The consciousness divide between what makes a good TV documentary and what makes a good theatrical doc has never been so stark in this country as in the weeks since Telefilm and CBC announced at the Banff TV festival that $2 million would be available for theatrical docs, in a test run that begins this
As Stuart Samuels readily points out, any idea that this is “objective” documentary filmmaking is a simple misunderstanding.
On Sunday the 13th of February 2005 at the National Gallery of Canada, Pegi Nicol—Something Dancing About Her received its world première. The screening was timed to coincide with the opening of an exhibition of paintings by Pegi Nicol MacLeod at the Carleton University Art Gallery, curated by Laura Brandon, who was also launching the publication of
Snowy February in Toronto, Sunnyside of the Doc Rendezvous: a pitching session between French and Canadian producers and broadcasters. I’m here as a double agent—autodidact on assignment. Inspired, I learn lots and am invited to attend the huge Marché at the end of June. Marseilles, sweltering Mediterranean magnificence. Cashing in all my air miles, I’m
BRITISH COLUMBIA — Katherine Dodds The Communist Joke Book Vancouver Screen Siren Leah Mallen met UK director Ben Lewis (of BBC Art Safari fame), at an art conference in Ottawa. Lewis had pitched a feature doc idea at IDFA, for a historical account of communist jokes. As for Mallen, she was fascinated by the concept of how the fall of communism was
I didn’t get a chance to go to a large number of Hot Docs this year, but the ones I did get to see were looked at with the critical eye of a DOP. Docs with great visual content stand out from average fare. Some films, especially those shot on small camcorders, can be distractingly
The 18th annual Images Festival boasted a fresh artistic programmer—Jeremy Rigsby, courtesy of Windsor’s renowned Media City—and a stronger emphasis on internationalism. Along with that commitment to international content, this year’s festival showcased an exhaustive potpourri of documentary strategies and impulses, although not that many formally-straightforward documentaries. The emphasis on documenting and its problematics was
Many of us belong to that category of citizens poetically described as the “walking worried.” (Adelphia Communications: $2.5 billion bankruptcy.) We are those who realize that things have gone awry, but are not sure why, nor how they’ve become so squirrelly. (Conseco: $6.5 billion bankruptcy.) But in between being a taxi service for the kids,
Toronto’s film community was galvanized this spring by the lively presence of Errol Morris at Hot Docs, where he received that festival’s Outstanding Achievement Award. It’s just one of many honours that have been showered on this gifted filmmaker whose works include the Stephen Hawking portrait A Brief History of Time, the dark and funny “pet
Need an inspirational shot in the arm? Ever wonder how to bend technology to your will? Or how to explore complex questions of identity, politics, death? Then spend some time with a master in Catherine Lupton’s Chris Marker: Memories of the Future. In this accessible, compact volume, Lupton details Chris Marker’s entire oeuvre as writer, critic,