This year’s documentary film festival, Hot Docs, has quite a selection of full-length and short films. With titles like THE RISE AND FALL OF THE GRUMPY BURGER; HOLD ME TIGHT, LET ME GO and STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE we are sure to have a full range of subjects and styles of documentary film making.

This is my fourth year attending Hot Docs and every time, I am impressed by the variety of styles, topics and depth the filmmakers bring us. Thus far, I have not seen many films this time around. However, my first stop was visiting Club Native last Friday, April 18th. It is another documentary by award-winning director Tracey Deer (who also brought us Mohawk Girls). In Club Native we get to know the stories of several Mohawk women from the Kahnawake community and their struggles to be part of said community and the choice of whom they marry. The choice to marry outside the Mohawk community means these women lose their legal Native status within the Mohawk Nation. Deer presents interviews with various women with footage from the Oka Crisis in 1990 as well as scenes from their day-to-day lives. The stories all resonate with the same message, one can be part of one’s culture regardless of whom one falls in love. Deeper than that, however, is the need to discuss such racist attitudes. It is a nice short summary of a topic not many of us are aware. The Q & A proved to be full of emotion and evoked questions as to how to change these attitudes. The filmmaker and some of the women featured in the film were keen to emphasize the need for dialogue. A good way to start the festival.

My second film on Sunday, April 20th was La Frontera Infinita or The Infinite Border by Juan Manuel Sepúlveda from Mexico. In this documentary we are presented with another version of the flight of many migrants from Central America through Mexico hoping to reach the US of A and maybe even Canada. If you are from one of several developing nations from down South, I think it is safe to assume you know or have heard of someone trying to go to the States for a “better life.” What I enjoyed about this film was that unlike many other documentaries about this issue, it introduces us to several characters – young and old – at a slow pace. In other films, we often see people chasing the cargo trains that will take them to the American-Mexican border. Sepúlveda structures the film so that you get an idea of how long the journey is for these people; he shows places in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico and USA. The long waits for the train seem to last forever at times; then there is hunger, the elements, the possibility of train accidents and the homesickness that sets in. This is a story that many are well aware of but few like to discuss. This film at least shows more of the realities these migrants endure in a well composed cinematic essay.