“WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND THE DARKNESS. ESPECIALLY WHEN WE FACE THE LIGHT. IF WE TURNAROUND, THERE IS ONLY DARKNESS.”— Anonymous female voice Delivered sombrely, the opening quote of Velcrow Ripper’s new feature documentary ScaredSacred, sets up beautifully the overriding theme of the film: to move ‘towards’ the darkness rather than running away. Just as effectively, it nails down the underlying metaphor, with ‘scared’ being shrouded in darkness, and
DURING APRIL 2004 AND BEYOND WE WERE CONSTANTLY REMINDED THAT THIS WAS THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST DEMOCRATIC ALL–RACE ELECTIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA. I was shocked by the realization that last year also marked the thirtieth anniversary of my first visit to that country, of my first experience with apartheid. After that first trip in 1974 as part of an African tour I was doing for the American NGO (non-governmental organization), CARE, I was to devote a large
“These children have the serenity of a leafless tree, as if they already had within themselves one life; as if all the pain and longing that goes into adult life, all the relinquishing, has already been endured.” – Pirjo Honkasalo Veteran Finnish filmmaker Pirjo Honkasalo made her latest documentary, The 3 Rooms of Melancholia, because
“Why can’t you just leave me alone?” – Oscar-nominated animator Ryan Larkin, shouting at the screen during one of the first public showings of Alter Egos, the documentary about his history, art and character. Documentary biographies have become so formulaic in their celebration of individuals’ achievements and fame that if someone makes a film portrait
Sometimes a picture burns a hole in your head, burrows into your brain and takes up residence. Like the face of the title character from the new digitally animated 3D short, Ryan. And what a ravaged face it is, with weather roughened skin, deep creases at the mouth, one eye reddened, the other missing. And
A winking post-modern concoction that has, over its very short career, inspired reams of passionate critical response, Incident at Loch Ness is ostensibly about a spectacularly troubled production, mounted by the German documentary (and occasionally fiction film) director Warner Herzog. It finds the indomitable auteur—famous throughout his career for his forcible, occasionally unscrupulous mastery of exotic,
ARISE, ARISE, O ye great-grandchildren of Grierson, Brittain, and Perrault. THE DOCUMENTARY, the only original Canadian art form that means anything to the rest of the world, is in peril. We’re on the CanDoc deathwatch. The intravenous machines are being unplugged. Its whole life flashes before its Nanookian eyes. Why? I can only offer a
BRITISH COLUMBIA – Katherine Dodds Secrets “It was going to be a look at how sex education has changed over the last 50 years,” says producer Trish Williams about Secrets, the one-hour doc for CBC on which she is currently in production. “We were looking for revolutionary changes, but we didn’t find them.” Instead what
A good story department is a military operation, led by the showrunner(s) who carries the vision of the series.
The best part of the latest monograph put out by the Toronto International Film Festival Group is the last—Pierre Perrault in his own words—where the passionate, sometimes in-your-face documentarian ends up sounding dangerously close to a stuck pig. Thank goodness then for David Clanfield’s painstakingly careful and thorough 152-page examination of Perrault’s prodigious oeuvre. In