Documentary Field Notes and Flashpoints: category

Monica and David I was at Hot Docs in Toronto, now one of the world’s leading documentary festivals, all of last week. I wasn’t able to see some of the films I really wanted to see because of meetings. But here are a few screening notes. The most surprising film I saw was Feathered Cocaine, [...]

Louise-Édith Hébert et Marguerite Bilodeau.  Photo Marie-Pierre Savard. Au cours des dernières semaines, nous avons lancé mon film Les Super-mémés, sur le mouvement des Raging Grannies et des Mémés déchaînées. C’est un film produit par Isabelle Couture et Ian Boyd aux films de l’Isle, avec une license cruciale de Canal Vie, et distribué par Vidéo-Femmes. [...]

Louise-Édith Hébert and Marguerite Bilodeau, photo Marie-Pierre Savard Over the past two weeks, we launched my French-language film on the Raging Grannies and Mémés Déchaînées, Les super-mémés. It premiered on the 20th of March as closing film for the Human rights film festival in Montreal, at the Park Cinema, and we had another launch screening [...]

Guinea pig detectives cover page. Illustration by Pierre Durand. Together with my friend and colleague Patricia Bergeron I spent last week in intensive consultations about cross-platform documentaries – meaning documentaries which aren’t just a film or a TV program but also play themselves out on the web, including in the social networks. ( Cross-platform or [...]

Béthièle when she was five. A documentary filmmaker in Canada today might be forgiven for being discouraged. The combined impact of the crisis of television, the more general economic crisis, and the Conservative government’s policies are having a devastating impact on our traditional sources of funding. There is definitely a ‘paradigm shift’ underway. New models [...]

Mon film ‘Enfants de Choeur‘ sur la chorale des sans-abris de Montréal, terminé il y a dix ans, sera projeté à la Cinémathéque québecoise à Montréal ce samedi le 19 Décembre. Et ce sera une projection-événement puisque la nouvelle incarnation du groupe, la Chorale sous les étoiles – autrefois Chorele de l’Acceuil Bonneau – sera [...]

This is about a film which was nominated in three categories at the recent Rencontres internatinales du documentaire de Montreal, and which I saw at Cinema Parallèle the other day. Very much à propos, as the Copenhagen climate change conference enters the real negotiating stage. The film, H2Oil by Shannon Walsh (Loaded Pictures), is about [...]

Aux Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal j’ai vu un film formidable, intitulé Les Damnés de la mer – qui a reçu le prix du meilleur film dans la section Écosociété. C’est aussi un film qui a eu un impact dans la réalité qu’il décrit. Le réalisateur Jawad Rhalib filme avec aplomb la surexploitation des [...]

During the Rencontres Internationales du documentaire de Montréal which just ended, I saw a number of really excellent documentaries. Over the next few weeks I’ll tell you about a couple of them, not just because of their qualities as films but because they are making a difference, having a real impact. To start with, here [...]

Kent Nagano directs throatsingers Taqralik Partridge and Evie Mark (credit: Robert Fréchette) The other day at Cinéma Parallèle I saw a really excellent new documentary on the Montreal Symphonic Orchestra‘s visit to three Inuit communities in Nunavik. Tusarnituuq! Nagano in the Land of the Inuit was directed by Félix Lajeunesse and produced by Katarina Soukoup. [...]