Fatal Assistance is a complex film discussing the nature of foreign aid in disaster situations and its actual practice, Peck gives the viewer a glaring indictment of the actions of international aid organizations and their impact on Haiti after the horrific earthquake of 2010. He shows us a broken system. Instead of funneling the aid…
Category: Film Festivals
Hot Docs: Good Ol’ Freda – Ryan White
I became a Beatles fan in 1988, my junior year at Mt. St. Agnes academy, and I voraciously hunted down the albums on vinyl, I read books, and watched Help! and A Hard Day’s Night repeatedly. I had the music books for everything they recorded, but even then I knew I wasn’t the biggest fan,…
Hot Docs: Dragon Girls – Inigo Westmeier
Even a late start and sound issues couldn’t ruin this doc that screened last night at the Royal. The entire audience was swept up in the opening shot, which features a massive parade ground and a huge rush of hundreds, no thousands (35,000 – to be a little more exact) kung fu students running in…
Hot Docs: Our Nixon – Penny Lane
Oh Mr. Nixon. Last night the Royal screened Our Mr. Nixon by Penny Lane, and it proved to be an entertaining, occasionally angering, and often humorous look at one of the most infamous of all American presidents. After the Watergate scandal the federal government seized over 500 reels of super8 film and kept it locked away for…
Hot Docs: The Ghosts In Our Machine – Liz Marshall
Jo-Anne McArthur is a talented and passionate photographer with a determination and drive rarely seen in people at all, let alone in someone so young. McArthur is also an activist, and uses her photographic skills to document and share her empathetic view of animals in captivity. From the appalling conditions of slaughterhouses and factory…
Hot Docs: The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear – Tinatin Gurchiani
The best documentaries can amaze and move you, and some leave you in stunned silence at the beauty of what you have just seen. Tinatin Gurchiani’s The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear does all of these things. Halfway through this feature I realized exactly what it was. It’s your grandmother’s patchwork quilt, some pieces…
Hot Docs: Last Woman Standing – Lorraine Price and Juliet Lammers
The film opens with three important facts. Women’s Boxing has been added as an official medal event at the 2012 Olympics for the first time in history. The world’s two best female boxers reside in Canada. Only one can be selected to compete for Olympic gold. All that in itself would make for a captivating…
Hot Docs: William and the Windmill – Ben Nabors
Hot Docs screened this engaging film last night at the Scotiabank theater. William Kamkwamba is a young, pensive, and protective man. He made waves on the world stage when he appeared on TED Talks, and we all learned how this young man was forced to drop out of high school in his Malawian village…
Hot Docs: Expedition To The End of the World – Daniel Dencik
My first Hot Docs film of 2013 was a beautiful Danish/English piece about a group of artists and scientists who get to explore an area of north-eastern Greenland, a location usually inaccessible due to ice and glaciers, but with global warming, they have a window of time that will allow them to see sights rarely seen by man. I…
Bermuda International Film Festival – The Hunt – Thomas Vinterberg
This afternoon BIFF gave us what is bound to be a controversial film at Liberty Theater, The Hunt. In a role that garnered him the Best Actor Prize at Cannes Mads Mikkelsen (Casino Royale, The Door, tv’s Hannibal) plays Lucas a friendly daycare worker. The kids he looks after and the town love and respect…
The Mind Reels 