Godspell documentary You Had to Be There will open this year’s Whistler Film Festival (WFF). Whistler announced its full line-up today after rolling out selections including the opening and closing night films. You Had to Be There, directed by Nick Davis, shares an oral history of the legendary 1972 Toronto production of the hit musical Godspell that launched the careers of several comedy icons. The doc, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this year, includes interviews with surviving participants such as Eugene Levy, Martin Short, Andrea Martin, and Victor Garber. It kicks off WFF on December 3.
You Had to Be There screens in Whistler’s Special Presentations section. Also representing documentary in the main slate is Ni-Naadamaadiz: Red Power Rising from director Shane Belcourt. The documentary chronicles the growth of the Red Power movement across Canada with the occupation at Anicinabe Park among the events that mobilized the push for First Nations’ land rights.
Documentaries having their world premieres at Whistler include Nic Collar’s Forward about Clay March, an athlete with cerebral palsy. It screens in the Mountain Culture selection alongside Clayton Larsen and Ryan Stutt’s Our Kind of Chaos about the Whiskey snowboarding videos crew. The film is also a world premiere. Rounding out the Canadian content in the Mountain stream is Alison Reid’s The Art of Adventure about Robert Bateman and Bristol Foster’s breakthrough world tour, which premiered at Vancouver earlier this season.
In the World Documentary section, Amalie Atkins’ award winner Agatha’s Almanac continues its run with its portrait of a nonagenarian and her beloved garden. Kate Green’s Menopause: Coming in Hot has its world premiere at WFF and brings a feminist self-portrait of this turning point in women’s biology. Also having its world premiere is Luke Gleeson’s Wədzįh Nəne’ | Caribou Country. The film offers a portrait of First Nations leaders who protect the shrinking caribou population. The fight to protect animals also appears in Marlene Rodgers’ The Rewilders about conservationists across the globe, and Tamara Kosteva’s The Tale of Silyan, which brings its visually striking portrait of a Macedonian farmer and the storks intimately linked to his food supply in a time of economic hardship. This year’s Whistler Film Festival runs December 3 to 7.
