Bringing the heat at HOT DOCS
Hot Docs 2023 starts soon, are you ready?
Happy Taurus Season and Happy Hot Docs!
I’ll be honest, this Hot Docs season was a whirlwind for me. But here we are at the finish line with an amazing lineup of documentary features and shorts. This will also be my first Hot Docs IRL since the pandemic, imagine?
What to watch this year?
Well of course, there are the big films: LOVE TO LOVE YOU, DONNA SUMMER; TWICE COLONIZED; STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie; STEPHEN CURRY: Underrated; and INVISIBLE BEAUTY. But, I recommend you take a look at some fresh titles…
What I recommend…
AFTER THE BRIDGE
A shocked mother must find peace with her son, a jihadist killed in the 2017 London Bridge attack, in this nuanced and humanizing portrait of a woman grappling with faith, loss and memory in the aftermath of tragedy.
AL DJANAT, The Original Paradise
The death of a Burkinabé family's patriarch and the division of his estate unearths conflict between his heirs and larger questions about inheritance, belonging and the communal customs of West Africa versus Westernized courts.
ANOTHER BODY
Feelings of shock and violation turn into dogged determination when an engineering student investigates the troubling intersection of deepfake technology and porn after a classmate shares an adult video featuring her face on another body.
BLACK BARBIE: A Documentary
We all know the Malibu blonde with a big head and bigger fan following, but do you know her Black counterpart? Discover the true story of Black Barbie from her origins to her contemporary presence in Mattel's metaverse of dolls.
THE CEMETERY OF CINEMA
A filmmaker's determination to find the lost African film Mouramani by legendary Guinean film director Mamadou Touré becomes a desperate and almost comical search into the preservation of African film history in the aftermath of colonialism, imperialism and coup d'états.
ECO-HACK
Conservation biologist Tim Shields sees urgency in the field and finds that traditional conservation practices are lacking when it comes to saving desert tortoise populations from ravens. He goes rogue, employing an arsenal of lasers, exploding model turtles, drones and desert rovers as a means of protecting the tortoise's dwindling numbers.
THE HOMES WE CARRY
Torn apart by immigration red tape and the complicated history between Germany, Mozambique and South Africa, a young mother returns to Africa with her daughter so they can both build relationships with their fathers.
KANAVAL: A People’s History of Haiti in Six Chapters
Immerse yourself in this kaleidoscopic dream retelling of the unique and vibrant history of Haiti through the lens of the island's carnival celebrations. Featuring local leaders organizing the annual festival, hear it from the cultural innovators that define a nation.
MONEY, FREEDOM, A Story of CFA Franc
Though independent since 1960, former French colonies in Africa still use the CFA franc, an enduring remnant of imperialism kept alive by economic incentives that infantilize countries. But as a new generation demands freedom, its days are numbered.
PURE UNKNOWN
With bodies mounting in autopsy rooms along the Mediterranean, one doctor makes it her life's work to identify and reunite deceased refugees with their families, in this story of manufactured tragedy and our collective responsibility to human life.
RAZING LIBERTY SQUARE
Eight miles inland of Miami’s beaches, Liberty City residents fight to save their community from climate gentrification: their land, sitting on a ridge, becomes real estate gold.
SILENT HOUSE
The famous adage "if walls could talk" resonates through Silent House as a home comes alive through archival and contemporary home videos spanning three generations in Tehran and the ever-changing cultural politics of Iran.
STILL WATERS
Through a series of extraordinarily honest and intimate conversations, filmmaker Aurora Brachman examines the intergenerational fallout of the sexual abuse her mother endured as a child. Together, they forge a path forward that offers them a new beginning.
WHITE GRASS
In Mongolia, Munkhjargal dreams of following in both her father's and her ancestors' footsteps as a horse trainer. Unfortunately, her entire way of life is threatened by a once rare but increasingly common phenomenon of extreme and unrelenting cold known as dzuds, which is forcing Mongolian herders to rethink their nomadic way of life.
WILL YOU LOOK AT ME?
Shuli Huang returns home to have a long-overdue conversation with his mother. This beautifully shot film uncovers the wounds that lie beneath the surface and examines the anger that sizzles and boils on both sides of the emotional chasm between this mother and son.
YOU WERE MY FIRST BOYFRIEND
In this hybrid documentary, co-director Cecilia Aldarondo returns to her youth to meticulously re-stage some of her most traumatic high school memories. Through elaborate sets with actors, she relives the haunts of her past to make peace with her present.
My Watchlist:
Sure I am a programmer, but I certainly have not seen every film at the festival! Here are some of the films on my radar…
HONG KONG MIXTAPE
When the Chinese government imposes a law on Hong Kong that silences freedom of expression, a filmmaker joins with underground Asian artists to preserve and celebrate their culture, life and creativity amidst authoritarian rule.
JULY TALK: Love Lives Here
Grappling with a global pandemic and a live music shutdown, hard-touring band July Talk books a drive-in theatre and prepares for a massive concert brimming with professional and personal risks. Out of the crisis comes magic.
MILISUTHANDO
Refracting South Africa's racial dynamics through the filmmaker's personal history, Milisuthando is a sweeping yet intimate chronicle of the country post-Apartheid exploring history, power, race, friendship and belonging.
PASSING THROUGH
This snapshot of a family's holiday gathering in Trinidad and Tobago invites the viewer into warm celebration and the rituals of food, cards and music. An ephemeral travelogue of moments that records a journey home using photography, haiku and prose revealing togetherness in a mother's hands, toes in sand and a dance in dappled sunlight.
PRAYING FOR ARMAGEDDON
By infiltrating the machinery of US politics, powerful American Evangelicals push to realize the biblical prophecy of Armageddon and manifest the Apocalypse, exercising influence that not only threatens American democracy but also foreign policy in the Middle East.
THE RISE OF WAGNER
Wagner Group mercenaries contracted to fight Russia's proxy wars have never been prosecuted for suspected human rights violations—until now. In this chilling expose, journalists crack open secret killings and Kremlin collusion that have kept the business of dirty wars above the law.
SATAN WANTS YOU
A young woman and her Catholic psychiatrist ignited the global Satanic Panic of the 1980s with their bestselling memoir Michelle Remembers. Now, the behind-the-scenes ethical mess of fame, religious fervour and unchecked power can be exposed.
TIME BOMB Y2K
As the year 2000 approaches, the tech industry discovers a computer flaw that could ignite the largest technological disaster in human history. Crafted entirely through archival footage, the film examines the rising hysteria and concerning fragility of the technological world we have created.
WITNESS
After Waseem Khan films a man forced to the ground and tased by Toronto Police Services, the cellphone footage goes viral. Acknowledging that he was exposed to a different reality growing up than his kids, Khan prepares for the inevitable yet daunting task of showing the video to his sons and talking through the unspeakably harsh realities of police violence.
This post would be remise without recognizing all the Black directors featured at the festival this year. Take a look at the list of filmmakers and their respective films and see what peaks your interest at Hot Docs 2023.
Eddie Hutton Mills (KANAVAL)
Marquise Stillwell Opendox (THIS WORLD IS NOT MY OWN)
Chloé Aïcha Boro (AL DJANAT)
Lagueria Davis (BLACK BARBIE)
Iyabo Kwayana (BY WATER)
Pascale Appora-Gnekindy (EAT BITTER)
Samantha Knowles (HOW WE GET FREE)
Bethann Hardison (INVISIBLE BEAUTY)
Ufuoma Essi (IS MY LIVING IN VAIN)
Milisuthando Bongela (MILISUTHANDO)
Katy Lena (MONEY, FREEDOM...)
Netsanet Tjirongo (SAVI THE CAT)
Thierno Souleymane Diallo (CEMETERY OF CINEMA)
Roger Ross Williams (LOVE TO LOVE YOU)
Ian Keteku (MIND CHECK 1-2, 1-2)
Ose Oyamendan (WASTE TO LIFE)
Kristen Lovell (THE STROLL)
Josiane Blanc (LOUD & HERE)
Brooklyn Sudano (LOVE TO LOVE YOU)
Farhiya Ahmed (SISTERHOOD SOFTBALL)
Brenda Akele Jorde (THE HOMES WE CARRY)
Akley Olton (MADULU, THE SEAMAN)
Yasmine Mathurin (WITNESS)
Peter Nicks (UNDERRATED)
Aurora Brachman (STILL WATERS)