Results tagged “hotdocs”

PHOTOGRAPHY: Hot Docs, the largest documentary film festival in North America, is branching out into the world of photojournalism today with the opening of World Press Photo 09. This exhibition will display the best photographs chosen from the World Press Photo Foundation’s annual worldwide photojournalism contest. Out of over 90,000 photographs from photographers of over 100 different nationalities, 196 striking images were chosen and will be on display until October 24. Allen Lambert Galleria, Brookfield Place (181 Bay Street), 7 a.m.–10 p.m., FREE.

Apparently we weren't the only ones at Hot Docs this year: the festival is boasting, in a press release, that attendance hit 122,000—"an astounding 42% increase over 2008." And that's with the same number of films being shown this year as last. The festival also announced the winner of their Audience Award—The Cove, which is unfortunately not a sequel to Leonardo DiCaprio's The Beach but is, instead, about dolphins.

Today's Picks:

Today's Picks:

Today's Picks:

Today's Picks:

Today's Picks:

Today's Picks:

Today's Picks:

Today's Picks:

Today's Listings:

One of the most eagerly awaited festivals of the year, Hot Docs opens tonight with a screening of Act of God (pictured above), Jennifer Baichwal's contemplation on the effects of being struck by lightning (at the Winter Garden, 6:30 p.m.). It's followed at 9:30 p.m. by Inside Hana's Suitcase, a documentary covering the mysterious delivery of a battered suitcase from the Auschwitz museum to the Tokyo Holocaust museum, and the story the suitcase itself holds.

You love documentaries. We love documentaries. And what better way to forget our differences and come together in this love than at Hot Docs? Repping 171 titles from 39 countries, the 16th annual documentary festival and confab announced its full slate today at a jammed press conference at Revival.

ART: Side Space Gallery open their "new.Re.new" exhibit today, featuring five artists. Each piece of fibrework, sculpture, or painting is by an artist either new to the gallery, new to the neighbourhood, or new to art creation in general, so be nice and offer directions to any amateur artists you find wandering aimlessly near the gallery. Side Space Gallery (1080 St. Clair Avenue West), opening reception at 7 p.m., runs until January 16, 2009, FREE.

FILM: BAFTA award-winning director Rex Bloomstein's new documentary, An Independent Mind, is having its North American premiere this evening at Innis Town Hall. The film investigates freedom of expression today, sixty years after its enshrinement in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The screening is presented by Canadian Journalists for Free Expression along with Hot Docs and The Walrus. After the film, there will be a panel discussion on the limits of free expression with John Miller, professor of journalism at Ryerson; Frank Addario, a media defense lawyer; Mary Deanne Shears, former managing editor of the Toronto Star, and Carol Off, who co-hosts CBC Radio One's As It Happens. Innis Town Hall (2 Sussex Avenue), 6:30 p.m., $10 ($8 for students).

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.

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 running!

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:

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’d be fine, but while watching two people do it "for real" we often found ourselves wondering why on earth we should care. That's not to say Vesterbro is bad in its very small scope. Though it's not always interesting (depending on the level of crisis), it's a realistic and overall positive love story (of sorts)—even if it does cheat a bit by having an amazing soundtrack, including stellar works from Why? and The Knife. After all, what are relationships but ups, downs, and long periods in between were things are just fine? 3.5/5

We're now over half-way through the festival, and the quality continues with today's picks:

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 president for life, Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedow, is continuing. Okay, we've now officially told you basically everything you can learn from Shadow Of The Holy Book. The entire rest of the film is just director Arto Halonen and journalist Kevin Frazier completely failing to learn anything else by calling various international companies and trying to speak to someone about the Ruhnama. Occasionally they turn up at their offices, but as they actually manage to be less charismatic than Michael Moore, this isn't particularly funny or interesting. The occasional shots of the ridiculous and empty capital of Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, were intriguing, but the film is only going to irritate anyone hoping to finding out more. 1/5

Strike averted, so there’s no excuse to not get downtown and check out some of the offerings from Hot Docs tonight:

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:

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 on?

Our (truncated) picks from this evening's Hot Docs delectables:

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?

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.

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 a theatrical release for Reprise (also distributed by Mongrel Media) again. Nice to see they have faith in a Romainian flick about abortion that won an award in France, but not, you know, just about the best film ever that won an award right here in Toronto.

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, so it’s one of the films on this page, probably!

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.