Tagged: hotdocs

We Cause Scenes All the documentaries I'd got to see this year for Hot Docs were music documentaries and also online screeners which I was able to watch from the luxury of my iPad. On the other hand, there were times when I'd have preferred to watch a film with an audience -I think that really is an important part of any film festival experience. On the last weekend of Hot Docs I managed to catch one documentary entitled We Cause Scenes: The Rise Of Improv Everywhere [...]

Director Kaspar Astrup Schröder came up with the idea for Rent A Family Inc. on one of his many trips to Japan. He was looking through the classifieds and noticed that unusual items were available for rent. These items not only included dogs that could be rented for an hour, but a section for renting people as well. Intrigued, Schröder contacted Ryuichi Ichinokawa who owns a business called I Want To Cheer You Up Ltd. Running the company only though his laptop and cell phone, Ryuichi rents himself out as a father, husband, boss, and colleague. He [...]

Finding The Funk Directed by Nelson George (better known perhaps for his 2007 directorial debut entitled Life Support starring Queen Latifah for which she won a Golden Globe for), Finding The Funk is a fine effort overall. Neither complete nor comprehensive in its scope, it's somewhat like an introductory college course serving to give a general understanding of the evolution of funk and to touch on some of the major progenitors of the genre. Dutifully narrated by The Roots' drummer ?uestlove [...]

The Punk Singer What was I doing in 1990? I'd just graduated high school and was entering my first year of university. I'd been a music fan (mostly the alternative British music scene of the 80's and John Hughes films) and hadn't really delved too much into the indie music scene. The next year, Nirvana's "Nevermind" would be released, grunge would go mainstream and well, the rest is history. Back then I never really gave it a second thought that the music scene had been much of a boys club. So when a band [...]

“There's something in that mud” declares Bono in the opening interview of Muscle Shoals . The town of Muscle Shoals hits musicians in the gut, dragging out songs anchored by deep base guitars and base drums. As Bono speaks of the region, director Greg "Freddy" Camalier displays shots of both the Tennessee River and the deep rich thick forests that runs along the town. Though not glamorous in comparison to major cities, Muscle Shoals was a hot destination for many of the leading artists from the 60’s and 70’s who wanted to record music. It is a [...]

Mistaken For Strangers When I'd read that The National 's Matt Berninger's brother Tom Berninger directed this documentary of the band entitled Mistaken For Strangers , I had initially imagined it might be your standard tour documentary. Tom, whose film work prior to that, seemed to be relegated to low-budget, indie, horror movies (none of which I'd ever heard of), on his brother's request offered him a job as a roadie on their European / American tour, and also gave him permission to film them for a documentary. [...]

The date February 24, 2010, flashes briefly on a dark screen followed the sound of a panicked voice over phone. There has been an accident at Sea World and one of the trainers is severely injured. The trainer in question, Dawn Brancheau, was dragged into the water by an orca named Tilikum. To understand the reason for the occurrence, director Gabriela Cowperthwaite must first give us the background of killer whales in captivity. It all started with the 1970 capture of killer whales in Puget Sound, Washington. The orcas, each group having their own tactics for [...]

Four chambermaids tell their personal stories of love, marriage, relationships and life in The Women and the Passenger . They work at El Passajero, a motel that rents rooms by the hour, and refer to the ever changing guests as passengers. The housekeeping staff is constantly busy at El Passajero as checkout time is more frequent than the noon departure time one would expect at a normal hotel. Each employee tells her stories regarding the numerous guest at the motel in a straight forward manner that is free of titillation or judgment of the guests that come to [...]

In an introduction to his film at the premiere screening, director Gus Holwerda mentioned that in making this film, he was hoping to create a rock doc about science and that's a fairly accurate description of what this documentary is all about.  Much like your standard film made about a touring band, The Unbelievers follows around scientists Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss on a speaking tour of sorts as the two make appearances at various talks, debates, and media appearances. While the two subjects of this documentary do come across as charming enough, I also found [...]

Read this first bit with the Salt-n-pepa song in mind lets talk about buying sex baby it's the subject of this document-tary it talks about all the good things and the bad things about buying sex lets talk about sex.... Anyways as you might imagine, Buying Sex is about the hot stove topic of legalizing prostitution. Kent Nason & Teresa MacInnes foray into the world of politics behind legalizing prostitution takes therm to a variety of places including New Zealand and Sweden, all of whom have taken different approaches [...]

Hot Docs has wrapped its 20th anniversary edition with record-breaking audience numbers reaching an estimated 180,000. After the final screening yesterday, audience votes were tallied for the Audience Award, presented by Netflix. The winner is MUSCLE SHOALS (D: Greg “Freddy” Camalier, USA), the story of a tiny backwater Alabama town’s impact on popular music. Second in the audience poll is BLOOD BROTHER (D: Steve Hoover, USA), in which the director follows his friend’s sudden move to India to care for HIV-positive orphans; and third in the audience poll is A WHOLE LOTT MORE (D: Victor Buhler, [...]

It is hard to believe that it has been a little over a decade since Napster closed up shop. Considering how fast technology is advancing these days, it is easy to forget both Napster’s importance and the influence it had on several products we still use today. Fortunately Alex Winter’s film, Downloaded , is here to remind us of exactly how instrumental Napster really was. The story of Napster has been well documented in the media. It all started in 1998 when two teenagers, Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, came up with an [...]

Baltimore - Every sunny Sunday since I moved down, the rumbling sound of engines invariably invades Orlean Street some time in the afternoon. At first it would be a few lone engine bursts, sounding like the cries of old men being ferried across pothole-filled roads at breakneck speed. But soon it crescendos into a background so loud, that you feel like your landlord just took the rent from the whole National Zoo. And when it all trails off with that unmistakably tragic Dopler shift, I'm left confused about what it was all about. In this documentary, I got a glimpse [...]

At one point in Oil Sands Karaoke , one of the subjects speaks of the unifying nature of karaoke, how he would see people coming together at the bar who otherwise wouldn't have anything to do with one another. In a sense, this is probably the key message behind this film, a portrait of Fort McMurray, home of the oil sands, and the residents who take great pleasure in the simple joy of singing and the escape that it offers. While the oil sands are undoubtedly a controversial issue, the film doesn't really dwell on the issue [...]

I was hoping to have gone out to a few Hot Docs screenings by this point but unfortunately due to other things [nephew's birthday over the weekend, picking up my new 'used' car a few nights ago] I wasn't able to. I was however able to view the screener for the documentary Good Ol' Freda yesterday evening and I very much enjoyed it. Produced and directed by Ryan White , it's a scrap-book look at the fandom of The Beatles from one insider who perhaps many people [...]

I've seen enough documentaries to realize and accept the fact that most filmmakers lean towards the left when it comes to telling stories. So imagine my surprise when I saw how well balanced Rachel Boynton's Big Men was. A tale about resource exploitation and the people behind it, Big Men starts with the discover of oil off of Ghana's coast. As one would imagine, the discovery of oil has major financial implications and we are introduced to plenty of players who wish to benefit from it. Among them include Ghana officials, money lenders in New York [...]

Valentine Road evoked a passion within me like few other films have done this year. Certain individuals portrayed in the film angered me to the point where I wanted to physically throw something at the screen. The strong emotional reaction that the film evokes is exactly why Valentine Road is such an important and necessary film. It should be essential viewing for everyone, but especially students and parents. The film provides a heart-wrenching look at the devastating damage intolerance can have on a community. The film focuses on the [...]

Baltimore - The aptly titled GNPS is a collection of montages from 2009 when, after months of email exchanges and gentle persuasion, Leong and Lee finally got the permission to shoot inside the Hermit Kingdom, albeit with handlers trailing their every step. From start to finish, this seemingly plain analysis showcases the performances of a group of young film school students in "real" life in order to tease out a version of the North Korean reality, all while without telling you explicitly how the directors themselves perceived. It doesn't get much more meta-circular than that. Kim Jong-Il is known [...]

A puzzling look at rural life in Alberta, The Auctioneer follows the unique life of Dale Menzak. A man with multiple hats (literally and figuratively), Dale earns his keep by working as a farmer, undertaker and auctioneer. It is the last job where we spend most of his time, as we follow Dale as he prepares for several auctions of farm equipment from the offspring of farmers who have gone to seek a new life under a more urban landscape. Following a verite documentary style, we see Dale go on his daily life, having various conversations with friends [...]

The legalization of prostitution has been a long debated issue. The topic heated up once again after a recent court ruling deemed that the existing laws against brothels and pimping were unconstitutional. Buying Sex explores the prostitution laws in Canada, and the people it affects, from both sides of the debate. There are some, like sex worker and advocate Valerie Scott, who argue that the laws against prostitution do more to put sex workers in harm than it does to protect them. In the other corner is Trisha Baptie, a former sex worker turned [...]