Eye on Juliet

Academy Award–nominated filmmaker Kim Nguyen returns to TIFF with Eye on Juliet, a distinctive romance set in a time of surveillance, terrorism, and prejudice. Detroit-based Gord (Joe Cole) works for a surveillance company that monitors, using robots, a pipeline halfway around the world in Northern Africa. One night, lonely and depressed following a brutal split with his girlfriend, Gord notices a young woman, Ayusha, sitting alone in the dunes waiting to meet her lover. Entranced by their devotion and his sudden access to a foreign land (he's never left Michigan, even to go to Windsor), Gord begins following them out of curiosity, boredom, and a forlorn attempt to recover his faith in a better future.

Gord is the only one who seems to take his job seriously, at least initially. His supervisor naps much of the time and expects Gord to cover for him — which just fans Gord's new obsession. By comparison, the boss of their unit is upset that Gord isn't constantly stoking fears of terrorism, afraid their client might cancel when he discovers minor theft is a likelier threat. At the film's heart is the unusual bond between Gord and Ayusha, one that transcends the characters' limited experience of the world outside their immediate borders, pointing out that geography is a lesser barrier than fear, isolation, and bigotry.

STEVE GRAVESTOCK

Part of the Our Digital Future film series, presented by SAP

Every day, more people are exposed to tools that allow increasingly sophisticated global communication. This world-changing paradigm is opening people's eyes to different cultures and ways of thinking, while also setting the stage for widely shared tales of personal struggle and cooperation between people across the globe.

Explore how digital technology will continue to affect our daily lives now and in the future — and reimagine a better tomorrow at sap.com/our-digital-future.