Documentary Field Notes and Flashpoints: category

Film students sometimes ask theoretical questions which, while not uninteresting, are not particularly important to a practitioner. But Tom Eden from the documentary program in Rivière du Loup asked me this: is it a good idea to direct and to do camera and sound at the same time? This is a big question, and I [...]

The normal progression for a budding filmmaker has generally been from student films and shorty shorts towards longer shorts, and then medium-length films and finally feature length ones. Working on the short films, he or she would learn the ropes, learn how to use equipment and tell a story. Later on, with more resources, would [...]

French would be the logical language for this post, but I’d like to share this content with people outside Quebec. This past week was Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette week. This extremely talented, 31-year-old Montreal director launched a novel, held a vernissage for a photo exhibition, and signed a terrific documentary broadcast on Radio-Canada Sunday night at 10.30. [...]

Géthro Auguste directs the children. (Photo: Jocelyne Clarke) Over the last few months, Martin Duckworth and I have been shooting the rehearsals and recording sessions for a song for the orphans in Haiti, much more numerous since the January earthquake. The recording of the song is an initiative by Géthro Auguste, the head of a [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Orphélins à Port-au-Prince. Photo: Marcello Casal Jr/ABr Selon l’UNICEF, le tremblement de terre en Haiti a crée la situation la plus désastreuse pour les enfants de toute l’histoire de l’humanité. Il y a des dizaines de milliers d’orphélins parmi les centaines de milliers de personnes blessées et sans-abri. Ayant une fille d’Haiti, ayant déjà visité [...]

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 [...]

Simon Bujold, Jeannine Gagné, MI, Annie Roy et Pierre Allard. Photo: Ariane Jacob Dans le cadre des Rencontres Internationales du documentaire de Montréal, nous avons lancé L’art en action, notre film sur les deux artistes Annie Roy et Pierre Allard qui forment l’ATSA, L’action terroriste socialement acceptable. Les 300 personnes environ présentes dans la salle [...]