What Walaa Wants (Canada/Denmark, 89 min.) Dir. Christy Garland Canadian Spectrum (North American Premiere) On the surface What Walaa Wants is a film about a young girl who wants to join the Palestinian Authority; however, it manages to explore a lot more than that. Walaa is a strong-willed impassioned teenager living in Balata, a
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Golden Dawn Girls (Norway, Denmark, Finland, 92 minutes) Dir: Håvard Bustnes Programme: World Showcase. (North American Premiere) Once on a tiny Aegean island called Koufonissi, an Athenian friend said to me, “There are no ghosts in Greece. There is too much light.” She was wrong. The warm, sweet Greece that I’ve loved barely makes
Serge Giguère crafts a love letter to mothers who devote themselves to their children with My Mother's Letters
Active Measures (USA, 112 minutes) Dir: Jack Bryan Programme: Special Presentations. (World Premiere) Active Measures is so loaded with information that Jack Bryan and his producers considered telling the story in a series. Watching this film back-to-back with Our New President, another Trump and Putin horror show screening at Hot Docs 2018, could bring
Grit is sure to be the great eco doc of Hot Docs 2018 and the year overall. This powerful film witnesses tragedy on an epic scale as a tsunami of toxic mud displaces over 60,000 people in Indonesia and leaves a flowing geyser of gritty goop scarring the ecosystem.
Minding the Gap was executive-produced by Hoop Dreams director Steve James and it shares James’ ability to place the individuals’ aspirations against a hardscrabble socio-economic background. Bing Liu, who demonstrates he’s as good an action cinematographer as he is a gutsy interviewer, is a talent to watch.
Andy Irons: Kissed by God (USA, 100 min.) Dir. Steve Jones, Todd Jones Program: Special Presentations (World Premiere) Catch some waves with Andy Irons: Kissed by God. This emotional roller coaster of a film breaks through sports documentary conventions and delivers a raw study of mental illness. The film mines a deep archive of
In Faith Hope Love, a new documentary that just premiered at the 25th edition of Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, director Katja Fedulova examines the role of women in modern-day Russia. The documentary sheds light on the lives of three Russian women. Olga is a politician who fights vehemently against governmental corruption. Natalia is
The Bill Murray Stories: Life Lessons Learned from a Mythical Man USA. 70 Minutes Dir. Tommy Avallone. Special Presentations (International Premiere) Bill Murray’s habit of engaging with strangers in unusual ways — joining karaoke parties, taking a cab driver for a ride or reading poetry to construction workers— has been extensively chronicled on the
Playing Hard (Canada/USA, 90 min.) Dir. Jean-Simon Chartier Programme: Special Presentations (World Premiere) “Entertainment is philosophy in motion,” says gamer Jason Vandenberghe towards the end of Playing Hard. The film sees Vandenberghe realize his dream by leading the team at Montreal’s Ubisoft video game empire in creating the entertainment he always wanted as a