Documentary Field Notes and Flashpoints: category

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 [...]

Colourized archive footage of Hitler from Apocalypse, Hitler series © CC&C / Nara     Colourized archival footage of Hitler from Apocalypse, Hitler series © CC&C / DR   Over the last few weeks, I have been watching the terrific French mini-series Apocalypse, Hitler on Télé-Québec. It chronicles the rise of Adolf Hitler until the outbreak of World [...]

I’m an outdoors person, and the only thing that reconciles me to a gym is… podcasts! This time of the year, while waiting for more snow, I listen a lot to radio programs, from Radio-Canada, the BBC and Democracy Now in particular. Over the last few weeks, I noted a few very interesting comments about [...]

L’arroseur arrosé was the title of the 1895 Louis Lumière film which qualifies as the first-ever comedy and first-ever fiction film. The idea of the ‘Sprinkler Sprinkled’ has wide currency in French, but much less so in English. Nonetheless it applies this week on this blog to Marc Glassman, editor of POV Magazine, the excellent [...]

A few weeks ago I participated in the selection committee for the Alter-Cine Foundation which lends modest but sometimes crucial support to filmmakers in Southern countries. The foundations criteria specify that it favours projects which support human rights and give a voice to people who are powerless or victimized. And of course projects which have [...]

A few days ago I went to a terrific benefit concert for Wapikoni mobile at Club Soda in downtown Montreal. Some great artists, including Anishnabe rapper Samian, Inuit singer-songwriter Elisapie Isaac, singer-songwriter Richard Séguin and the immensely popular group Loco Locass put on a great show. (Photo by Guy Labissionnaire.) I find Samian’s lyrics and [...]

I’ve always been fascinated by paintings and music from Germany’s inter-war Weimar period. My friend Jennifer Alleyn has created a film on one of the most representative artists of that period, Otto Dix. (View the trailer here.) The film came out earlier this month in Montreal and Quebec City (see original post – in French [...]

The Rencontres Internationales du documentaire de Montréal just ended. It was an opportunity to see many truly excellent films. Sad to think that most of them will not be available to audiences here now that the festival is over. Judging from what I heard from friends and colleagues, I missed many of the best ones. [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]