By Phoebe Chen Suburban Birds screens at TIFF Bell Lightbox on Thursday, November 14 as part of MDFF Selects: Presented by Cinema Scope and TIFF. In the grip of this terrestrial life, nothing works so well as a sinkhole to bare the subterranean tremors of our weird planet. You have seen these pictures seized and…

By Phoebe Chen For certain filmmakers—attractive women—there is a popular kind of on-set photo that telegraphs authority: one eye pressed to the viewfinder of some behemoth camera, she is caught in a contra-glamour shot that codes the pragmatic as cool. Naturally, there is one of Chantal Akerman, taken some time in the late ’70s—shaggy-haired and…