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 [...]

I just saw the film The Informant! labeled a dark comedy, directed by Steven Soderbergh, starring Matt Damon, based on the 2000 non-fiction book by the same name by journalist Kurt Eichenwald. It tells the story of a bumbling whistleblower who takes on the management of the giant agribusiness corporation he works for, but who [...]

A couple of days ago, I had the opportunity to once again see Burma VJ, one of the most remarkable documentaries from last year. The film documents the use of small digital cameras by courageous Video Journalists – VJ’s – to reveal what goes on inside the Burmese dictatorship. With digital cameras and satellite uploads [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Maxime in Les Petits Géants.

Normally I would write this in French, but many francophones who read this blog will already know about this film, and it deserves to be widely distributed. So here goes…
Les Petits Géants ( The Small Giants) is a documentary about children from low-income neighborhoods who take on the challenge of [...]

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. [...]

Still from the film ‘Final Offer’ directed by Sturla Gunnarsson
I recently had the opportunity to co-direct a 25-minute video for the Canadian Auto Workers with my wife Jocelyne Clarke. This is one of the very few commissioned pieces I have worked on in my 30 years of doing audiovisual work, but the Auto Workers [...]

An image from Helene Klodawsky’s documentary ‘Malls R Us’
Last week I had a chance to see Malls R Us, an excellent new documentary by an excellent Montreal filmmaker, Helene Klodawsky. Helene has made some terrific films, my favourite being No More Tears Sister, a story from Sri Lanka which beautifully illustrates the notion that [...]

An image from Lech Kowalski’s ‘Hey! Is Dee Dee Home?’
Last week I saw the most creatively radical documentary I have ever seen, East of Paradise (2004) by Lech Kowalski. It breaks every convention of story development. The first half of the film is made up of an interview with Kowalski’s mother, about the horrors [...]