Hot Docs

  • Review: Hot Docs’ ‘PACmen’ expands on craziness of the 2016 US election (Includes first-hand account)

    The American electoral system is a strange beast with many influencing heads. The system itself is questionably multi-tiered, while it seems an unknown number of external groups can also attempt to sway the vote in their desired direction. In 2010, two Supreme Court decisions led to the creation of the political action committee (PAC), which made it legal for these entities to engage in unlimited political spending as long they did not make contributions to candidate campaigns or parties. Unlike traditional PACs, a super PAC can raise funds from individuals, corporations, unions, and other groups without any legal limit on donation size. In 2015, PACmen became the first film to go behind the curtain of one of these groups.

  • Review: ‘A Better Man’ is one of Hot Docs’ most stirring films (Includes first-hand account)

    At any given moment, approximately one-third of the women in a room will have experienced some form of abuse or trauma. This is a societal issue that does not appear to be going away and and in a culture that still asks what she did to cause it, self-blame and shame come part and parcel with the physical and/or emotional scars. But there are multiple avenues of support now and many opportunities to heal, though one never really forgets. In A Better Man, more than 20 years after ending their abusive relationship, a couple is reunited to process all that occurred between them.

  • Review: ‘Recruiting for Jihad’ is an eye-opening Hot Docs selection (Includes first-hand account)

    Globalization has led to unprecedented interest in world affairs. Not only do foreign events influence local politics, but people’s basic interest in what’s happening “over there” has grown exponentially. Add to this the immediacy of news and the internet, the great wide world is smaller than ever. A consequence of this connectivity is (often superficial) knowledge of international tragedies or crimes. One of the activities to come to light is the recruitment of Western Muslims for ISIS. Recruiting for Jihad documents the life of a well-known, Norwegian Islamist missionary.

  • Review: ‘Playing God’ is a tough job at Hot Docs (Includes first-hand account)

    Most people know, understand and have maybe even experienced the direct consequences of tragedy, particularly death. However, when it’s linked to a larger event such as an attack or accident, the complexity of the aftermath increases. One’s personal journey becomes a public event with strangers inquiring about the intimate details of your lives to satisfy their curiosity… or to assess the measurable damages caused by the incident. But how does one decide the worth of a human life? And who has the daunting task of making that decision? In the documentary Playing God, audiences meet a man whose occupation is simultaneously revered and hated.

  • Review: ‘Shingal, Where Are You?’ brings faces of genocide to Hot Docs (Includes first-hand account)

    “Genocide” is almost a dirty word that no one wants to utter — not because it’s not occurring in multiple countries around the world, but because of the obligation its acknowledgment places on foreign powers. With the promise after WWII that it would never be permitted to happen again, labelling any massacre as such requires a response. In 2014 Daesh (ISIS) began a brutal campaign against the Yazidis in Iraq, killing thousands of men, imposing forced religious conversion, and kidnapping thousands of women and girls for sexual slavery. They were eventually deemed to be acts of genocide by the United Nations and United States. The documentary, Shingal, Where Are You?, follows a family displaced by the conflict.

  • Review: Nothing is too taboo in Hot Docs’ ‘Ask the Sexpert’ (Includes first-hand account)

    In spite of the many strides made in the area of human sexuality, contraception and reproductive rights, there are still those who believe sex is too taboo to discuss under any circumstances. The ultimate fallacy of this belief is that if you don’t talk about certain acts, people — particularly young people — won’t participate in them. However, statistics around abstinence-only education has shown adolescents don’t have less sex than their informed counterparts; but they do experience more negative consequences. Ask the Sexpert chronicles the efforts of a small group striving to have candid conversations about sex and remove the stigma surrounding it in India.

  • Review: ‘Ramen Heads’ takes soup to a new level at Hot Docs (Includes first-hand account)

    While eating is an unavoidable necessity of sustained life, it has evolved into much more. In the West, where opulence abounds, food is often treated as something to be experienced by all the senses rather than just the means to satisfying a basic need. Competitions and ratings are used to determine local, national and world’s best, and long waits to taste these culinary masterpieces are expected rather than reviled. Consequently the food documentary has gained momentum in recent years, taking audiences into the kitchens of the world’s elite or behind the scenes of the most renowned contests. This year the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival presents a film called Ramen Heads, which refers to a specific type of food fandom.

  • Review: Hot Docs finds happiness in less than 60 minutes (Includes first-hand account)

    Happiness comes in many shapes and sizes, as do documentaries. Although the average movie is between 90 and 120 minutes long, a film is considered feature-length at more than 40 minutes. While there aren’t many fictional narratives that hover around this runtime, documentary filmmakers are seemingly more comfortable not padding a picture to reach an unnecessary but more widely accepted duration. The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival‘s “The Pursuit of Happiness” programme includes two of these shorter format movies: Dugma: The Button and Up or Out.

  • Review: Hot Docs makes ‘em laugh (Includes first-hand account)

    Documentary is typically considered a relatively serious genre of film, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for laughter. In the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival‘s “Special Presentations” programme, there are two films dedicated to men who brought humour to generations of performers and audiences. These films are: Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You and Thank You Del: The Story of the Del Close Marathon.

  • Review: There’s no two films alike in Hot Docs’ World Showcase (Includes first-hand account)

    The Earth is a big place, filled with endless stories waiting to be told and countless more that will never be revealed. The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival‘s “World Showcase” features just a small selection of these tales. There’s no common underlying themes or tone; just a desire to share these narratives with an audience. We look at three films in this category: Diving into the Unknown, The Father, the Son and the Holy Jihad, and Future Baby.

  • Review: Canada brings a woman’s perspective to Hot Docs (Includes first-hand account)

    Even though it boasts an array of globally representative selections, the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival also maintains a programme dedicated to local documentaries. However the subjects of films in the “Canadian Spectrum” are not limited by the country’s borders, often following filmmakers as they tell stories from around the world. We look at two documentaries in this category: The Apology and Gulîstan, Land of Roses.