The very best kind of David and Goliath stories are the ones where the David in question eventually wins out. It’s only natural to root for the underdog in this kind of story, however in his battle against fruit giant Dole Foods, victory never feels completely assured for Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten. Big Boys Gone Bananas!* is an autobiographical documentary about Gertten’s protracted moral and legal fight to get his 2009 doc Bananas!* released. That’s right, the film is essentially a documentary about a documentary, with the director of both movies becoming the central character in his own story. In the face of overwhelming adversity Gertten constructs a self-affirming story about the responsibility of truth, a battle that could only really be won in the telling of the tale.

Bananas!* - the film at the centre of the film – alleged that banana-producer Dole Foods knowingly used pesticides in Nicaragua that caused sterility amongst the plantation workers who farmed the fruit. Gertten travelled to the South American country to try to tell the worker’s story and to document the lawsuits that ensued. The reported impropriety by Dole and the lengthy legal fight the followed between the company and its employees should have been Gertten’s first indication that the fruit conglomerate was not to be trifled with. As the Swedish filmmaker started submitting the finished film to festivals, he began to get wind that Dole was unhappy with the prospect of the movie being screened publicly and was considering legal action against the small Swedish production company – and anyone who distributed or screened the film. What ensued – and what Gertten documents in his film – was a campaign by a multi-national corporation to silence an independent filmmaker who had painted that company in a bad light. Dole attempted to block the film’s release at various film festivals on the grounds that movie contained “patent falsehoods” and defamed the company.

All things considered, Gertten does a fairly good job of making Dole’s case against him extremely clear. His objectivity is impressive considering that for most of the film Dole holds the hammer of financial ruin in the form of a lawsuit above the heads of he and his colleagues. At times, so effective is Dole’s campaign calling the director a liar and charlatan, that audiences may even begin to have their doubts about Gertten. The Swedish director just wants the banana worker’s story to be told, but even he begins to doubt his cause as he moves from one crisis to another. He’s not a perfect character and it’s certainly clear who’s side he’s on, but Gertten repeatedly puts his money where his mouth is during the course of the film by laying everything on the line so that the truth can be told. The fact that he never comes off as self-righteous or plays the victim card for sympathy is as much a testament to Gertten’s convictions as it is to his abilities as a filmmaker. The director could have played it bleeding heart the whole way and won his audience over, but he never does. It’s a surprisingly sincere self-portrayal.

As the person at the centre of the film, is Gertten the most objective person to tell this tale? Probably not. But at the time of filming – facing international legal battles and fights with film festivals – he was literally the only person who could tell this story. He might be accused of painting his own prior work in a more positive light that in deserves – it may have documented moral and legal wrongs, but was Bananas!* really any good? Still, whatever the shortcomings of his previous work may have had, Gertten more than proves himself a capable and compelling filmmaker with Big Boy Gone Bananas!* While the ending may be predictable (he did get to make the movie after all), it’s always heartening to see a little guy triumph over a big bad.

When interviewing China Heavyweight director Yung Chang outside on a gorgeous spring day during the Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival, it was oddly appropriate and symbolically cheesy that we talked beneath a cherry blossom tree. It adds an odd air of comfort to the interview that I doubt I’ve ever had before while talking to someone.

The Canadian, multiple award winning Up the Yangtze filmmaker returned to China with a lot less difficulty this time around to document the building of the Chinese national boxing squad. After a decades long ban of the sport due to its perceived brutal nature, Chang followed master coach Qi Moxiang and a group of impoverished pugilist hopefuls from largely rural areas as they train and fight for their dreams.

In addition to our chance to talk with Chang about his first foray into making a movie about sports, you can also have a chance to talk to Chang and coach Moxiang as they will be attending almost the entire opening weekend of the film at the Varsity in Toronto, for the evening shows on Friday, May 11^th, all day on Saturday, May 12^th, and the matinees on Sunday, May 13^th.

Dork Shelf: Your last film really gives no indication that your next one would be a sports movie, what made you want to do this story?

Yung Chang: Well, it was always in the back of my mind that I wanted to make a martial arts film, and I also loved boxing movies. That was my upbringing. I watched lots of kung-fu movies growing up, and Shaw Brothers movies, and those kind of kung-fu soap operas and things like that. I loved that stuff, but they would always have kind of a minimal amount of action, and there would always be so much backstory and so much development of these themes of loyalty and respect, and all sorts of these very Confucian elements that at some point became embedded in the culture of the kung-fu film.

Similarly, boxing movies are the Western kung-fu epics. You can reflect and impose so much more within that genre. It’s fun to play with the tropes, and fun to turn them around a little bit. I felt that in this boxing movie that the notion of boxing being this totally Western, totally American, capitalist and violent sport – all reasons why it was banned in China – to take that and put that in the context of a Chinese story would be an interesting investigation into China and also hopefully it’s history.

DS: We’re you surprised that this sport despite being a martial art had been suppressed for so long?

YC: It’s interesting how the coaches are training the students by using traditional martial arts techniques. It’s this selective training mentality to train people to fight in a sport that’s very much about the individual. It’s at that point where it becomes interesting how boxing clashes with actual Chinese culture.

I was reminded of a movie made recently called Ip Man, and it all revolves around a character who’s the quintessential Chinese hero. He’s reserved, patient, contained, very calm, and then you have his enemy who’s this brash and crazed Western boxing guy, and that to me was just exemplary of how many Chinese view the sport of boxing.

It’s different in China Heavyweight because you have a character like Coach Qi who for me epitomizes the modern Chinese hero. He’s so similar to many coaches in so many gyms around the world who don’t want to be paid a dime, but do it for the passion because they believe in the dream and the value of teaching these skills and these virtues to their students. In contemporary China now, I think they’re faced with so many sort of moral confusions where people are driven by greed and corruption that Qi is almost one of the last heroes that’s somehow able to instil some sort of moral character to the younger generation. To me that’s what struck me.

In many ways this film is about mentors and masters. We all have people like that, I think, who have marked us in our lives outside of our families and that was really influential when I was making this film. This coach was way more important than I originally thought he would be in the beginning.

DS: Was it interesting to see just how much a lot of these fighters training in China now are looking up to the greats of this Westernized sport without really having had a chance to see them in their prime?

YC: Exactly! It was shocking to me the identification they had with this culture. First, the material identification with things like Nike and Converse and Adidas across the board coming from very poor families with children who are wearing very fancy equipment or at the very least nice T-shirts and shoes. To me it was kind of odd, but then upon interpretation it seemed to represent this ideal and dream of success that was defined by materialism, but also glory and a certain individualism that they identified with in each of these boxers. These are athletes that beyond the merchandise are defined by their personalities, and by their brashness like the enemy in Ip Man.

You know, my co-editor on the film, Xi Feng, a Chinese editor, commented on how the younger generation today only sees a fast path to success, and while that’s quite universal, the stakes are a lot higher in China to some degree where with the backstory of these kids we get the sense that they don’t really want to be harvesting tobacco leaves, but that they might have this other path that this new generation of the Chinese middle class might reach by way of the long path.

DS: It’s also hard to develop that kind of brashness and bravado in a small town in a culture where such emotion has always been looked down upon, and that’s something that a boxer has to thrive on to succeed.

YC: It’s SO huge. In martial arts, you’re not even supposed to fight. It’s an art. Boxing is an art, as well, but it’s also based around personality and persona. That is VERY different than the Chinese mentality, and that’s where the metaphor gets a little more juicy. There’s something definitely to be looked at there in the film.

Joyce Carol Oates wrote a great book called On Boxing, and there’s this great passage about how the flair of the boxer and his mentality are the biggest part of the sport. Fighters don’t go into a bout thinking they’re going to lose, they have to think that they have to win and they’re the best in the world. They can’t know anything else, and they train that way, too. That’s how you build up the stamina needed to stand in a ring naked with an audience surrounding you and you become this almost mythical figure.

DS: It’s also funny in a way to see this country slowly embracing a sport that seems to be declining somewhat in popularity now thanks to the rise of MMA. Do you think that it’s because it’s something still seen as being somewhat exotic to these young fighters?

YC: I think there is a certain exotic element to it. It’s a tough sport to sell in China now, and it’s hard going for a lot of reasons. But here with boxing even with the rise of other fighting styles, there’s this certain element of mythmaking that you can’t have with a fight in an octagon or a cage. It’s so different the level of glory and the stage acting almost like this gladiatorial setting. It’s embedded in our brains as Western kids growing up and watching these movies. I think that still holds and there’s really nothing in comparison to that.

In China, it is this kind of clash of ideals that’s being explored across the board from the fights to the training process. In China you’re educated by rote, by memorization, and by following the rules, and in the West you’re told to be creative and thing outside the box and to be improvisational, and that’s something altogether new for these students of boxing. It’s almost hand in hand where boxing and education in China sort of fall, and they’re going to break at some point where people are going to realize that they don’t need to memorize all this shit and that they can be creative and think outside the box. That’s potentially where we’re going in China. That’s what the country is waiting for; people they can see as these kind of flamboyant characters. I think as China figures out where they fit into the world and as they feel more aggressive and more confident, you’ll start seeing this kind of boxing mentality coming out.

DS: Now on your last film set in China you had a hard time gaining access to what you needed. This time around when you were dealing directly with a national program was it easier or harder?

YC: I gotta tell you, we had a great time getting to know these guys, and it happened so quickly. It was in December of 2009 that we went on a research and fact finding trip and Han Yi, my Chinese producer because this is a co-production with a Chinese company – which immediately allowed us the kind of access that we needed to film without fear of being run out of the country like what happened with Yangtze – he and I walked around this small town accessible only by one really bumpy road. That place has got to be milked for more film shoots because it was just amazing. The food was awesome, the people were so supportive. And the coaches are such important people in that town, that once people got wind of what we were making a film about, the doors just started to open. There was some drinking required, though. (laughs) You know, the Chinese method is to have dinners and drink a lot of baijiu and then things are happy and you’re friends.

That helps, but to gain such intimacy with the subjects always takes time. That’s not immediate. You have to work with it and play with the ideas of having cameras around these people at all times who have never had that experience before in their lives. You actually have to film a lot of bad stuff that really isn’t useful, but it helps get them used to the idea of having a camera around at all times. The joy of this film was that it was so collaborative that if something was changing in someone’s life, they would let us know what was happening and we would be able to catch up with them and be there for that moment. We were lucky for those moments, and when shaping the story I tried to make it as iconic and almost fictional as possible to achieve the level of intimacy that you sometimes sit there and question.

For having been bred on kung-fu movies and boxing movies, but never really being cognizant of the actual sport that much, this was a great training ground for me as a filmmaker.. We didn’t want to get so many of the mundane details. I didn’t want to make (Frederick) Weisman’s Boxing Gym. I wanted to try to make something that was sort of a hybrid, but not in a fictional way, but to make one of those movies that I loved so much.

After premiering recently at Toronto’s Hot Docs film festival, the doc Theo Fleury: Playing with Fire debuts tonight on HBO Canada. The film follows Theoren Fleury – among the most controversial and memorable figures in contemporary hockey history – on a promotional book tour. Director and producer Larry Day hasn’t produced a puff piece in any sense, this is a shocking and honest portrait of a man who has battled personal demons, addiction, and sexual abuse. While Theo Fleury has found a measure of success and sobriety recently, the documentary examines his career and his life, but really dwells on the scars, self-inflicted and otherwise, that Fleury carries with him.

The first shot we see is of Fleury against a green screen, getting made-up for the cameras when his smart phone rings. He picks it up, scoffs, and shows his call display to the camera “Oh, it’s the government of Manitoba,” he says “you know what that’s about? Graham James.”

There is a montage of Fleury’s career, his rage and his struggles – before the documentary deals immediately with Fleury’s motivations that led him to write his book, “Playing with Fire.” Fleury, and his co-writer are explicit: Fleury was broke (despite making over 50 million dollars US during his playing career), and he saw the book, at first, as an answer to his issues. It quickly grew into more than that however, and we see that Fleury believes strongly in his message, drawing strength and a sense of purpose from speaking about abuse, and from helping others dealing with those issues.

The competitiveness that made Fleury (who stands only 5’6″ and can’t have weighed more than 175 pounds in his prime) one of the leagues premiere point producing pests during his career, is still evident throughout the film. He complains and is deeply hurt by finishing fifth on the CBC reality show Battle of the Blades, for example. As we see him say at one of his talks “I always want to win” and in the case of the book, that meant he wanted it to be “a bestseller.”

Theo Fleury grew up in an abusive, addiction riddled house-hold. His parents are interviewed, and Day gives the viewer a textbook description of an “at risk youth.” Fleury’s abuse at the hands of the man who mentored him and held his professional prospects in those same hands, is described in graphic detail. At one point in the documentary, Theo Fleury’s father says that if he were in one of his drinking moods, he could see himself stabbing Graham James.

This isn’t a documentary about Theo Fleury’s hockey career, it’s a documentary about a deeply troubled and complicated man. The film touches on Fleury’s rise to the top of the professional ranks, but only to provide context for the fall. The fissures that eventually cracked Fleury’s life wide open were accelerated in New York and he really bottomed out in Chicago. In New York, Fleury was spending $400,000 every two weeks, and talks openly about spending ten grand a night at various Manhattan strip clubs. In Chicago, it’s explained that Fleury once spent well over a million dollars on a weekend long binge at the Drake hotel. Eventually, he even became a heroin user, a street person and a junkie. He describes at length how he considered suicide.

While the portrait is a sympathetic one, Day isn’t afraid to contradict his narrator, and he does so remorselessly when Fleury talks about apologizing to people in his life, and his relationship with his children. Day also shows the audience scenes of Fleury becoming extremely confused – in one sequence he’s unable to find his old home in Santa Fe. He talks about the toll that drugs, alcohol and making a living playing a dangerous game have taken.

Fleury burned nearly every bridge, both personal and professional, over the course of a troubled but wildly successful hockey career. He continues to do so in the film, taking a bunch of shots at Eric Francis and the Calgary Sun late in the film. His former employers seem to want nothing to do with him, really the only people from his former life who greet him warmly are the car attendants at Madison Square Garden who Fleury explains, he used to generously tip. While Fleury has got the numbers and the accolades of a sure-fire Hall of Famer, the likes of Brian Sutter explains that with his rap sheet, he’s unlikely to be inducted.

It’s sad really. While Fleury is and was a troubled man, with an awful lot of rage, he’s probably the best little-man in hockey history. Further, when you think of all that he’s been through, that he’s even alive – much less sober and successful – is as extraordinary a feat as anything he ever pulled off on the ice.

Theo Fleury: Playing with Fire airs tonight at 9 PM on HBO Canada.

If writing on the internet can be seen as a bit of a bloodsport in this day of comment sections, message boards, and RSS feeds, making a film that’s essentially about the birth of the internet and the rise of the cyber activist could be even thornier territory. First time feature director Brian Knappenberger takes a look at internet history and culture in We Are Legion: The Rise of the Hacktivists, and as one should with such a topic, the director seems to let minor criticisms and petty comments simply slide as he creates a timeline through which the audience can trace the route of the information superhighway in a single 90 minute burst.

Focusing more specifically on the rise of Anonymous, the famed, anomalous and shapeless “police of the internet,” Knappenberger makes the case for the internet being both a useful tool for social and political change and the other side of the coin where people just do things for the “lulz.” Of course, no one film could ever bring together a complete history of the internet and its role in activism from Anon’s tussle with the Church of Scientology to Twitter’s role in the Egyptian quagmire, but Knappenberger approaches the material from a purely factual manner from many of the people on the frontlines of internet activism.

Knappenberger talked to Dork Shelf briefly and almost in passing just before the premiere of his film at the Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival about the difficulties one faces when trying to take an objective look at something as anomalous as the internet.

Dork Shelf: How daunting does it seem at first when throwing yourself into this wide open, yet oddly hermitic world of the internet? Because you aren’t only making a film about online activism, but also about the history of the net.

Brian Knappenberger: (laughs) “Don’t worry, the internet’s here.” Or like the classic meme “Oh fuck, the internet’s here.” You know, I’ve been fascinated by the internet and internet culture for a while now. I’m an independent documentary filmmaker and journalist, and I did a lot of tech stories before this, and I was really fascinated specifically with Anonymous before we started making the film. The first time I had ever heard of them was the origin of that particular meme and when they attacked the Church of Scientology. I think it’s something to really look back on and find out exactly what it was that happened there. That was something that was really innovative in that it was one of the first times that any group on the internet was ever able to actually mobilize human beings to stand up for something they didn’t think was right and to do it all over the world. I think all internet activism after that point really started to follow that model.

DS: Well, there’s that and in the film you also show how something as simple as Twitter can be used as an object for change.

BK: Absolutely!

DS: But at the same time when you go to look back at the beginnings of this cultural shift, you start to go down this sort of rabbit hole that can point you in different directions. We’re you ever surprised at how far reaching the historical context for the film was despite taking place mostly over a couple of decades?

BK: Yeah. I didn’t know how far down that hole I was going to go, Yes, it’s really amazing because everything gets out into the open so quickly that it builds exponentially. You can look at any of the Anonymous Twitter accounts for evidence of that and just how quickly that message can be brought out now. And watching the evolution of memes and protests, you can really see that. Take, for instance, the SOPA blackout. A certain chapter of Anonymous was beating the drum on that for a really long time, including even Google and all of their lobbyists in Washington even jumped on that bandwagon. Anonymous was relentless in pushing this, and suddenly it kind of got roped into the mainstream.

Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see how that message really gets out there by any means other than that and through something like Anonymous. Then it broadens out to other tech people and it becomes inevitable, but it’s an unbelievable prescedent.

DS: Were you surprised that you were able to get a lot of these previously anonymous activists to come forward and talk to you for the film? I mean, many of these people aren’t hard to find if you know them in real life, but it’s another issue entirely to go on camera and on the record to talk about it.

BK: I don’t know. For us it was interesting, because on the one hand, it’s actually not that hard to be in contact with members of Anonymous because you can very easily and freely engage in online chats and absorb the dialogue and participate, and sometimes you have to dodge some bullets, but it’s almost always a passionate discussion. But there is a kind of level – particularly with people who have a huge respect for their own anonymity – there is a level where you have to gain their trust to go on camera and describe some things that are sometimes illegal. We’re careful not to be cavalier about that.

DS: It’s part of what makes the internet sometimes a scary place for everyone because even those who are proud of their activism might still fear reprisal or that big brother will somehow find a way to them.

BK: That’s exactly right. We’re living in this post-9/11, post-Patriot Act culture with increasing surveillance moving into our lives. Anonymous just sort of serves as that axis that such protesting can revolve around.

DS: Were you ever personally afraid as a filmmaker as to how the internet would react to your film?

BK: Sort of, but I think that kind of criticism is fine. If you look at the comment section in our trailer – which has almost 500,000 hits in a short amount of time, which is huge for a documentary – there are people who think that the idea of using Anonymous as a force for good is ridiculous, and we do touch on that a lot in the film. “We are not good. We are not trying to do something worthwhile. You guys are idiots.” And I mean, the name of my film has the word “Hacktivist” in the title, and for some people that’s just a patently wrong or ridiculous idea.

For more information on these and other films and for tickets, please visit hotdocs.ca.

Shut Up and Play the Hits

Directors: Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern

Program: Next

110 minutes

Recommended: Yes, very much, but this is mainly for those who know, love and miss the band

About a year ago, LCD Soundsystem called it quits with an epic three hour-long concert at Madison Square Garden. The gritty electronic dance band who brought you “Daft Punk is Playing in My House” dubbed it a fun funeral and they didn’t disappoint. But this was the kind of experience to remember, and thus it lives on in this fantastically-made documentary by the UK’s Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern.

Frontman James Murphy is shown in the days leading up to and after the concert as numb, constantly remarking on how weird the experience is, rightfully so. You see him asked numerous times why he’s retiring from the music game for the simple fact of that he wants a life. (Stephen Colbert does it better than the continually grating voice of Chuck Klosterman.) These moments are interesting to observe, especially Murphy just going about his day after the concert with his dog, but it’s the concert footage that is the most striking. After getting up close and personal with every person in the massive band on the big, crowded stage and even the most emotional of fans in the front rows, it’s hard to believe you can ever experience such a warm, exciting final bow as this one was ever again. You’ll be bouncing your way home to have a little dance party in remembrance. (Jessica Lewis)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Thursday, May 3^rd, 9:30pm, Lightbox 1

Saturday, May 5^th, 6:30pm, Lightbox 2

An Affair of the Heart

Director: Sylvia Caminer

Program: Next

94 minutes

Recommended?: If you’re just looking to have a good time, then yes. Probably not if you’re in the mood for something with meat on its bones.

Not so much a straight biography of 80s teen heartthrob, singer-songwriter Rick Springfield, but a look at the fans who have stuck loyally by his side after his slide into obscurity. An Affair of the Heart takes a warm and fuzzy look at how music can get people through some rough times and how the “Jesse’s Girl” rocker never really went anywhere despite his chronic status as a “one hit wonder.”

The biggest surprise here comes from Caminer’s ability to frame Springfield’s story as told by his most ardent supporters, from a pair of housewives who follow him everywhere to a woman who credits his music with helping her through open heart surgery. The stories are nice and the scenes of Springfield on tour show him as an affable guy more at ease with his stardom now than he was before.

The film does stumble by waiting until far too late in an already too long film to introduce the “darker side” of Rick’s nice guy persona. The film was doing fine without it, and its inclusion here feels not only awkward, but like an advertisement designed to get the audience to buy his autobiography. Still, I wouldn’t mind reading it now. (Andrew Parker)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Thursday, May 3^rd, 6:30pm, Cumberland 3

Solider/ Citizen

Director: Silvina Landsmann

Program: Special Presentations

Subtitled

68 minutes

Recommended?: Yes, with reservations.

Following a mandatory military tour, Israeli soldiers are given army-sponsored courses in order to complete their high school education. Soldier/ Citizen centres on a three-week civics course where the soldiers are made to think about issues such as human rights, democracy, and equality. Even if these issues weren’t placed within the complicated context of Israel, a course lasting three weeks can only graze their surface, so a film lasting 68 minutes barely serves as an introduction to the topic.

That being said, the subject becomes the (gun-filled) classroom setting and its dynamics, not so much what is actually being discussed. The filmmakers seemed to successfully overcome the challenge of having their subjects (and by extension, the viewers) forget their presence. The class appears comfortable, honest, spirited and never once acknowledges the camera. However with such a natural discourse occurring, the students often end up talking over one another, making subtitling a bit of an issue. Soldier/ Citizen is definitely not a film for everyone, but it is certainly not without its merit either. (Noah Taylor)

Screens

Saturday, May 5^th, 9:00pm, ROM

Only the Young

Directors: Elizabeth Mims, Jason Tippet

Program: International Spectrum

72 minutes

Recommended?: Absolutely.

A surprisingly sprawling and thoughtful look at teenage love and friendship despite a scant 72 minute running time and an a somewhat abrupt and terse ending, Only the Young captures the awkwardness and disappointment of adolescence beautifully through three characters spending what might be their last year together as friends.

Garrison and Kevin have been best friends in a sleepy Southern California hamlet, bonding together as Christian skateboarders. Garrison seems to care more about the Lord than the board, but Kevin actively competes and gives in to self abuse. Garrison dates and breaks-up with his best friend Skye, who is on the verge of losing her home and who clearly loves Garrison no matter how aloof he might seem.

A mere blurb or capsule couldn’t fully relate the complex nature of the personal relationships in this film. Mims and Tippet trim away any and all fat from the story to show the messiness of teenage love and a disarmingly insightful look at male friendship. Other than that, this film is served best going in cold. Just see it. You won’t regret it even if you don’t necessarily agree with the contradiction that the main characters are straight edge, center right wing, skateboarding punks. You’ll probably see more of your younger self than you realize. I wanted to watch it again seconds after it was over, feeling like my own youth had been cut short far too soon. (Andrew Parker)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Thursday, May 3^rd, 5:30pm, Bloor

Sunday, May 6^th, 4:30pm, Lightbox 2

Love Story

Director: Florian Habitcht

Program: Nightvision

94 minutes

Recommended: Yes, strongly, if you want to see something sweet and cheeky

The romantic comedy pattern gets torn up and put back in pieces here. Your impressions of any other romantic comedy you see from now on won’t benefit because it can’t compare to the kind of heart Love Story has. New Zealand-based director/actor Florian Habicht blurs so many lines between film, documentary, streeters, scripts, feelings, boundaries and more in Love Story that you might be confused, but assuredly, you’ll leave the cinema feeling more dizzy in the head with glee than full of questions.

Habicht didn’t exactly set out to make a documentary about a film about a chance love story in New York, but it came to him by asking his corner store’s clerk what to make a movie about and then letting people on the street decide where to take different parts of the story next. His kooky charm is proven to be inviting even to the most hostile of New Yorkers and he, along with all his other characters, will melt your heart within minutes. (Jessica Lewis)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Thursday, May 3^rd, 7:15pm, Royal

Saturday, May 5^th, 11:30pm, Bloor

Canned Dreams

Director: Katja Gauriloff

Program: International Spectrum

81 minutes

Recommended?: Yes, but don’t eat before going in. Especially ravioli.

An intensive, but surprisingly neutral look at what goes into making the processed food we eat, Katja Gauriloff travels across Europe and South America to document where every ingredient in a can of ravioli comes from, including the metal for the can itself. Through sometimes graphic and sometimes banal, but gorgeously shot looks at production methods, Gauriloff also adds personal stories from the workers involved, many of which are melancholy and in one case, downright off putting.

The depictions of slaughterhouses for pigs and cattle are not for the squeamish and could potentially do more to turn people vegetarian than anything PETA could ever dream up, but by adding these personal and decidedly apolitical stories, Gauriloff doesn’t take any real moral stance aside from asking people to consider the high cost of cheaply produced food. (Andrew Parker)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Friday, May 4^th, 9:30pm, Cumberland 2 (RUSH ONLY)

Breath

Director: Kullar Viimne

Program:  International Spectrum

59 Minutes

Recommended? Yes, not strongly

Kullar Vimne’s Breath takes place in Estonia and its direct English translation is Estonia is Breathing. Breath follows chimney sweep Francesko, the only female chimney sweep in Estonia, as she races up and down highways on her way to clean all different kinds of chimneys.  Always clad in her all black chimney sweep uniform, Francesko looks like an Estonian ninja with her tools strapped to her back as she fearlessly balances unsupported on steep tin roofs. Francesko, always sporting a smile and a cigarette, performs this dangerous task with so much grace that it’s easy to forget that the slightest misstep could cost her life. Estonian women flock to touch Francesko’s garments for good luck (an Estonian custom), but their looks of affection and camaraderie show that Francesko exists as more than just a chimney sweep, but rather an icon of good will.

Breath isn’t all about Francesko’s work though, as Vimne uses the documentary as a means of exploring the nature of meditation in Estonia, and how people have managed to find spirituality in the least religious state in the world. It is Vimne’s astute eye for contrast that allows Breath to speak volumes, as seeing Francesko in civilian clothes is a shocking reminder that underneath this remarkably respectful and charismatic woman who seems to be forever covered in soot, exists a delicate and even dainty lady. Breath is probably the only crash course you’ll ever get in Zen chimney sweeping. (Brandon Bastaldo)

No further screenings

One of the great things about The Final Member is the documentary continually introduces us to interesting personalities. The soft spoken American Tom (who names his penis “Elmo”) and the senior lethario playboy Páll are fascinating enigmas all on their own, and even more so once they both offer to donate their penises to the museum. While Bekhor and Math gracefully unfold the story of Siggy’s pursuit of penis happiness, The Final Member makes a bold statement about the nature of penis education and the international cultural stigma that has made its discussion unnecessarily taboo. Dork Shelf sat down with Bekhor and Math to discuss their breathtaking on-location footage, watching penises get tattooed, and Icelandic folklore.

Dork Shelf: This film looks super crisp and is obviously in high definition. Although this is considered to be industry standard now, is there a reason you wanted the visuals of the film to looks so pristine?

Zach Math: When we’re talking about the story, there is a quest element. A kind of epic quest, and also the beautiful epic scenery in Iceland just kind of lends itself to some really amazing photography and it just kind of mirrored the quest theme and story of the land.

Jonah Bekhor: It’s a cinematic land. It’s almost Middle Earth.

DS: Yeah it definitely had a Lord of the Rings feel to it…

JB: Yeah, it’s volcanic and fiords and ice and mountains. I mean, it lends itself a cinematic feel but certainly that’s the way we approached it, we approached it in a very cinematic way.

DS: This film is kind of a far out, I mean, it’s a man trying to find a human penis to put it in his penis museum-

JB: But is it really a far out idea?

DS: Well how did this all start?

ZM: As the story goes, I’m driving in Los Angeles one evening in the summer of 2007 and I’m listening to As it Happens and Carol Off is interviewing the curator of the museum – the only penis museum in the world – in Iceland, and he’s telling the story about his thirty seven year collection of all Mammalian penises, except he’s missing this one penis and two guys who have stepped forward to donate their penises. I can’t believe what I’m hearing, I pull over to the side of the road and I’m trying to find a piece of paper to take notes, this is before iPhones, 2007 you know? I have dinner with Jonah a few nights later and I’m like “this just completely blew my mind.” We download the CBC interview and his mind is blown.

JB: Maybe like a day later we get Sigurdur on the phone, and then three weeks later we’re in Iceland. To investigate, to see what’s going on over there. It just went on from there.

DS: So that’s when this idea started becoming real then?

ZM: It’s pretty real when you get on a plane and go to Iceland. [laughs]

JB: The idea of it as inspiration, it’s fascinating. I mean this penis museum and this guy searching for a human specimen. The spark is one thing, that’s what really got us interested. But it wasn’t until we met and spoke with these guys that we realized that there is this incredible human story unfolding and it’s really worthy of telling. That’s really the process, I mean you get inspiration and you think: is there a story here that never was?

DS: Potential American penis donor Tom and Siggy can’t seem to see eye to eye. Who do you think was in the right?

JB: It’s such an interesting thing because clearly he [Tom] was just bombarding Siggy with emails. Tom’s point was: “this is a huge deal, I’m giving someone my penis” I mean it can’t get bigger than that. Doesn’t that deserve some type of recognition and nurturing in the process? Where Siggy is like “listen, I’ll gladly receive it [the penis], but I don’t want to be enabling him in any way.” So, you can understand both their points of view.

DS: What was it like watching Tom get his penis tattooed?

ZM: It’s psyche scarring for sure. I mean, we both were cringing-

JB: Our DP was like “Stay one the penis! Stay on the penis!”

ZM: It’s this weird juxtaposition between being freaked out and probably reacting like most normal, well adjusted human beings would react, and then juxtaposed with Tom who’s just cool as a cucumber just receiving. It’s just another step in accomplishing his dream for ‘Elmo’, planting it in the museum.

JB: What’s interesting about Siggy’s museum is that in a way, and actually quite deliberately, it’s like this social science experiment. It’s so scientifically laid out, but when people come in he wants to challenge them to look at the penis. What is so strange about this thing? What about this thing that is so essential to human life that is so taboo? Through his exhibition and through his subtle use of humour, he wants people to come in and look at things slightly differently and question that idea of what is taboo.

ZM: Part of his genius and what attracted us to him as a character was this sort of ingenious use of humour. This line that he drew where he could be so serious and, at the time, so self possessed and the obsessive nature of his collecting would come out, and yet also be self aware about the tension and the humour he was using in the museum and the power of humour, if its done very cleverly, to force people to see things from different perspective.

DS: There were many scenes where penises are being boiled or unloaded from containers– I can only imagine the smell. Were there any scenes that were hard to film?

JB: I think when he’s in preparation it definitely smells. When you’re dealing with formaldehyde and its all fresh and your preparing a specimen, at certain point its not quite as powerful. Really, it all just subsides. But in the process of actually working with the specimens and preserving the specimens, it’s powerful.

ZM: When he was boiling that penis, it was bad. It was so bad! That was the one thing that we were like “thank god that in cinema you can’t smell stuff!”

JB: He told us this story that early on in his process: he used to take his wife’s pots to prepare the specimens. I guess he was doing it at the house that day and the smell was so bad, and it wafted up the stairs, that his wife Jona was just marathon vomiting.

DS: What is the strangest looking penis you guys saw in this museum?

ZM: One of the specimens that didn’t factor into our story, but does show his [Siggy’s] sense of humour and also is an interesting window into the folklore of Iceland is the ‘hidden man’s’ penis that he has in the folklore section of the museum.

JB: Yeah, Siggy has a folklore section in the museum.

ZM: The folklore culture in Iceland is very present. What’s funny about it that only women can see the ‘hidden man’s penis’.

It’s hard being the son or daughter of any notable figure when you try and focus on following in the footsteps of a famous parent. The expectations start to become unreasonable and hard to deal with. On the other hand, sometimes it’s hard to be the offspring of a larger than life figure because they’re never around to be that much of a parent. Filmmaker Corey Lee falls into the latter category as evidenced in his film Legend of a Warrior (premiering Monday evening at Hot Docs), where he attempts to connect with the side of his father he never knew.

Corey’s father is legendary martial arts master and trainer Frank Lee, a man who Black Belt Magazine once bestowed the title of “the father of kickboxing in North America.” A master in White Crane Kung-Fu and a student of various styles of hand to hand combat from wrestling to boxing to Muay Thai, Frank’s services have been in demand since the 1960s, training countless Hong Kong action stars through the years and even several current MMA fighters and champions. Even at his advanced age, Frank still travels as much as he did when Corey was younger, operating predominantly out of his Edmonton, Alberta based gym.

In an effort to make peace with his own feelings of distance and to give his own son some insight into who his grandfather is, Corey took up his camera and began travelling and training with his father to spend more time with him than they had previously spent together in nearly 20 years.

Dork Shelf sat down with Corey and Frank while in Toronto to promote the film in advance of its world premiere to talk about the filming process, physical training, and how their relationship has strengthened today.

Dork Shelf: Making the decision to make a movie about your relationship to your father is a really personal one that probably didn’t happen overnight. How long did you think about this idea before you actually got around to making the film?

Corey Lee: I think not unlike a lot of artists my own issues and relationship with my dad – actually, both of my parents – was something I had in some small way approached in my other films, but probably not as successful for me.

The real trigger for me was when I got married and my wife and I decided to have a family. I have two boys now that are five and three. When my first son was born, I really wanted to re-examine the relationship I had with my dad, and I think that was the real catalyst to say that I should approach this in a way that this is really honest and not dramatic. I’m not writing characters that are based on my father. I’m dealing with him myself, and previously all my experiences had been in dramatic filmmaking. What’s more challenging than trying to take on something that you’ve never done before in more ways that one? That’s where it kind of came together, and it’s been kind of a long road from there to here.

DS: Now when Corey showed up at your gym did you know he was going to make the film or was it a surprise when he showed up?

Frank Lee: He had mentioned it quite a while before that. Finally in about 2007 or 2008 when I had four fighters there involved with MMA, he thought it would be a good idea to come up with a camera and film that and follow me into the fight and stop it there. I said “Sure, if we have time, that’s fine with me.” That’s how it really started.

CL: That was the initial proposal that I was creating to pitch the film to the National Film Board. Those two and a half days that I hung out with you and just followed you with a camera and a lav mic was probably the longest time we had spent together in 20 some years.

FL: Since he moved to Calgary for school, it was the most time we had spent together.

DS: I guess it’s nice when you go to pitch an idea like this to have a hook to it when it’s just a simple story like this.

CL: Well, I know a film about a kid making a film about a parent isn’t that original, but my dad’s history and legacy in the martial arts kind of made it a no brainer. And I have so many memories of that gym, and not just the one that he has now and he’s had for 30 years, but all of these other gyms and all the other characters that have flowed through my life and his life and all these things that I connected to was in my veins even though I’m not really a fighter.

DS: Was it always your intention to come back and start training with your father again as a means of bonding?

CL: I didn’t know of another way. You know, martial arts is about movement. It didn’t make much sense to me to try and get to know this master who just happens to be my father by sitting in coffee shops or just walking down memory lane. To get to know him, I think I needed to be that vehicle for the audience. I’m that car that the audience is getting in and driving. I’m filtering his world through my eyes.

The toughest part was having to let go of the past. All that water that was under the bridge between me and him and my relationship with my mother and my sister. It had to be fresh. It was going to be this 40-something guy and his dad at the gym with him training me. It was really simple I think to let that just work and not let that be corrupted.

DS: And what were your thoughts when Corey said he was coming to train with you again? Did you think he was taking on too much by trying to train and make the film at the same time?

FL: I never really gave it a thought because I really don’t know that much about being a filmmaker. I told him that if he had an idea and he wanted to make it, he could do whatever he wanted. I mean, I’m a very busy man, but I always told him it was never a problem for me. I gave him 100% support and he started.

CL: It probably helped that I was a better filmmaker than I was at kung-fu.

FL: That’s not true. You were a very good performer. You were very good at performance.

You see, there are three levels to martial arts. The first level is where you focus on health, which is what the martial arts was mostly all about. Then there’s the second level where you go out and do performance. That’s like Jet Li, Jackie Chan. Those guys are performers. That third level, which is very hard, is the fighter. Not just anyone can do that. It takes a special person and that heart of a warrior, that heart that I have, that can go out there and get hit every time. It’s very, very hard to do. That’s why there are so few greats. Look at Muhammad Ali in boxing. He’s the best boxer of all time, but they have that rule where they can’t hit below the belt. In martial arts, it would be a fair fight, but he still had that warrior instinct where if it was straight boxing match, it would be no contest who would win.

DS: Do you ever wonder or think about the film bringing new interest into your gym and your teachings?

FL: Sort of, but not really, because my name is already established. I hate to say that, but my name is really famous all over North America, especially in my town. I’ve been teaching every year since 1966 in about half of the world, year round, doing the fighting and performance or seminars all throughout my younger days. So when I see a film and it’s about me, I know it’s not about Michael Jackson. I’m getting old now. I can’t perform like the old days. I know my son was the expert on that. I never thought the film would make me any more famous because I had already done some work with Sammo Hung and those guys. That’s why he got into this story. He wanted to find out the real me, and there was some things he didn’t know, so we started travelling together. He made my life story and when I saw the story and I saw myself in a natural life, I was really touched. I didn’t expect that.

CL: Well, what he said to me was something to the effect that it was more than a documentary. It was a movie with a lot of heart. That made me feel proud of what we accomplished. But then again, that film wouldn’t have been what it is if you hadn’t approached it honestly. Your level of comfort and your ability to be yourself in front of the camera and our relationship was crucial.

DS: And I can imagine that it would be easy for you to sort of open up since you have already had that sort of public life already.

FL: Yeah. That’s why I was so touched when I saw the film. In 1976 or 78 the National Film Board made a half hour documentary about me teaching martial arts that represents Chinese culture in the Museum of Man.

CL: And those snippets that you see are from that.

FL: And back then the White Crane style looked different. You know how the kung fu was with those ancient animal styles? It was beautiful, but you wanted to use it to defend and it could be deadly.

DS: Were you at all surprised when you were putting this together that you found you knew more about your father than you originally suspected or remembered? Do you think that there was just the great deal of distance that was causing a sense of distortion?

CL: I think that’s fair to say. It’s so funny because it’s not about a grudge or anything. We just settles into this cycle of “You should call me / No, you should call me.”  I don’t think either of us would necessarily admit to that, but we both get so caught up in our own lives. I was talking to my kids and I wanted them to know about him. I know he’s in amazing health, but I blink and ten years go by. I want to know who this man is and I want to bridge that gap that exists. Not just for me, but for my kids. And yeah, I do think I remembered a lot that I didn’t before, but there was definitely some stuff that I didn’t get out of him before, and the biggest was that he never wanted me to follow in his footsteps, which I’m sure he said before when I was a kid, but also that he was already seeing me as an adult. I just placed myself as a boy in his world. I think that was the biggest thing.

DS: Do you ever think that you could get caught up in your work the same way your father did or is that something you’re more cognizant of now?

CL: I would like to think that. (laughs) I would like to believe that I am, but I think some days you’re more present and some days you aren’t. Even with my father because we finished this film right before we had to submit to the festival, so my commitment to training with him hasn’t fallen off, but it’s definitely slid off. I certainly want to make more time to make more trips out there whether it’s by myself or with my family to hang out with him.

The world of the celebutante is both overexposed and underexposed at the same time. People who aren’t necessarily famous in the traditional sense for being rich, talented, or influential get their face time and notoriety mostly by being in the right place at the right time. They have the exposure of a celebrity, but none of the actual cultural pull that it brings. They’re often magnetic personalities who on a personal level remain enigmatic to those they rub shoulders with at trendy parties and premieres.

The subject of Brazilian director Fellipe Gamarano Barbosa’s documentary Laura (playing this week at Hot Docs after winning filmmaking awards at the Hamptons International Film Festival and a TV award in his native Brazil), shows the darker side of a spendthrift glamorous lifestyle. Laura (last name unknown to the audience) shows up uninvited and unannounced to some of the biggest bashes in Manhattan, rubbing elbows with the likes of Clive Owen and Ron Perlman and making grand entrances on her own terms. At home, however, Laura is a hoarder who can barely enter her cramped apartment and a neurotic control freak with seemingly no steady source of income.

Originally intended as an objective look at this woman who transfixed him in university, Laura pulls Barbosa into her personal experiences by using him as a status symbol and forcing him to question his own motives behind making the film and if there’s anything he can do to help this woman who clearly needs an intervention of some sort.

Shortly after arriving in Toronto and just before the film was set to premiere at Hot Docs, Barbosa talked to Dork Shelf about the difficulties facing such a complex character study and his chronically tenuous relationship to his subject.

Dork Shelf: You first met Laura in 2000, correct?

Fellipe Gamarano Barbosa: Yeah, I met Laura in 2000. I had arrived in New York that summer to study film. I was at Hofstra University on Long Island at the time. I was 19 and I was there on a Fulbright Scholarship. I used to go to the city all the time because I had this idea that I was going to be in New York, but really I was on Long Island, so that was very different from what I expected, so I would hop on the train very often.

We met at the premiere of a film that we don’t agree on what it was. She says it was an Almodovar film and I think it was a Brazilian documentary. That was our first conflict. (laughs) In any case, I just remember just looking at her and admiring her and she was looking back at me, and this spark just occurred. I like to say it was a recognition of the future and everything we were going to do nine years later.

Very soon after I had the idea of making a film about her or making a film with her. I wasn’t sure what it would be, but I wanted to make a short film that would be in an observational style; just following her around from her house to a party, then have her come back on the train at the end of the night, and that would be the end of it.

At the time, she belonged a lot more to this culture. She wasn’t so much in the fringe. I was very surprised, because at the time she would go out and talk to celebrities, and I was 19 years old and I had just arrived in New York. It was so attractive to me. I was going to all these parties and always having so much fun, but I was always so curious about who she was. She was so mysterious and she wouldn’t talk very much about her life. In any case, for ten years she said no. It wasn’t like I was asking her every week, but every now and then I would come back to this idea, but she did not want to do it.

Then eventually at the end of 2009 when I decided to move back to Brazil almost ten years later, I called her to say goodbye. By this point she had already disappeared largely from my routine because I was doing my masters at Columbia, so I was focusing on a lot of other things. So I call her to say goodbye, and I told her if she wants to ever do it that it has to be now or never. Then she agreed.

So I started shooting with a friend doing sound and another friend from NYU doing cinematography with the first ever DSLR camera on the market so no one would really know we were shooting, and then after ten days of shooting on my own dime I went back to Brazil. Slowly I started looking at the footage and then I realized that the film needed to have me in it, because she’s constantly referring to me in those moments.

DS: She was definitely showing you off and telling people that you were making a film about her. Did that ever make you uncomfortable?

FGB: In the beginning I resisted and I would ask her not to refer to me at all because originally I had the idea of creating this almost fictional film from an observational style of shooting in which the process isn’t at all revealed. But I really loved these moments, and a lot of it turned out to be the best material. At first I was a little uncomfortable, but I also thought it was really funny, actually.

There’s a scene in the film right before Laura goes and tries to talk to Clive Owen where she keeps telling people that I was making a movie about her and saying that I was their director and that they were being recorded showed that she was very keen on respect. She’s always alerting people, and that’s really cute. I think that builds a sense of empathy. A lot of these people are very conscious of their image, but in a way it was really helpful because she’s pretty much getting all of our releases for us. (laughs)

Then when I went home and I started putting together the footage I made a little teaser trailer, and then I wrote a project and I applied to two funds in Brazil and I won one of them that year. So I went back there the following winter with the agenda that’s in the second half of the movie where I go back to help her get rid of some of her stuff.

At the end of the first half, I found out about the hoarding problem, and I saw her room and I was really shocked. Then I really thought I had a feature film, but I knew she wasn’t going to let me in right away. It was very hard for her to let me into her personal space, which is really metaphorical of a lot of other things like what she’s trying to protect.

I created this intervention, which was me helping her try to get this stuff out of the room and sort it out so we could get some of this back to her mom in Brazil. We had a sponsor from a moving company that agreed to send the stuff for free. Hopefully we were going to throw some stuff away, and I thought this would be nice for the presentation and a nice way to represent. Then, you see the movie and things really got out of hand and out of control and I got caught up in this mess. When I got caught up in this soup, I made some pretty bad decisions.

So by that point the most difficult part of the process was in the editing and confronting what I had ultimately done. It just made sense to bring in an outside editor and a screenwriter by that point. It was really important for them to make me face who I was and what I had done and all my flaws and my obsession. I think our stories meet in this same obsession that we have with cinema, but they are manifested in different ways.

DS: Was it hard on you to reach out to help her and to finally let go once and for all of your goal to be as objective and passive as possible? We’re you prepared for how intense she was going to get?

FGB: I wasn’t prepared for anything. I was just going to go with the flow, you know. I have to say it was really hard for me because she never liked the film. We had two stages. We had a TV version of the film which screened in Latin America, which is shorter, and that was a much lighter version that didn’t have any of the second part included in it at all. That one she was okay with. She didn’t love it and she didn’t hate it, but she agreed with it.

But the feature, she never liked it. She never agreed with it. I knew the moment that I debuted the film that it was going to be the end of our personal relationship and that was really complicated for me to deal with emotionally or psychologically, and I did need some help. It took some time. The film had already been completed for about six or seven months and I didn’t have the courage to submit it to any place or to show it anywhere.

Finally, the Hamptons Film Festival saw it because we had gotten a grant from Cinereach, as well. They sent them the film through some liaison, and they really insisted that the film premiere there, and that was when I made the decision to go there, and it ended up winning the best documentary award. It was really well received, and she did show up there.

For me it was important that she showed up there and she saw how people reacted to her, and a lot of the time the people who love the film also love her. That’s the bottom line that I think she has a hard time accepting and loving herself, in a way.

I think it’s symbolic that most of the stuff that she collects is movie related stuff. That’s kind of magical. You see how many posters she actually has.

DS: And it extends to other film related ephemera, as well, like when she is handing you things in the hallway and she produces not one but two of the same Martin Scorsese DVD box sets.

FGB: (laughs) And I’m laughing like a madman. That’s one of the things I regret, because I shouldn’t have laughed there. For me it was a great surprise. And she actually gave me on of those for Christmas.

Something that really impressed me and something that I’ll never forget is that she had all of these call sheets from Comedy Central shows. (laughs) What is she going to do with this stuff? And she had all of these beta tapes that she could never watch from them. We tried to argue with her about this. And the posters, we counted about 35 or 40 of those.

DS: Now that you have gone through all the footage and assembled it and after having lived there, how do you think Laura fits into the arts scene there and how she’s perceived? Has anyone who has dealt with her been able to put her life into a different perspective for you?

FGB: Well, we had a screening in Brazil and someone who had known her his entire life told me that he loved it and that it was really respectful. But how do people perceive her is an interesting question, because since then I have left New York. I haven’t really been around there so much. I feel most people have a fairly good idea now what her life could be like, but they nobody can really know the full degree of the hurricane that’s in her room. I think that’s what she was always afraid of. But I don’t think anybody is really going to judge her for that, and I doubt her life is going to change. On the contrary, I think people like to see others finally opening up and they appreciate that.

What always fascinated me about Laura’s character and still does – even though the film has a phase of disenchantment when I stopped being charmed by her – is that she does really does have an internal conflict between wanting to be seen and wanting to be completely clandestine. That’s something that I can really identify it. She loves the spotlight and she loves being a complete unknown in New York. Those two deeply paradoxical things are things that a lot of people could love, and I do, too. There’s a mirror between me and her.

I think the most important thing in this film was that realization during the editing that it’s kind of impossible to represent the truth of someone in a film, but what film can do and I tried to do here, was to represent as well as possible was that relationship that we had. Film is a great place to show relationships evolving through time, and ours constantly changes throughout the film. From that I think you have a real narrative experience.

It’s ironic to think about it now because in the beginning I thought I could make a film about Laura feel like fiction with me hiding my presence, but that only held up for two days and I gave up on the third day. What really makes this feel fictional is that we expose the process and we show our negotiations with her out in the open. I think in that sense you can appreciate this almost as a love story between these two characters, the young director and this beautiful older woman.

I think in a way it’s kind of inspired a little bit by [Werner] Herzog at the end of Grizzly Man where he listens to something that we never hear, and it makes the moments so much stronger just to see the emotions. I’m looking through the door and seeing what’s inside the door, but the audience does not.

But I’m still glad that at the end of this that she did show up at The Hamptons. She was in a wig and a disguise. It was perfect. A few people spotted her in the first screening and I didn’t believe it, so in the second screening which was right after the awards ceremony I started looking for her and I spotted her immediately. That was when she made her scene. She just started screaming and saying I was a liar, but that’s another story.

NOTE: Films marked as Rush Only were rush as of press time. Please always check with an official source before heading out. For a full list of films, showtimes, venues, and up-to-date ticketing information, please visit hotdocs.ca.

The Imposter

Director: Bart Layton

Program: Special Presentations

95 minutes

Recommend: Oh my god yes!

Following a successful run at Sundance comes The Imposter, one of the most unique, unusual, and compulsively watchable entries at this year’s Hot Docs.  In 1994 a 13-year-old boy disappeared in San Antonio. Four years later the family got a call saying the boy had reappeared in Spain, claiming to have lost his memory and developed an accent after years of torture. Despite the fact that he acts suspiciously and looks far different than the child they lost, the family brought him into their home.

Revealing any more of Bart Layton’s remarkable documentary would be unfair, but suffice to say more questions are raised than are ever answered. Layton interviews everyone involved (including an eccentric private investigator and a confused social worker), each with a different version of the events. He ties it all together with expertly lensed staged footage along the lines of a film by Errol Morris or James Marsh. Shot and executed like a noir-flavored mystery thriller, The Imposter is an absolutely fascinating documentary that wouldn’t come close to working as well as a conventional fictional adaptation of the events. Without the interviews and archival material, it would be difficult to believe the story actually happened and Layton would never have been able to weave such a convincing tapestry of sinister and conflicting Rashomon-style perspectives on the same tale. (Phil Brown)

Screens

Monday, April 20, 11:00am, Isabel Bader (RUSH ONLY)

Shadows of Liberty

Director: Jean-Philippe Tremblay

Program: World Showcase

93 minutes

Recommended?: Moderately

First time director Jean-Philippe Tremblay doesn’t so much rip the lid off the corruption in America’s mainstream media in this talking heads dominated social advocacy documentary, but he does show a keen desire to forward the dialog and bring an important message of media bias to the masses.

Looking back predominantly to the Regan administration up to today, Tremblay takes major corporate interests and their governmental beneficiaries to task for skewing the way that news is presented in America and why certain stories are swept under the rug in the name of a common shared interest.

Specific examples of media based malfeasance (like the tragic story of Mark Webb, who sadly killed himself after being discredited by powers that wanted to suppress the link between the Nicaraguan Contras and the influx of drugs to the states) hold far more weight than the overarching “been there, done that theme.” The interviews are mostly insightful (except for an out of place Danny Glover), but this film seems more suited for an Intro to Media Studies course. (Andrew Parker)

Screens

Sunday, April 29^th, 4:00pm, Lightbox 3 (RUSH ONLY)

Where Heaven Meets Hell

Director: Sasha Friedlander

Program: International Spectrum

80 Minutes

Recommended?: Yes, Strongly

“Everybody who comes here says ‘oh it looks like hell!’, and I think to myself ‘but, this is my life”, says Indonesian sulphur miner Anto. He’s just one of the hundreds of miners who trek up and down steep hills to get to Kawah Ijen, and active volcano in Indonesia. They lug hefty crates of sulphur on their shoulders, making barely enough money to support their families and loved ones living in surrounding rural villages. Director Sasha Friedlander’s Where Heaven Meets Hell intimately connects the thoughts of these miners who risk their lives for their families every day, and we find out these fearless men and women laugh and cry for many of the same reasons as us.

Often obscured by beaten up t-shirts and rags used in place of proper masks, the miners struggle to protect their lungs from the toxic clouds of sulphur smoke which have been especially bad in the last year. As we hear firsthand accounts from wives, daughters, and children of miners it becomes clear that many of them are still only boys and that sulphur mining’s low wages and dangerous environment  is not helping to better the lives of their young families. Where Heaven Meets Hell is a touching portrayal of endurance and hope; an investigation of how far people will go to give the ones they love a better chance. (Brandon Bastaldo)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Saturday, May 5^th, 7:15pm, Lightbox 3

Buzkashi!

Director: Najeeb Mirza

Program: Canadian Spectrum

81 min

Subtitled

Recommended?: Yes.

After watching a lot of talking head documentaries it was a very nice change of pace to watch a primarily visual one.  For those unfamiliar with the sport, Buzkashi is a centuries-old game popular in Central Asia that resembles a dangerous hybrid of polo and rugby, except instead of a ball they use a headless goat carcass.  This brutal sport is contrasted by the serene countryside scenery, both of which are captured in stunningly beautiful images by the three different cinematographers.

Though the film concentrates on one player and there is a lose narrative, this is not a traditional sports documentary. The way the shots linger on the majestic Pamir Mountains creates a poeticism far more engrossing than if they had attempted to explain the ins and outs of the game. Buzkashi! does what documentary is supposed to do: it takes you somewhere you would not normally go and shows you something you would not normally see, while also adding a filmmaker’s perspective. This is definitely one to catch on the big screen if you get the opportunity.  (Noah Taylor)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Sunday, April 29, 9:45pm, Royal

Tuesday, May 1, 9:00pm, Lightbox 3

Sunday May 6 9:00pm Cumberland 2

G-Dog

Director: Freida Mock

Program: International Spectrum

92 Minutes

Recommended? Yes, Strongly and with a box of Kleenex

The homeboys and girls who sport “nothing stops a bullet like a job” t-shirts in G-Dog are living proof of the truth to this statement. Started by priest Gregory Boyle, Homeboy Industries began as a work program offering jobs to recently released felons and kids growing up in Los Angeles’ worst gang territories.

Homeboy Industries started as a means to help members of a community Boyle felt were being completely neglected by the system. From these humble beginnings, Boyle has forged many lifelong relationships with legions of home boys and girls.

As director Frieda Mock investigates Homeboy Industries’ mission, we see that this center for recovering criminals offers drug rehabilitation, parenting classes, even laser tattoo removal all in the hopes of giving honest hard working people a chance to restart. When Homeboy Industries is threatened by a serious budget deficit, Boyle finds out that he needs this tight community of ex gang bangers as much as they need him. (Brandon Bastaldo)

Screens

Monday, April 30^th, 6:45pm, Cumberland 2

Saturday, May 5^th, 4:00pm, Isabel Bader

Off Label

Directors: Michael Palmieri, Donal Mosher

Program: International Spectrum

80 minutes

Recommended?: Yes.

Combining some gorgeous impressionistic cinematography with an advocate’s bent, directors Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher investigate the current American obsession with prescribing psychiatric medication from questionable human testing to some potentially devastating consequences.

The stories on display here are of a deeply personal nature. There’s the woman who lost her son as a result of unauthorized testing from a suspect doctor. A young man suffering from sever PTSD after he returns home from Iraq can’t find proper help at the VA. An Austin, Texas resident describing himself as a human guinea pig lives homeless while bouncing from test to test, while another uses his position to advocate for patients rights. A woman suffers from clear overmedication, while a former drug representative lets the audience in on some dirty tricks.

The focus here is on the personal, first and foremost, and as a result the pieces don’t entirely add up to a cohesive whole that seems to have any answers. Despite that, the stories feel vital when one stops to consider how some family doctors are seemingly abusing name brand medicines without being specialists. It’s a great look at a potential breeding ground for a country’s obsession with unconscious drug abuse. (Andrew Parker)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Sunday, April 29^th, 3:30pm, Bloor (RUSH ONLY)

Saturday, May 5^th, 9:15pm, Cumberland 2 (RUSH ONLY)

My Mate Manchester United

Director: Stefan Valdobrev

Program: Made in Southeastern Europe

Screens With: Trials, Tribulations, & Sustainable Growth of a Cock (20 minutes)

57 Minutes

Recommended?: No- While heart warming, this film features many scenes of old Bulgarian men sitting around, drinking, and talking

As a sea of men clad in all red garments sit glued to a T.V. screen, intense looks of dedication and focus occupy each face. Director Stefan Valdobrev sets us amiss the excruciating suspense floating in the air as these men wait to see if Manchester United will score a much needed goal. As this small crowd erupts in raucous commotion once a goal is made, the joyful calamity that ensues makes it no surprise that Valdobrev chose football fandom as the subject for My Mate Manchester United.

Still, this early example of the diehard attitude many Manchester United fans exhibit is no match for Bulgarian construction worker Manchester United’s (yup, he legally changed his name is Manchester United) all out love for his favourite football team. As Valdobrev follows Manchester in his ultimate pursuit to meet his hero, Manchester United’s Bulgarian striker Dimitar Berbatov, Manchester’s unwavering allegiance to this football club shows the admirable endurance of a fan’s heart. (Brandon Bastaldo)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Wednesday, May 2^nd, 6:30pm, Cumberland 2

Thursday, May 3^rd, 7:15pm, Lightbox 4

The Punk Syndrome

Directors: Jukka Karkkainen, J-P Passi

Program: Next

Subtitles

85 minutes

Recommended?: Hell yeah. These guys are punk as fuck.

The Finnish Punks in the band Pertti Kurikka’s Name Day aren’t exactly the first people to spring to mind when it comes to angry and aggressive music that starts mosh pits. Named after the band’s guitarist and CF afflicted guitarist, all of the members are developmentally challenged 30-somethings either living in group homes or struggling for their own independence.

The songs these guys craft are as punk rock as you can get: odes to frustration at not being treated equally and tirades against a system that doesn’t give a damn about them. Their problems are so astoundingly universal and their musical stylings are so tight that it’s easy to see these people as the extraordinary human beings they are. Even better, each has their own distinct personality, including a politically active bassist, a loose cannon lead singer with a loving girlfriend, and just about the sweetest drummer ever.

The film could’ve used a bit more insight into how the band got started and how they all got into punk. The band’s able bodied managers and handlers are seen and heard from, but no actual context is given from them. Still, as a profile of a band and a fight against the stigma of disability, this film rocks. (Andrew Parker)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Monday, April 30^th, 1:15pm, Cumberland 3

Friday, May 4^th, 1:30pm, ROM

Welcome to the Machine

Director: Avi Weider

Program: World Showcase

86 Minutes

Recommended?: Yes, just don’t take any psychedelics before this one- it might make your head implode

As one of many technological theorists in Avi Weider’s Welcome to the Machine meekly asks us to “imagine if Beethoven was born in a time with no instruments?”, the weight of Weider’s documentary sinks in. Contemplative and at times frustratingly erudite, Welcome to the Machine makes us hyper aware of how our evolution as a species which has become intrinsically linked to its technological progress.

A blind gentleman undergoing experimental retina stimulation, USMC UAV operators, and even transcripts between Weider and technologically driven terrorist Ted Kacynski are all incorporated to shed light on the undeniable benefits and consequences which have, and could, come about because of rapid technological advancement.

Weider gets personal when he includes his wife’s struggle to give birth to triplets and their fight to raise this small army. When we find out the triplets were conceived through in vitro fertilization, Welcome to the Machine becomes a lyrical caution and praise for our species’ innate technological potential. (Brandon Bastaldo)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Sunday, April 29^th, 7:15pm, Royal

Tuesday, May 1^st, 1:15pm, Cumberland 3

Friday, May 4^th, 4:00pm, ROM

Making a film for the first time takes a certain degree of finesse and fearlessness, but to make your first film a polemic against corporate run media takes a special kind of chutzpah. Director Jean-Philippe Tremblay (formerly of Canada, but now hailing from the UK) spent the better part of the last several years interviewing, researching, and documenting the links between corporate run news and television companies and their political overlords for his film Shadows of Liberty, which debuted to a packed house at the HotDocs International Documentary Film Festival this past Friday and runs again for a second sure to be packed crowd at the Lightbox today.

A man clearly unafraid of burning bridges, Tremblay brings up specifics and puts the names of the most biased offenders out in the open by talking to a wide selection of pundits and thinkers who have lived both inside and outside of the corporate media structure.

Dork Shelf caught up with Tremblay yesterday to talk about the links between American government and the media, what his thoughts are on the current state of the FCC, and just how hard it is to make your first film about such a huge, largely unspoken concept.

Dork Shelf: I think that everyone who works in the media has that one moment where it finally dawns on them that everything is somewhat corporatized. Going back in your own history, was there a particular moment when you realized this was the case?

Jean-Philippe Tremblay: I started working in media about 20 years ago, and it was always a dream of mine when I was a teenager to become a filmmaker and to make documentaries. I started in the industry as a grip, a gaffer, a lighting technician – that kind of thing. I started doing that in Ottawa and I did that for a few years and I worked on that pretty independently. At the same time I was always part of film co-ops and that sort of thing. Once I started getting stuck within the actual industry about two or three years into it, it was about it being a job where you have to join a union, and that sort if thing. I guess that was the first time where I noticed that in the media – and in any industry, I think – that there’s some kind of a structure that’s organized either by a type of governmental structure or a corporate structure. I think we all go through that, but that’s the moment that I really think of.

DS: It’s one of the things you don’t really learn about much in school when you decide to go into the media arts.

JPT: Absolutely. That’s one of the great questions. How are these schools set up, and what are they teaching you? Schools are kind of responsible for putting students out into the workforce, and they have to get them ready for the reality of the subject. So on the one hand, you have to get a job where there has to be a form of self-censorship, or on the other you can think that you do something that you can dedicate your life to and be passionate about. It’s always a bit of a mixed bag.

I think that when we speak of the media monopoly, it’s about the massive influence that they have on our society and our culture, and ultimately it effects everything from the news we get right down to our government institutions. It’s produced the world that we have today. If we look at the western world, and in England where I live today we are asking questions about News Corp. and what’s going on over there. We’re involved in wars where people still don’t know exactly what is going on. These are very narrow, very conservative governments, and on the other side of that we’re starting to see people protesting against that around the world. I guess we’ll just have to see what happens, but we’re living in that time now.

DS: It’s a part of this whole information war that’s been going on since the Nixon era, and especially during the 1980s with the cold war when the line between PR and news sort of disappears.

JPT: Yeah, and speaking of that time, in the film we have an example of how the Regan administration at the time was fighting Communism in Nicaragua, and there’s this case where the Contras are fighting alongside the United States to kind of take away the democratically elected government. A journalist names Gary Webb was trying to uncover how the Contras were involved in drug trafficking in the United States. So we do have examples of that.

DS: And that story is a good example of how a community can understand what’s going on when the rest of the media shies away from it, since the crack cocaine epidemic was kind of an extension of that.

JPT: Absolutely it was something that people in the community were aware of. There were protests all over the country. In Los Angeles, thousands of people were coming out. Maxine Waters, a congresswoman, was at the head of a lot of these rallies. Even one of the pundits we had in the film, Norm Solomon, had organized protests in support of Gary Webb and against the mainstream media. The people do know what’s going on. It was also very much an internet story, because it was one of the first to be really published where you could click on something and see how the research was done and see thousands of articles and court hearings that Gary Webb had accumulated to write this piece. It’s groundbreaking work, and it’s amazing how with the structure of media and government that they can still brush aside an integral Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who had written such an amazing piece.

DS: I think that’s something that ties into the rise of citizen journalism and blogging today because they are more in tune with that sense of community than a lot of mainstream outlets are.

JPT: I think that people are finally reacting to the media monopoly in a new way. People have been protesting since the beginning of time. In the film we show how in 1934 there was a telecom act that was signed that gives the airwaves away for free to corporations like NBC and CBS at the time, when before that the public owned them. Recently what has happened, and particularly with regard to the Iraq War, and how the mainstream media reacted to that, exposed blatant lies about what was being written about. It was information that could be so very easily uncovered, but it wasn’t allowed in a lot of mainstream press. That made people really stand up, whereas before they might have known about it, but the acting up around it wasn’t nearly as huge. Now with governments acting the way they are and following the economic crash of a few years ago, it’s making more people stand up. I think we will see right now with what’s happening in the UK with News Corp. and with the Wall Street occupation movement that’s happening and we can see that in Quebec with the students that have been protesting and they’ve been on strike. I was there for a week before we came here, and that’s all anyone is talking about.

DS: Your film talks a bit about the corporate and political interests of the FCC. Do you think there’s any way as it’s currently structured to save the FCC?

JPT: Well, the FCC was put in place to look out for the public interest. I think they try, but when it comes times to make changes and implement new rules they shy away. It’s a good question, because they’ve also always been there for the corporations in a way. A good example is how at the FCC hearings before the public to speak about media ownership, by a large margin people were standing up and saying how they were fed up with these monopolies. One corporation could own up to 80% of the news and television stations in a particular community, whether it was in Portland, Maine or Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, or Tampa Bay, Florida. I went to all these cities and heard all these people, and after a year of hearings at the time the FCC chairman Kevin Martin actually gave more ownership power to the corporations, telling them they could own the newspaper, the radio, and the television stations in one market. That’s a rule that’s gone back and forth, actually. Even before Kevin Martin’s time when Michael Powell was there. I think they should be looking at the public interest, but they kind of fall short in that mandate.

DS: Another thing that you touch upon in the film is that the media has seemed to dumb down their coverage and what they think people can handle. Do you think that’s another huge problem when it comes to media’s relationship to special interests?

JPT: I think these media corporations would definitely prefer to have this dumbed down audience that’s trained to consume instead of these active citizens that are politically inclined and can make decisions for themselves. I think that’s a huge part of the media complex; to not ask very many questions so that people can look the other way. It’s quite amazing when we talk about the media monopoly, it’s staggering to think about the kind of businesses that these news institutions are really involved in. It’s amazing that these same companies could own the media, as well. There are conflicts of interest right from the get go when dealing with companies that are involved somehow with arms proliferation and nuclear armament.

DS: There also seems to be this climate where the media thinks that people can’t really handle the economics of things.

JPT: Yeah, which is terrible, because I think the population can handle anything, really. I mean, most of us know how to read and write and add numbers. There’s a political and social climate that’s different in every country, and when we go to the United States as opposed to Canada and some places in Europe you start to realize that maybe people there aren’t as socially and economically aware of what’s going on. I think that’s a product of the monopoly. Mind you, this same monopoly exists all over the world. I just think that It’s quite amazing how powerful it is there with comparison to other countries. There’s a lot of stories that are headlines that make news around the world that aren’t allowed to penetrate the echo chamber of media in the United States.

DS: Now when you go to make a movie like this and it’s your first feature length film and you’re going at a topic that’s so big, where did you choose to start from and how did you decide what you wanted to focus on?

JPT: Good question. Like I said, I had been in this industry for about twenty years, and this opportunity to make a feature film came up and we were first inspired by a book called The New Media Monopoly by Ben Bagdikian, but it was a massive subject. Here’s the biggest superpower in the world, the United States of America, and backed by these massive corporations who have been existing for decades with all this power in the very field we are trying to work within. It was an amazing subject to take in, and you just start investigating what was in Ben Bagdikian’s book. That’s the challenge of this whole film. Yes, we have this information, but how are we going to relate this to an audience.

At the time when we started back in 2007, the FCC hearings were happening, so that was something that was serendipitous for us, so we started following those hearings around and we got to spend time talking to these people in these communities who were speaking to the FCC at high schools and community centres and in front of selected panels with members of the government and journalists, and that was a really great introduction for me to see what the United States was and how they felt about their media.

What I also wanted to include were journalists who were actually experienced in working within the media monopoly and knowing what its like to try and report on an important story dedicating their time and effort out of their lives as both journalists and citizens, and when it comes time to publish that report or broadcast it they get stopped by a certain power, be it by the American government or by the corporations they are actually looking for. We have six examples of that in the film where these journalists lives are turned upside down.

DS: Is there anything that you would have liked to have included that didn’t get a chance to make the final cut of the film?

JPT: That’s another good question. I’m extremely proud of the film we’ve produced, and there’s always that part of you that thinks you can make all these adjustments well after the fact. You would love to just say you could make a five hour cut of it with all this information and research, but that’s kind of endless. But then again, you have to follow the structure that’s proceeded us. A film is about an hour and a half to two hours and we didn’t want to get too far from that with the amount of time that we were given and the stories that we had. We wanted to try to make the most powerful film possible. Something we believed in. Something that would honour the people that contributed to this film, because most of the 38 pundits that we talked to are mostly award winning journalists that have dedicated their lives to independent news. We wanted to honour them and the work that they’ve been doing, and create something that actually has a chance to bring about changes.

Come back later this week for another special interview with media critic and Shadows of Liberty featured pundit Jeff Cohen for his take on the film and his own personal experiences inside the American media complex.

Don’t forget to check out four earlier entries in our coverage of the 2012 Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival for even more reviews.

NOTE: Films with screenings marked as RUSH ONLY were rush as of press time. Please check an official source before heading out. For more information, a full list of titles, tickets, and showtimes, please visit hotdocs.ca.

El Huaso

Director: Carlo Guillermo Proto

Program: Canadian Spectrum

Screens With: When the Trumpet Sounds (16 minutes)

Some Subtitles

80 minutes

Recommended?: Yes. An absolute must-see and easily one of the best Canadian films of the year.

One of the most gripping and painfully intimate looks at depression ever captured in a documentary, Proto has crafted a masterful story about his own family’s struggles to deal with a father suffering from crippling anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and possibly even deeper health problems.

Dividing time between gorgeously photographed Toronto and Chile (where his father Gustavo wishes to spend some time before either giving in to dementia or taking his own life), Proto deals in harsh truths that his own family sometimes doesn’t want to hear. He shows the push and pull between the sympathetic and selfish sides of one of the world’s most untreated diseases. As unpredictable as it is powerful, Proto leaves no skeletons in his father’s closet untouched, and it’s a wonder to behold. (Andrew Parker)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Saturday, April 28^th, 3:45pm, Lightbox 3

Sunday, April 29^th, 1:30pm, Lightbox 2

Saturday, May 5^th, 6:15pm, Lightbox 4

Big Boys Gone Bananas!*

Director: Fredrik Gertten

Program: Special Presentations

Some Subtitles

88 minutes

Recommended?: Yes.

The very best kind of David versus Goliath stories are the ones where David eventually wins, naturally, but victory against the massive fruit company Dole never feels completely assured for Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten. Big Boys Gone Bananas!* is a  film about the protracted moral and legal fight to get another documentary film, Bananas!*, released. The latter film, also directed by Gertten, alleged that banana-producer Dole knowingly used pesticides in Nicaragua that could cause sterility amongst the workers who farmed the fruit. Gertten’s charges obviously did not sit well with the fruit giant, and the company attempted to block the film’s release on the grounds that its claims were fraudulent and defamatory.

So effective was Dole’s campaign to smear the director and his previous films, that audiences may even begin to have their doubts about Gertten. The film will likely strike an all too familiar chord with the Hot Docs crowd, many who are either filmmakers or journalists who have fought these kinds of battles themselves. As the person at the centre of the film, is Gertten the most objective person to tell this tale? Probably not, but at the time of filming – facing international legal battles and fights with film festivals – Gertten was literally the only person who could tell this story. (Will Perkins)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Wednesday, May 2^nd, 5:30pm, Bloor

My Thai Bride

Director: David Tucker

Program: International Spectrum

Screens With: Tillman in Paradise (27 minutes)

Some Subtitles

54 minutes

Recommended?: Not really. Only half of the real story is here.

Welsh knockoff importer Ted Rees was drawn by his rampant personal insecurities to trying to “save” a woman from the Thai countryside and learns an important lesson in David Tucker’s lopsided look at how poverty can breed loose ethics as a method of survival.

Ted’s a pretty sleazy guy right from the start, but even more than that he’s obviously a lonely sad sack more in need of a therapist than a wife. The moments spent with his ex-wife Tip are quite a bit more interesting despite how she ultimately ended up treating the westerner.

In a film that could definitely be longer, Tucker hints at some of the economic and sociological reasons behind a culture seemingly breeding lower class women to be golddiggers, but precious little context is given. This film is all about how something happened, not why it happened, and without the more important question being answered, it’s really hard to care about the situation. (Andrew Parker)

Screens

Friday, April 27th, 7:00pm, Innis (RUSH ONLY)

Saturday, April 28th, 4:30pm, Lightbox 2

Saturday, May 5th, 4:00pm, Regent

Ping Pong

Director: Hugh Hartford

Program: World Showcase

Screens with: The Record Breaker (28 minutes)

76 minutes

Recommended?: Yes, not strongly.

There’s something relaxing and pleasantly simple about watching senior citizens play ping pong. The 8 players Ping Pong centres on would probably find that this sentiment depreciates what may have started out as a hobby but has become a source of happiness, pride, exercise and meaning in these later years of their lives. This doc follows their journey from four different continents to the 80+ world championship in Mongolia.

I’m not sure how the filmmakers chose which of the 3,500 players in competition to concentrate on, but I only found half of them to have any particularly memorable qualities: the 89 year old weightlifter, the 84 year old who returns from death’s door to compete, the Venetian woman with an “in your face” attitude and the 100 year old Australian woman who becomes the oldest competitor ever. The event is ripe for documenting and they did a good job of picking players who advance far in the tournament, but apart from that Ping Pong demonstrates about as much imagination as its name. (Noah Taylor)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Sunday, April 29, 4:00pm, Isabel Bader (RUSH ONLY)

Wednesday, May 2, 1:30pm, Isabel Bader

Sunday, May 6, 1:15pm, Bloor

Planet of Snail

Director: Seung-Jun Yi

Program: International Spectrum

Subtitled

89 minutes

Recommended?: No. Despite an inspirational premise this documentary goes nowhere slowly

Despite a potentially heartwarming premise, this romance about two disabled souls in South Korea who have found love against all odds lacks interesting insight or a fresh perspective.

The deaf-blind poet and artist Youngchan and his little person wife/de facto assistant Soonho are absolutely inspirations to even the most heartless of cynics, but Yi’s approach to their relationship is far too clinical to have any emotional value. Lethargic pacing and precious little insight into who Youngchan and Soonho were before their relationship or as individuals casts an air of disappointment over this missed opportunity. With the exception of the final 20 minutes or so, it’s like watching people under glass. (Andrew Parker)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Monday, April 30^th, 9:00pm, Lightbox 3 (RUSH ONLY)

Wednesday, May 2^nd, 1:30pm, ROM

Sunday, May 6^th, 2:00pm, Lightbox 2

Fists of Pride

Director: Helene Choquette

Program: Canadian Spectrum

Subtitled

63 minutes

Recommended?: Yes, but prepare to be disturbed.

Fists of Pride is a raw and often tragic look at the lives of several child boxers living in the impoverished Thai-Burmese border town of Mae Sot. With fearsome nicknames like Lion, Little Tiger, and Puma, these young Burmese immigrants give up any hope of an education or home life in order to train in the art of Thai boxing and compete to win their fortunes. Despite its short running time, it’s hard not to get attached to the dedicated young fighters featured. That attachment will make the vicious Muay Thai bouts and agonizing defeats all the more crushing for audiences. Seeing kids beat each other bloody isn’t an easy thing to watch.

Most of them barely teens, the boxers are pitted against other children at the annual Water Festival (often without gloves and zero protection) as crowds of cheering adults bet on them. The kids have trained well, but this is little more than cockfighting with children. This especially brutal form of exploitation beats the alternative of being sold into servitude or worse, however the film illustrates that punches and kicks are often the only way out for many children in this poverty-stricken region of Asia. (Will Perkins)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Monday, April 30^th, 7:30pm, Lightbox 2

Thursday, May 3^rd, 4:45pm, Lightbox 2

Her Master’s Voice

Director: Nina Conti

Program: Next

61 minutes

Recommended?: Very Highly. It succeeds where most fictional films about the inner workings of comedians fail horribly.

British comedian and ventriloquist Nina Conti – best known for her amphitheater packing performances with a droll, diminutive monkey puppet – looks to give up the old time style of comedy that made her famous, when she learns her mentor, famed British theatre icon Ken Campbell has passed away and bequeathed his entire collection to her. This leads Conti on a soul searching pilgrimage to Kentucky to attend her final ventriloquist convention and leave her puppets behind once and for all.

Funny and cute, but also appropriately bittersweet, melancholy, and deeply personal, Conti goes deep within herself to confront her own demons and mixed feelings to create a portrait of not just an artist, but also a deeply sympathetic human being. The love of the craft also shines through in talks with other puppeteers and she tugs on some serious Toy Story styled heartstrings when she asks her peers what will happen to their puppets when they die. It was enough to reduce me to a blubbering puddle of tears.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Sunday, April 29th, 7:00pm, Cumberland 2

Tuesday, May 1st, 11:00am, ROM

Friday, May 4th, 1:30pm, Cumberland 2

Laura

Director: Fillipe Gamarano Barbosa

Program:  World Showcase

78 Minutes

Recommended? Yes, Strongly. Especially if you’re one of those people who like anything of the TLC variety

Laura situates itself at the intersection where Grey Gardens, Hoarders, and Entourage somehow meet. Fellipe Gamarano Barbosa’s documentary is really about Laura: a celebrity/glamour obsessed, New York City socialite veteran. She transcends any common categorization and as the film progresses Barbosa’s ‘day in the life’ documentary becomes more like a ‘day in the head’ of the eclectic Brazilian émigré diva.

Although her garbs are demure and stylish, it is Laura’s apartment that’s possibly the best indication of her neurosis. Laura’s chic apparel sits in a bedroom packed top to bottom with hundreds of flyers, VHS tapes, and anything else that has picked up on the streets over Laura’s 30 plus year occupation of New York. Barbosa continually evolves our understanding of this masquerading woman who chooses to live her life with the utmost secrecy and privacy but admirably allows peace, respect, and a driving desire to enjoy life to ordain her solitary existence. (Brandon Bastaldo)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Sunday, April 29^th, 7:00pm, ROM (RUSH ONLY)

Tuesday, May 1^st, 4:00pm, ROM

Saturday, May 5^th, 4:00pm, Cumberland 2

Legend of a Warrior

Director: Corey Lee

Program: Canadian Spectrum

78 minutes

Recommended?: Yes, it’s a nice little father and son story

Corey Lee claims he really knew much about his father, world renowned White Crane Kung Fu master and trainer Frank Lee, but this decent documentary almost proves that he knew more than he originally thought.

While Frank left his family for great periods of time when Corey was a child, Corey spends over five months away from his own family to train at his father’s intensely difficult gym with hopes of trying to become closer to his old man.

Most of the questions Corey asks his father about his past he already knows the answers to, which takes away from a lot of the drama, but Frank is certainly an interesting figure and watching them establish a stronger emotional bond wisely becomes the bulk of the film’s second half. It could be framed a little better, but it’s still a nice father and son story featuring some pretty great cinematography and stylish black and white animated interstitials. (Andrew Parker)

Screens

Monday, April 30^th, 9:15pm, Cumberland 2

Thursday, May 3^rd, 1:30pm, ROM

Friday, May 4^th, 4:00pm, Isabel Bader

Crimes Without Honour

Director: Raymonde Provencher

Program: Rise Against

69 Minutes

Recommended? Yes, and strongly because this problem is both rampant in and relevant to Torontonians

Director Raymonde Provencher captures the brave stories behind the scars that many female survivors of honour crimes have to live with everyday; astoundingly, women from many different backgrounds and cultures. Honour crimes are brutal acts committed when a female shames the patriarch of a family, and much of the violence carried out against these shameful women is exacted by hierarchal sub-societies similar the systematized nature of organized crime.

Provencher gets testimonies from both female and male honour crimes victims and it becomes clear that many men are also very uncomfortable with arranged marriage and these abusive cultural laws. A large part of putting an end to this hushed up epidemic is linked to creating communities where this abuse is no longer tolerated ,but as we see victims drink Tim Horton’s coffee and walk past TTC streetcars we are sadly reminded that this problem is much closer to home then we may think. (Brandon Bastaldo)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Friday, April 27, 6:45pm, Cumberland 3

Saturday, April 28^th, 1:30pm, Cumberland 2

Friday, May 4, 1:45pm, Cumberland 3

Who Cares?

Director: Rosie Dransfeld

Program: Canadian Spectrum

79 minutes

Recommended?: Yes. Prepare to have your eyes opened whether you like it or not.

A complex and almost thoroughly austere journalistic look at the lives of Edmonton sex workers, Dransfeld presents things simply as she sees them without ever shying away from sometimes graphic and unembellished descriptions of the depression, addictions, and humiliations suffered by those who make a living on the streets.

Primarily using two women trying to claw their way our from beneath their social stigmas and a trio of RCMP homicide investigators as focal points, Dransfield tries to show the audience the “people behind the prostitute.”  The stories told by the women and their loved ones are wrenching, and the officers tasked with collecting DNA from the workers to identify them if they go missing or are killed are aware enough to know they are walking a fine line. The final sequence involving two peripheral subject arguing about what to do about a woman in trouble speaks volumes to the conundrum at the heart of the film. (Andrew Parker)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Wednesday, May 2^nd, 9:00pm, Lightbox 3

Saturday, May 5^th, 6:45pm, Cumberland 3

The Final Member

Director: Jonah Bekhor, Zach Math

Program: Canadian Spectrum

Screens With: Manhood (9 minutes)

75 Minutes

Recommended? Yes, Strongly.

Torontonian filmmakers Jonah Bekhor and ad man turned director Zach Math’s The Final Member is all about penises, but there’s certainly no dicking around here. Sigurdur “Siggy” Hjartson is a sweet old man from the northern Icelandic town of Husavik who is creator and curator of the Icelandic Phallogical Museum (the only penis museum in the world). For Siggy, his dedication to collecting and educating about penises is a lifestyle too as he continually works to break worldwide phallus taboos. Nearing the end of his penis career, Siggy must acquire only one last type of penis to put an end to his forty year odyssey- the Homo Sapiens.

This may sound silly, but every moment of Bekhor and Math’s pristine footage amounts to the most dazzling symphonic voyage that’s unapologetically all about wangs. When a penis obsessed American who dubs his member ‘Elmo’ competes with an ageing Icelandic playboy to be the museum’s first human specimen the race to be The Final Member is on. (Brandon Bastaldo)

Screens

Tuesday, May 1st, 9:45pm, Royal (RUSH ONLY)

Thursday, May 3rd, 9:00pm, Cumberland 3

Sunday, May 6th, 7:00pm, Revue

Colombianos

Director: Tora Martens

Program: World Showcase

Subtitled

90 minutes

Recommended?: Yes.

Better looking and edited than most documentaries and more affecting than most fictional films on the subject, Colombianos takes a look at the toll addiction takes on close knit families no matter the distance between them.

Med student and budding entrepreneur Pablo invites his brother Fernando (who has been living in Stockholm with his mother, Olga) to Medaillen, Colombia to help his younger brother kick a severe addiction to booze and pills. Fernando approaches Colombia like a vacation, while Pablo starts in with tough love right away, but letting up on it at inappropriate times.

Martens has an uncanny knack for perfectly framing her subjects psychologically, dramatically, and physically. The brotherly and parental bonds here are the kinds of things that can’t be faked, and a fairly unpredictable conclusion makes everything even more poignant. (Andrew Parker)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Tuesday, May 1^st, 9:45pm, Lightbox 2

Thursday, May 3^rd, 1:15pm, Cumberland 2

Sunday, May 6^th, 9:15pm, Cumberland 3

If you see one of the showtimes for a movie highlighted, it means we are have a contest to give tickets away for that particular showing! For more information or for a full list of titles in our giveaway, head here! And don’t forget to check out our first, second, and third batches of reviews, too!

NOTE: Films marked as being Rush Only were rush as of press time. Please check before you head out. For more up to date information, a full list of films, showtimes, venues, and ticketing information, please visit hotdocs.ca.

Indie Game: The Movie

Directors: James Swirsky, Lisanne Pajot

Program: Special Presentations

94 minutes

Recommended?: Yes. If you have a passion for creating anything you’ll get something out of this film.

This slickly produced Canadian doc isn’t just something for gamers or geeks; anyone who has ever tried to create something will be able to relate to the stories being told. Indie Game: The Movie has the distinction of being first major film of its kind to honestly profile game creation – and all the blood, sweat, and tears expended in the process. The film follows several indie game designers as they struggle to complete their respective games, including Team Meat – the chaps behind the wonderful platformer Super Meat Boy, and Montreal’s Phil Fish – co-creator of the recently released and long in development FEZ.

Indie Game: The Movie has two goals: it has contextualize games and game design for a broad audience, and it has to relay several thematically similar but separate tales centred around game designers effectively. To their credit, co-directors Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky accomplish both these goals in the course of the film’s 94 minute running time with very few missteps. The direness of one of Fish’s many crises later in the film is probably slightly overplayed and at times the film can feel a little over-produced (underwater cameras in a pool, repetitive epilogue), but these are minor complaints for a film that has a great, untold story to tell and a big heart to boot. (Will Perkins)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Thursday, May 3^rd, 9:00pm, Bloor (RUSH ONLY)

Indie Game: The Movie will also screen across Canada at local Cineplex theatres on Thursday, May 3rd at 9pm EST, 8pm CST, 7pm MTN, 6pm PST. For more participating theatres and tickets visit www.cineplex.com/Events.

We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists

Director: Brian Knappenberger

Program: Rise Against

93 minutes

Recommended?: Yes.

For anyone well versed in internet culture, WikiLeaks, or 4chan, We Are Legion might not hold many revelations or surprises in its look at the roots of online social activism and the rise of Anonymous and Lulzsec, but Knappenberger does a great job of pulling a lot of disparate elements together to create a portrait of an often malleable and misunderstood concept.

From the early days of hacking to the eventual toppling of the Egyptian government, Knappenberger ably shows the distinction between doing something for the lulz and actually making a difference. Multi-faceted and well balanced, the film makes use of some great recent history and insightful talks with those both actively working with Anonymous and those who recently got out. It’s the picture of a group that’s equally sympathetic, loathsome, unorganized, and powerful told with the greatest amount of precision that someone could possibly get. (Andrew Parker)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Tuesday, May 1^st, 6:15pm, Bloor (RUSH ONLY)

Thursday, May 3^rd, 3:00pm, Lightbox 1

Saturday, May 5^th, 7:00pm, Lightbox 1 (RUSH ONLY)

Sexy Baby
Directors: Jill Bauer and Ronna Gradus
Program: Special Presentations

Screens With: The Relationship Doctrine of Don Blanquito (7 minutes)
84 minutes
Recommended?: Yes

It’s a topic that will come up for us no matter what: how is sex perceived these days, how does it affect the rest of our lives and how can you protect someone from the harm it might inflict but still let them know how strong and independent they are? This documentary follows three women – a teenager named Winnifred, a young teacher named Laura and a stripper turned porn star turned mother named Nichole – and tries to make sense of how they react to the way sex is perceived in the digital age.

Sexy Baby shows a balanced view of these topics while getting you to feel compassionate about its characters. It’s especially compelling to watch Winnifred’s story. You may understand what she’s going through. You think of how you don’t want your future daughter growing up to cater to what’s shown in porn or putting very revealing photos on Facebook. Nichole put it best, stating there’s a difference between “I’m going to show you something” and someone saying “let me see.” (Jessica Lewis)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Tuesday, May 1^st, 9:00pm, Bloor

Thursday, May 3^rd, 6:45pm, Isabel Bader

Friday, May 4^th. 7:00pm, Lightbox 1

Detropia

Directors: Rachel Grady, Heidi Edwing

Program: Special Presentations

91 minutes

Recommended?: Yes, very strongly

From the opera house and the local tavern to hard working auto plant employees about to be laid off and scavengers looking to make a few dollars out of some scrap metal, Jesus Camp directors Grady and Edwing take a sprawling look at the widespread canvas that is the city of Detroit and just how far the once mighty manufacturing powerhouse has fallen.

While the film seems to largely gloss over the city’s dramatically high crime rate, the deeply personal and well informed stories come together in a adroitly assembled package that makes the viewer feel almost sorry enough for the city to want to visit. It’s pretty gloomy and downtrodden, but not devoid of its share of hope and optimism for the future. (Andrew Parker)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Saturday, May 5^th, 5:45pm, Bloor (RUSH ONLY)

Finding Truelove
Director: Sam Kuhn
Program: Nightvision
68 minutes
Recommended?: Yes, not strongly

Intrigued by the word “Caduceus” on its cover, Clay, Michael and Andrew purchased a yearbook from Chico High’s class of 1990 at a Value Village. Amongst the Zack Morrises and Kelly Kapowskis of the yearbook photos, the three friends became intrigued by one smirking, floppy-haired student: Timothy Truelove. With a Google Checkout purchase and a road trip from Portland to California, they jump on the opportunity to crash the Chico High’s 20th reunion.

Though the premise is solid, Finding Truelove goes through long stretches where it’s
less of a documentary and more like a home video of a road trip. The filmmaking itself is clumsy and immature at best, but the way that these guys genuinely want to befriend the students of Chico High makes Finding Truelove worthwhile. (Sasha James)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Monday, April 30^th, 11:30 PM, Bloor
Tueday, May 1^st, 9:15 PM, Cumberland 3
Sunday, May 6^th, 6:45 PM, Lightbox 4 (RUSH ONLY)

Bones Brigade: An Autobiography

Director: Stacy Peralta

Program: Special Presentations

110 minutes

Recommended: Quite strongly, especially for skateboarding fans, but the film could definitely use a trim

Dogtown and Z-Boys director Peralta takes a more personal look at skateboarding culture by chronicling the days where he and business partner George Powell played mentor to a nearly unbeatable group of upcoming skaters in the 80s that included the likes of sport icons Tony Hawk and Rodney Mullen.

Sometimes self gratifying and easily 20 minutes too long, the autobiography of the title is a bit of a misnomer as it’s more of an oral history told by all of those who lived it and not just the director. It’s still highly entertaining and the personalities involved and their anecdotes keep things lively and quite poignant even when Peralta drags his heels in the editing department. (Andrew Parker)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Tuesday, May 1^st, 6:30pm, Lightbox 1

Wednesday, May 2^nd, 2:00pm, Lightbox 2

Sunday, May 6^th, 4:00pm, Revue (RUSH ONLY)

Mom and Me

Director: Danic Champoux

Program: Canadian Spectrum

Screens With: Of Insects and Men (12 minutes)

Subtitled

52 minutes

Recommended?: Only if animated re-enactments of Quebec’s storied history with biker gangs appeal to you.

Don’t let the heartwarming title fool you. Mom and Me is a partly-animated documentary about the rise and fall of feared gang leader Maurice “Mom” Boucher and a kid who idolized the violent kingpin. Told mostly through the eyes of the director as a young boy, filmmaker Champoux parallels his own troubled upbringing in Sorel, Quebec with that of the notorious Hell’s Angel leader who inhabited his neighbourhood in between prison stints.

Aside from childhood run-ins with the Angels, Champoux’s connection to the gang seems tenuous at best. The doc is a jumble of wonderful (and decidedly X-rated) animated sequences, as well as interviews with many interesting characters (including an astrologist, for some reason) who tell many stories at once. Mom and Me certainly paints an interesting picture of suburban Quebec during the reign of the biker gangs, but it never really comes together. On their own, the stories of Champoux and Boucher would likely be stronger tales. Mixed together though, the doc suffers from a lack of focus that can be both confusing and off-putting at times. (Will Perkins)

Screens

Friday, April 27^th, 6:30pm, Cumberland 2

Sunday, April 29^th, 3:30pm, Lightbox 4

The World Before Her

Director: Nisha Pahuja

Program: Canadian Spectrum

Some Subtitles

90 minutes

Recommended?: Strongly. One of the festival’s most powerful films

In India where westernized influences are often running afoul of religious ideals and traditions, Pahuja looks at two different, but equally compelling ends of the spectrum as she profiles both women preparing for the highly competitive Miss India pageant and other that are sent off to a Hindu Fundamentalists camps for combat training and to learn to be subservient.

The contrast between the two worlds leads to some genuine tension and intelligent conversation. The women in the pageant are smart, sympathetic, and at times, somewhat inspirational. On the other side, the depiction of religious extremism comes across as bone chilling as it sounds. A great movie could be made from any single part of the story, but Pahuja assembles the pieces in a powerful and well paced fashion. (Andrew Parker)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Wednesday, May 2^nd, 7:00pm, Isabel Bader (RUSH ONLY)

Saturday, May 5^th, 9:30pm, Lightbox 1

Sunday, May 6^th, 11:00am, Isabel Bader

Beware of Mr. Baker

Director: Jay Bulger

Program: Next

92 minutes

Recommended?: Yes, and not just because I fear the film’s subject punching me in the face.

Journalist Bulger revisits the subject of the Rolling Stone piece that made his career in this on-point, tightly crafted look at one of the most gifted and bat shit insane musicians in rock history.

More of a jazz drummer than the hard rocker he was made out to be, Ginger Baker oversaw the formation of the short lived by highly influential Cream and dozens of other equally short lived band. Bulger interviews the chronically pissed off and belligerent Baker from his South African estate about everything from his childhood and his musical influences to his travels across the Sahara and his drug addiction.

Baker is an equally magnetic and polarizing figure, and Bulger hits all the high notes with very little filler and some key insights from rock royalty that knew him best or were influenced by him. (Andrew Parker)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Screens

Friday, April 27^th, 6:15pm, Bloor

Saturday, April, 28^th, 1:45pm, Isabel Bader

Saturday, May 5^th, 1:00pm, Lightbox 2

The Job

Director: Didier Cros

Program: World Showcase

Subtitled

94 minutes

Recommended?: No. It’s an interesting, but ultimately missed opportunity that drags.

An unnecessary and painfully overlong attempt to demystify television job interview based reality shows like The Apprentice and Top Chef, Cros takes a look at a group of potential candidates of various ages and skill levels interviewing with a consulting firm for a poor paying entry level insurance sales position.

None of the candidates are ever allowed to be anything more than an name on an application sheet, as Cros predominantly focuses on the mindnumbing banality of lengthy recruiting tasks. Even the one-on-one interviews never rise about shit talking and “every man and woman for themselves” mentality. If the point was to show how boring it is to apply for even the most marginal of professional positions, mission accomplished, but there’s barely twenty minutes of good material here, not 94. (Andrew Parker)

Screens

Friday, April 27^th, 9:00pm, Cumberland 2

Sunday, April 29^th, 1:30pm, Cumberland 2

Sunday, May 6^th, 1:15pm, Cumberland 3