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Real Estate Development Gone Wild

20 Jun

Invasion Construction

Montreal documentary filmmaker Martin Frigon recently released a film called La Grande Invasion (The Great Invasion, produced by Productions Multi-Monde) on a subject which is very close to my heart: the impact of out-of-control real estate development on local communities.My father who was an artist and art school director in Sweden spent a good part [...]

Kazimi on 3D and Documentaries

15 May

Ali Kazimi

  Last fall I posted part one of an interview with my friend Ali Kazimi on 3D and its potential for documentary. Here is part 2. Ali is an award-winning filmmaker and most recently author of Undesirables: White Canada and the Komagata Maru – An Illustrated History (www.undesirables.ca). He is an associate professor in the [...]

I LOVE DOCS : GETTING THE MESSAGE OUT

1 Feb

I Love Docs

Former judge Andrée Ruffo speaks out for docs. A recent Vancouver Sun article sums up the crisis of the long-form documentary in Canada. Cutbacks everywhere, shrinking budgets and most of all diminishing broadcast windows. Outside of the National Film Board and the arts councils, the whole Canadian funding system is based on acquiring a broadcast [...]

Controversy in Montreal after Wiseman’s ‘Crazy Horse’ opens RIDM

14 Nov

Crazy Horse - F. Wiseman Paris

The Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal opened last Wednesday night. This is an event which allows you to see great documentaries from around the world, films which you rarely see on TV. This year’s program is great. But the choice of opening film has created a huge controversy in the documentary community here. Veteran [...]

The Grannies and the Cuban Hat

4 Nov

Four Montreal Grannies

Documentary film funding is not what it used to be. With broadcast windows few and far between and cutbacks everywhere, we doc-makers are turning to other sources, using other methods. And one of the new ways is web-based participatory, or crowd funding. This week I am participating in the Cuban Hat on-line pitch in the [...]

Kazimi on 3D: part 1

11 Oct

Hazardous - production stills 4

Ali Kazimi is an award-winning filmmaker. Since 2008, he has been researching stereoscopic 3D digital cinema at York University, where he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Film. Q. Why is there this sudden groundswell of interest in 3D? The current stereoscopic 3D is propelled by the exponential rise in digital technology in [...]

Caravaggio, Kieslowski, Jarl: Inspiration

29 Aug

At a filmmaker lunch last year, my very creative friend Don McWilliams told this story. About fifteen years ago, the famous Polish filmmaker Kryzstof Kieslowsky gave a conference at Concordia University. After his presentation, a professor asked him what his greatest sources of cinematic inspiration had been. His answer: Molière and Dostoyevsky. The professor found [...]

Disgrace

23 May

With the news of the indictment of International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn on charges of sex crimes against a hotel maid in New York, you may wonder why a wealthy and powerful man practically considered to be a front-runner for president of a world power (France) would (if indeed guilty) do something so [...]

Disturbing realities: Annabel Soutar

21 Mar

Seeds - Alex propagating

I recently wrote about PorteParole theatre’s Montreal documentary theatre performance Sexy Béton (Sexy Concrete) created by artistic director Annabel Soutar. And I have seen other documentary plays she put on in the past – one of them was “Seeds,” about Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeizer’s fight against Monsanto and its genetically modified seeds. Just as interesting [...]

Talkies in Toronto

21 Feb

Talkies poster-3-1

A few weeks ago, I was invited to present a film at an event called Talkies in Toronto. It was one event in a series of screenings and discussions, organized by York University humanities professor Mark Cauchi and his co-conspirator filmmaker Azed Majeed. I thought about the choice of film for a while. In the [...]