Hot Docs Meets REEL CANADA
This year’s Hot Docs Festival is closer than you might think. It begins April 28th and runs until May 8th, and it will be jam-packed with screenings, forums, amazing youth programming and a sizeable amount of hobnobbing.
In my excited anticipation, I have decided to dive in a little early and do a bit of a Hot Docs meets REEL CANADA crash course. The list of films that pop up in our catalogue that have screened at Hot Docs is a lengthy one, so I’ll keep things short and sweet and cover just a couple filmmakers at a time…
The first filmmaker on the list is Charles Officer. An incredibly talented man responsible for the exceptional film, Nurse.Fighter.Boy.
With his debut feature film taking home six out of ten Genie nominations, Officer has solidified his place on the Canadian film scene as a fearless and uncompromising filmmaker. His short film,Short Hymn, Silent War provides another prime example of Officer’s attention to emotional detail. When watching his films I feel the dialogue just as much as I can hear it. Furthermore, for a director who enjoys silence in his works, I find that key information is flawlessly conveyed, sometimes on an almost subconscious level. This year, Hot Docs presents Officer’s latest film Mighty Jerome, about one of Canada’s fastest athletes, Harry Jerome. In Officer’s debut feature documentary, he confronts the topics of race, determination and Canada in the 1960s. Mighty Jerome plays at theTIFF Bell Lightbox, Isabel Bader Theatre and the Review Cinema, so check the Hot Docs website and do not miss it!
Our second amazing filmmaker of the day is Hubert Davis who is part of The National Parks Project screening this year at Hot Docs. This unprecedented film gathers its brilliance from 52 contemporary artists including Peter Lynch (Project Grizzly), Sturla Gunnarsson (Such a Long Journey) and Zacharius Kunuk (Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner). The film includes music by Sarah Harmer and Sam Roberts among others, and features 13 national parks filmed in all their Canadian splendor. This is Davis’ third film presented at Hot Docs. The first being Hardwood in 2007, which won him the Don Haig Award as well as an Academy Award nomination. His second film was Invisible City, a film that focuses on Tornto’s own Regent Park, the largest public housing community in Canada. Invisible City made Official Selection at the Atlantic Film Festival and Rencontre Internationales Du Documentaire De Montreal in 2009, and also won for Best Canadian Feature at Hot Docs that year. The National Parks Project will be screening at the TIFF Bell Lightbox and The Royal Cinema, and tickets are going fast!
So there you have the first two on our lengthy list of Hot Docs meets REEL CANADA connections. Stay tuned to read about our next featured filmmakers who have left their tracks at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival – North America’s largest documentary festival, conference and market.