Documentary Field Notes and Flashpoints: category

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 [...]

I wasn’t at the Hot Docs festival in Toronto this year, because I’m in production. But my colleague Tobi Elliott, the writer and filmmaker who helps me with this blog was there, and picked this film to write about. Over to Tobi: You won’t find a stronger documentary that so beautifully brings out Indonesia’s churning [...]

Montreal’s International Festival of Films on Art has a huge following. Most screening are full, great to see. The festival mostly programs films for the subject matter as opposed to the filmic qualities, but every year there are some really excellent films. Of the films I saw this year I liked The Owl in Daylight [...]

I have said this before: I often find myself writing about Quebec matters in English, because I feel like telling non-francophones about what goes on here. Traditionally, St. Lawrence Boulevard – a few blocks from my house – has been thought of as the dividing line between English and French Montreal, with the francophones living [...]

Depuis deux ans je regarde avec intérêt ce qui se fait en documentaire pour le web. Il y a parfois des choses intéressantes, mais on est aussi souvent déçu. Beaucoup de projets sont un peu didactiques et manquent d’émotion. Les gros projets sont souvent de qualité très inégale. Mais un de mes anciens stagiaires, Alexandre [...]

Si vous lisez mon bloque régulièrement, vous avez probablement remarqué que je ne critique que très rarement le travail d’autres documentaristes. Mais j’ai été invité récemment à participer à une discussion à l’émission Premières Vues, diffusé sur Canal Vox, la télévision communautaire de Vidéotron/Québecor. Après avoir parlé de ma propre démarche, j’ai discuté du film [...]

It is a year since the devastating earthquake in Haiti, and just about every generalist television network has been broadcasting special programming. I found most of it to be competently done and well-meaning, but extremely predictable and pretty superficial. This is the curse of television. Just wait till the 10th anniversary of September 11th later [...]

Last week, at the Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal, I had a chance to see the latest film by one of the world’s best documentarians, Kim Longinotto. In Pink Saris, she tells the story of the ‘Pink Gang’ of women in Uttar Pradesh, one of India’s poorest states. Led by a tough lady named [...]

It’s film festival season in Montreal, and I have seen quite a few films. I am often struck by how much it takes to make a really excellent doc. A good subject or a worthy cause are only the most basic starting points. A good story is one step better, but far from a guarantee [...]

“You don’t like the Truth – Four Days inside Guantanamo” The film is about the shocking case of the young Omar Khadr, the 24-year old accused of terrorism and killing an American soldier, who has been imprisoned for seven years, most of that time in Guantanamo. I will not summarize the case and describe this moving and incisive film in any detail, because I would not do as good a job as Cinema Politica’s Ezra Winton – read his article on the Art Threat blog.

Suffice it to say that the film is a deconstruction and analysis of the surveillance camera video of the seven-hour, truly revolting –Orwellian more than Kafkaesque– interrogation of Khadr by representatives of CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.