The TIFF Docs programme is one I often support each year I attend the festival. Documentaries have a way to get us to learn and discuss topics that can be sensitive, infuriating and at times quite difficult yet necessary to address.
At TIFF this year, I watched two documentaries covering the war in Ukraine. Below is a brief summary of each and some thoughts I would like to share with you.
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César Fierro has just become a free man and needs to rebuild his life after being unjustly sentenced to death in Texas. He spent most of his life in solitary confinement, deprived of any physical contact with other human beings. Despite the challenges, Cesar remains determined to find true freedom.
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Good hair days, bad hair days, we can all relate to this topic. Learning about the differences and strengths in our hair is a whole other story. This is what the film Hairy Tales adresses in this week’s episode of CBC’s The Nature Of Things.
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What happens to the collective memory of an oppressed country if the ones who report on the oppression fail to remember? This is the question Oscar-nominated Chilean director Maite Alberdi’s The Eternal Memory asks of its main subjects: renowned journalist Augusto Góngora, who is in late-stage dementia; and Paulina Urrutia, a culture minister and Góngora’s life partner of 25 years.
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Tënk is a solidarity cooperative and subscription-based documentary streaming platform now available online across Canada.
Tënk was first created in Lussas, France, in what is affectionately known as The Documentary Village. The not-for-profit was first launched in Quebec in early 2020. With Tënk expanding across Canada, a real network is being created to properly represent the interests of its growing members, and to ensure the broadcasting of the best of documentary cinema.
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Mexican Tzotzil director Xun Sero‘s first documentary feature, MAMÁ (MOTHER), premiered at Hot Docs last month to great reviews. In the film, Xun creates an open dialogue with his mother, Hilda, which allows them to confront their past with honesty while also finding a sense of understanding and forgiveness.
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The year 2021 marks the 500-year anniversary of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. To commemorate the historical occasion, director Rodrigo Reyes offers a poignant hybrid-cinema experience to explore the brutal legacy of colonialism in contemporary Mexico.
Through the eyes of a ghostly conquistador (played by newcomer Eduardo San Juan Breña), Reyes recreates Hernán Cortez’s epic journey from the coasts of Veracruz to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, the site of contemporary Mexico City. As this fictional character is forced to interact with real victims and subjects of Mexico’s failed drug wars, Reyes portrays the country’s current humanitarian crisis as part of a vicious and unfinished colonial project, still in motion, nearly five-hundred years later.
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Hot Docs has added the new monthly film series For Viola to its VOD platform Hot Docs at Home. Named in honour of Canadian civil rights icon Viola Desmond, the important documentary series will centre around Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC)-led stories and filmmakers.
This fall, the series will feature of favourite documentaries of mine including, Charles Officer’s 2017 Festival doc Unarmed Verses and the 2019 Festival film In My Blood It Runs, directed by Maya Newell.
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Daniel Roher’s deeply personal story of the Canada’s Robbie Robertson, a Crave Original Documentary, will open the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on Thursday, September 5th.
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After a very successful festival run that kicked off at Hot Docs with its World Premiere, Stacey Tenenbaum’s critically acclaimed documentary, Shiners, returns to Toronto for a special theatrical run at The Royal Cinema. From New York City, Tokyo, Sarajevo, to La Paz (Bolivia), meet the men and women who make their living cleaning our shoes. READ MORE
