Reviews - Page 149

Giving you our points of view on the latest docs in release and on the circuit.

Review: ‘The Artist and the Pervert’

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The Artist & the Pervert (Germany, 96 min.) Dir. Beatrice Behn and René Gebhardt Artscapes. Program: (North American Premiere)   A smack of politically incorrect racial sex play, a spanking of gender-inappropriate kink and a touch of genius entitlement add up to a happy creative marriage in the provocative, warm-hearted film The Artist & The Pervert. Co-directed and shot by Beatrice Behn and Rene Gebhardt, this German-made documentary focuses on the relationship between Georg Frederick Haas, a renowned Austrian modern music composer in his sixties and his wife, Mollena Williams-Haas, an American kink educator and performer, in her late forties.

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Review: ‘Nothing without Us’

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Nothing Without Us: The Women Who Will End AIDS (USA, 67 minutes) Dir. Harriet Hirshorn Programme: Silence Breakers (International Premiere)   Nothing Without Us demands we learn the names of women activists across the globe in the fight to end HIV/AIDS. The fight for visibility, recognition and access to services is impeded by gender, race, location and economic disparities. Nothing Without Us addresses these issues head on by centring the voices of those most affected by the virus. All of the main characters are women of colour living with HIV and working within their communities. Most of them are doing

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Review: ‘Constructing Albert’

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Constructing Albert (Spain/Estonia, 82 min.) Dir. Laura Collado, Jim Loomis Programme: World Showcase (Canadian Premiere)   Being crowned the best in the world is an awfully high status to maintain. It’s even harder when one shares the honour with one’s brother. Standing next to the best may prove a point of inspiration though, as Constructing Albert conveys in depicting the sibling rivalry between master chefs Ferran Adrià and Albert Adrià. The brothers achieved culinary stardom with their Catalan restaurant elBulli, which received a rare 3-star Michelin ranking and was named the number one eatery in the world by Restaurant Magazine

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Review: ‘The Trolley’

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The Trolley (Canada, 45min) Dir. Stephen Low Programme: Special Events & Big Ideas Series   Canadian documentarian Stephen Low is one of those old school IMAX filmmakers, gifted with using the massive canvas of the large-format frame to both engage and enthral often young audiences. His Titanica was a formative film. I’ve still got it on Laserdisc, a preposterous compromise compared to seeing the 15perf 70mm presentation screened in the early ‘90s, but still a fine look at that famous bit of transportation failure. With The Trolley, Low sets his sights on another 45 minute edu-taining doc, one best suited

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Review: ‘The Silence of Others’

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The Silence of Others USA, Spain. 96 Minutes. Dir. Almunena Carracedo, Robert Bahar. Program: The Good Fight (North American Premiere)   During the post-War years, Spain had a relatively benign international image, through its tourist-friendly advertising and a military alliance with the Americans. Yet the truth is Franco’s administration was a murderous regime, responsible for torture, concentration camps and forced labour, child stealing and hundreds of thousands of political killings in the worst post-war repression in Europe outside of the Soviet Union. Since the new millennium there has been a social movement, accompanied by literature and academic studies designed to

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Review: ‘I Used to Be Normal: A Boyband Fangirl Story’

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I Used to Be Normal: A Boyband Fangirl Story (Australia, 96 min.) Dir. Jessica Leski Programme: Nightvisions (World Premiere)   There is, like, a science to making the perfect boy band. Seriously. Dara, a 33-year-old brand strategist from Australia and proud Take That fangirl, breaks down the factors that define and unite boybands throughout the history of popular music. Standing before a whiteboard with the intensity, determination, and semi-seriousness of a PhD student constructing her dissertation, Dara lays out the evidence. Boy bands typically feature 3-5 young (but not too young) heartthrobs who make girls swoon with their sugary lyrics

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Review: ‘Kinshasa Makambo’

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Kinshasa Makambo (France, 75 min.) Dir: Dieudo Hamadi Programme: World Showcase   Many are the films offering street-level views of the spate of protests that have swept the globe since Occupy and the Arab Spring: The Square, Winter on Fire, Whose Streets?, etc. Add Kinshasa Makambo to that list. The film is about the movement to depose Joseph Kabila, the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, who has refused to hold elections after serving two terms. As with most contemporary documentaries of this kind, Kinshasa Makambo is not didactic; rather, it’s an immersion in a grassroots movement and the

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Review: ‘The Accountant of Auschwitz’

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The Accountant of Auschwitz (Canada, 80 minutes) Dir: Matthew Shoychet Programme: The Good Fight.(World Premiere)   Recent studies show that the Nazi slaughter of millions of men, women, children, and even infants is fading from memory, particularly among millennials. Some believe that two million, not six million, Jews were murdered. Many have never heard of Auschwitz, let alone less known death camps. The people surveyed are not Holocaust deniers; it’s just that their awareness is sketchy at best. World premiering at Hot Docs, The Accountant of Auschwitz carries weight not only because it helps to keep memory alive in a

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Review: ‘Netizens’

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Netizens (USA, 97 min.) Dir. Cynthia Lowen Programme: Silence Breakers (International Premiere)   Hot Docs spotlights the Silence Breakers this year with a special line-up of films that capture the passion, energy, rage, and impact of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements in the wake of Harvey Weinstein’s precipitous fall that rocked Hollywood and workplace relations worldwide. Of all these all-female directed films in the line-up, Cynthia Lowen’s Netizens represents female voices in the festival’s splashy Scotiabank Big Ideas series in which filmmakers and subjects engage in conversations following the film. There couldn’t be a better film than Netizens with which

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Review: ‘Witkin & Witkin’

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Witkin & Witkin (Mexico, 93 min.) Dir. Trisha Ziff Program: Made in Mexico (International Premiere)   Being a twin can sometimes feel like being in a circus sideshow. People gawk. They stare. They ask questions nobody would ever ask a “single.” As a twin, I can relate to the stories presented in Witkin & Witkin about twin artists Jerome, a painter, and Joel-Peter, a photographer. For example, my twin brother and I both work in film. He’s a publicist and I’m a writer. It works well, except when his movies stink (though that never happens!), but someone always makes a

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