2025, and for more information visit tiff.net.    

Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer who currently resides in Canada; he can be found at LinkedIn.