“Your Tomorrow” - TIFF24 Film Review
The Ontario Place has been a staple of the lives of Torontonians since it opened in 1971. For those who have never been, it’s an odd mixture of different architectural styles, with the original IMAX theater that looks like a smaller version of the EPCOT sphere from Walt Disney World. Perhaps the theater at Ontario Place served as inspiration for Disney, as its much larger geodesic sphere would not open for eleven more years. As it would happen, EPCOT would last longer than Ontario Place, as the beloved lakeside area’s future is threatened. Premiering at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, its hometown fest, Ali Weinstein’s Your Tomorrow is an ode to a place that is changing before our very eyes.
Your Tomorrow is a purely observational documentary that was shot over the span of 100 of what may be the park’s final days. The sheer undertaking that the film crew must have endured to capture this sprawling documentary is staggering. There’s no central character, simply the people who frequent the park. Those include employees, dog walkers, bird watchers, school groups, and so many more. Ontario Place has been turned into its own ecosystem, an essential heartbeat for so many people, and it means something different to each of them. Two of the employees of the IMAX theater reminisce about visiting the park when they were children and talk about how it feels full circle to work there as adults.
Courtesy of TIFF
Perhaps one could call the fight to preserve the park the main character of the film. The Government of Ontario is considering turning the park over to private industries, perhaps a spa or a waterpark. What exists as a free space for Ontarians to enjoy nature will become something corporate, something that takes away from the community instead of adding to it. Your Tomorrow shows some of the protests that occur regularly in the park. Perhaps the most devastating scene that demonstrates how these changes would impact the public isn’t centered on a human at all. It’s a little dog who likely accompanies its owner to the park daily. The dog refuses to move from its spot, despite the fact that the path the dog wants to take is blocked off by a chain link fence. The dog paces along the fence, desperate to take its usual path, a trail the dog clearly enjoys and looks forward to on a regular basis. It’s a reminder of how much this park impacts all of those living in Ontario, not just humans.
Your Tomorrow is also an ode to preservation through the medium of film. It’s sometimes a little difficult to tell the difference between the archival footage and what Weinstein and her crew shot. Both are lush and warm images that exude summertime through the screen. The film’s ability to move seamlessly between past and present speaks to the liminal, ethereal feelings that exist in Ontario Place. Even if the viewer has never been, they likely have an old, empty mall from their childhood that also sits mostly unused now, but that was magical in its heyday. The archival footage makes the present state of Ontario Place all the more heartbreaking. This was a testament to what public spaces could be. A place to learn, to gather, and to grow. We are losing places like this every single day, and without the space for us to come together, we are only going to become more fragmented from each other.
Having memories of your own times of Ontario Place isn’t essential to feeling your heart break more than a little during the runtime of Your Tomorrow. The documentary manages to capture not just a place, but the people who call it home. The camera feels so unobtrusive that it’s like we are there on the lakeshore with this odd collection of people, finding joy in the things others are passionate about – the man who’s growing tomatoes along the beach, the paddle boarders, or the loungers who are simply taking advantage of the sunshine. Your Tomorrow urges its viewers to consider our past, our present, and our future all in the same breath, and to find a way to preserve what is important for all of us.
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