Like everyone else, we’ve been completely distracted with the TTC strike (and considering we can’t really get anywhere in the city as a result, we don’t have much else to do) so this unfortunately final Hot Docs update was a little delayed. Now that legislation is passed, however, maybe we might actually be able to get downtown tonight to see some of the final screenings! Here's hoping. Tonight: 4:30 p.m. – Jesus Loves You......

Now, we’d love to pointedly go on strike from this Hot Docs update, but, you know, there are possibly a few people out there who are reading it to help them pick what they’re going to see at Hot Docs, because they live downtown and within easy walking distance of one of the theatres. Or they’re willing to try and drive down (not that we’d brave it). As far as we know, everything's still......

Well, it’s Hot Docs' closing weekend, and we’re all running out of time to pack in some documentaries! So without furthur ado, here are today’s picks: 4:30 p.m. – Full Battle Rattle (ROM) 6:45 p.m. – The Fallen (Al Green) – Coverage of the Pasta de Conchos disaster (which cost 63 miners their lives) and the resulting fallout. 7:00 p.m. – Milošević on Trial (Royal) 7:15 p.m. – Bloody Cartoons (Innis Town Hall) 9:15......

Vesterbro (11:55 p.m., Bloor). A sort of cinéma vérité film that concentrates on the difficult relationship between two young Danes, this is another film that makes us think about the place of fiction in films today—not because it’s fictional in any way (other than the usual documentary contrivances), but because if someone asked us to see a film about two young people in Denmark falling in and out of love that had a script......

We're now over half-way through the festival, and the quality continues with today's picks: 1:30 p.m. – Second Skin (Isabel Bader) – Pictured above. 4:00 p.m. – The English Surgeon (Isabel Bader) 7:00 p.m. – FlicKeR (Royal) – A look at the life of Brion Gysin (friend of William S. Burroughs), who created the Dream Machine, a device intended to make you dream but that might just cause an epileptic fit. So! Caution if......

Shadow Of The Holy Book (4:00 p.m., Cumberland). So here's the deal. There's a weird dictatorship in central Asia called Turkmenistan. It was run until recently by Saparmurat Niyazov, who wrote a sort of religious text/propaganda piece called the Ruhnama that everyone in the country has to learn. And if you want to trade in the (oil and gas rich) country, translating the book into your own language guarantees big contracts, something the new......

Strike averted, so there’s no excuse to not get downtown and check out some of the offerings from Hot Docs tonight: 4:00 p.m. – Shot in Bombay (Cumberland) 7:00 p.m. – Carts Of Darkness (Royal) – The homeless teach us how to enjoy extreme sports on a budget—by chucking themselves down hills in grocery carts (pictured above). 7:15 p.m. – Be Like Others (Isabel Bader) – Sex change operations are legal in Iran? 7:15......

It might be your last day to get downtown on the TTC today (check our strike status!) so better make the most of it! Our picks from today’s Hot Docs flicks: 12:00 p.m. – Shock Waves (ROM) 1:30 p.m. – Recycle (Cumberland) 5:00 p.m. – Stepya (Innis Town Hall) – pictured above. 6:30 p.m. – Tiger Spirit ( Bloor) – Min Sook Lee returns to Korea to examine the continuing influence 50 years of......

It's Saturday, the weekend, and we're all basking in not only our free time but also our ability to get downtown on the TTC before it's stripped away from us (even though it's a last resort etc. etc.). So this weekend is obviously the best time to try and check out anything at Hot Docs, because who knows if you'll have any opportunity to for the rest of the festival if the strike drags......

Our (truncated) picks from this evening's Hot Docs delectables: 4:15 p.m. – Anvil! The Story of Anvil (Isabel Bader) 6:45 p.m. – Shock Waves (Al Green) – The fortunes of a radio station in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 7:00 p.m. – Ex-voto for Three Souls / Second Sight (Alliance Cumberland Cinemas) – Three Mexicans struggle for miracles in Ex-voto; A Scot talks of "ghost cars"(?) in Second Sight. 7:00 p.m. – Steypa (Royal)......

When we ran our Sprockets preview last week, we tried to give the piece a theme, and we couldn’t stick to it. In all honesty, we probably overstretched ourselves in trying to give a post on a children’s film festival a theme any grander than "children’s films," and when you get down to it, why bother? Trying to theme our introductory post to this year’s Hot Docs coverage, which will continue throughout the week,......

So far on Torontoist we have mentioned Torontonian heavy metal band Anvil precisely this number of times: zero. Now, we’re sure we were going to get around to mentioning them one of these days, but to be honest, we didn’t expect we’d be referring to them when talking about Hot Docs, which announced its complete festival program today. Opening the festival on April 17th, Anvil! The Story of Anvil is the tale of the "demi-gods......

If there’s one thing Torontoist likes to do, it’s moan about stuff, but on the face of it, that Palme d’Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days receiving a theatrical release here is something that should be received without complaint. After all, journalists have praised the film, including Norm Wilner at Metro, who calls the film "marvellous filmmaking." But really, it just gives us a chance to moan about the lack of......

The Revue cinema is due to reopen its doors on October 4th, and if you’ve been waiting for the chance to buy tickets for the opening night, they’re now on sale at She Said Boom (393 Roncesvalles Avenue) at $20 for the film and the after-party or $10 for just the party at the Lithuanian Hall (1573 Bloor Street West). The opening night film is secret, but it was selected by an online poll,......

It’s not been a week since the Toronto International Film Festival left us, and this week’s new releases make it hard for us to move on despite a couple of TIFF premieres leading the way. We’ll start with Paul Haggis’ In The Valley of Elah, because he’s a good Canadian boy…or is he? It’s interesting to note that in the interviews with him in the weeklies about this film (a "murder mystery" about a......

According to Doug Flavelle, "there are a lot of women with guitars in their closets." His studio, Guitar Girl, aims to get them out. The studio, which opened its doors in a loft-like space at Queen and Greenwood in September 2006, offers guitar lessons solely for girls and women. The focus is on six-week group courses, though they do some private lessons and have held Rock 'n' Roll camps during March Break and summer......

The joke goes: "The women in Montreal are so beautiful. Where do you send all the ugly women? To Toronto?" In the Hot Docs smash movie Let's All Hate Toronto, Brampton comedian Russell Peters tells the joke as evidence towards the animosity Canadians have for Toronto. Rob Spence and Albert Nerenberg, the directors of Let's All Hate Toronto were offended as well. They brought forth a petition to the Just for Laughs comedy festival to......

Let's face it: film festivals in this city are a dime a dozen. And while it's so totally awesome that as a result we get to see movies in the theatres other folks have a hard time tracking down at all and get to wander around Cumberland in September looking for Ashton and Demi, it can be a little overwhelming trying to keep up with the veritable cornucopia of fests in town. Should you......

It was a record-breaking year at Hot Docs, as more than 68,000 people came to watch more than 200 screenings of 129 films. If those numbers aren't enough, here's another one for you: attendance was up a whopping 33 per cent from last year. This year the festival decided to be a bit more environmentally-friendly, and had audience members using their ticket stubs as ballots for the coveted Audience Award. The winner was announced Monday......

Last Call at the Gladstone Hotel's Neil Graham (left) and Derreck Roemer. One of the things that makes Toronto's film festivals great is the mix. In the words of documentary director Kevin McMahon, "I can go to see a screening and see both my neighbour and a filmmaker in the lineup." But most local filmmakers have been too busy to see many movies at this year's Hot Docs. The festival is one of the......

OMG! This week sees the release of Kickin' It Old Skool, a Jamie Kennedy vehicle. He plays a breakdancer who awakes from a 20-year coma and something that Jamie Kennedy probably considers hilarity ensues. We here at Torontoist Towers are astounded at the idea that somebody greenlighted a film with Jamie Kennedy in it. Absoultely gob-smacked. Moving on, Stone Cold Steve Austin plays Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Running Man On An Island (The Condemned)......

It's been over a year since local über-activist Dave Meslin took his grass roots political activism to the next level by co-ordinating the City Idol competition. Rather than entering the municipal election himself, Meslin chose to direct his efforts at increasing civic participation in the terminally under-attended municipal elections. Aside from some minor bumps (including having to change the logo, lest he infringe upon the rights of Ryan Seacrest, et al) the effort yielded......

There is some lively behind-the-scenes discussions happening at this year's Hot Docs festival. Yesterday, the industry got together to talking about the environmental impact of cinema. According to the Greencode Project, "A recent UCLA study of the environmental footprint left by Hollywood finds that California's media industry creates more greenhouse gases than the apparel, hotel, or aerospace industries in the region." Yesterday, Greencode Project organizers met with filmmakers to unveil their proposal to draft......

This year, Hot Docs honours Toronto-based film maker Kevin McMahon with its Focus On retrospective. McMahon, whose films are noted for being playfully intellectual, accepts the accolade in that same spirit. "Geoff Pevere said to me, 'a retrospective—now you have to die.'" says the director, "So I'm focusing on the mid-career part." McMahon first came to prominence in 1991 with the The Falls—which wove Niagara Fall's kitsch history with the reality that the river had......

So there we were, all ready to write another post previewing the final weekend of the Sprockets International Film Festival for Children, when we realised that the film we wanted to bring everyone’s attention to, When the Show Tent Came To My Town, had already had all of its showings! Darn. So though we aren’t going to do a full review of the film, we’d just like to note that When the Show Tent Came......

Toronto is apparently "about to go broke." Wait, what? Today, VIA stands for Very Irritated Aboriginals. A First Nations protest over land is currently affecting all of VIA Rail between Montreal and Toronto. The move, according to 680 News, was to "protest against a developer's plans to build condominiums using material from a quarry on land they claim is theirs." Since the entire country is pretty much native land (it even says it right......

Photo still of Billy The Kid from their website. If you are a huge fan of reality, then this is the film fest for you. Hot Docs, North America's biggest documentary film festival, kicks off tonight with the Canadian Premiere of In The Shadow Of The Moon. For the next 10 days, more than 100 documentaries from around the world will be showcased in our fair city. If you are looking to get your......

Canadian culture is very difficult to define. There are very few unifying traits that identify a person as a true Canadian. Sure, for the most part there's hockey and the fact that we're all polite, but even so, is that all it takes to make us a part of the "true north strong and free"? Well, according to a new documentary entitled Let's All Hate Toronto, one thing that brings all Canadians together is their......

Inside Out is gearing up for its seventeenth annual celebration of Gay and Lesbian video and film, and they need your help to ensure another successful year. This Sunday, the festival will hold the fourth installment of Bar Bazaar, a fundraiser where you can mingle, nosh on homemade baked goods, listen to music from DJ Winnie and bid on an incredible list of items in a silent auction. Notable donations include a five-class pass from......

While North American documentaries are becoming increasingly political and divisive, Souvenirs, Iraeli filmmaker Shahar Cohen’s directorial debut doc, is the very human story of a father and son trying to understand where they came from so they might to understand who they are. Souvenirs follows Shahar, an unemployed filmmaker, and his 82-year-old father, Sleiman, as they drive through Europe. Sleiman, a former WWII truck driver in the Jewish Brigade, believes they are retracing his experiences......