Today, I did a volunteer shift again at HotDocs.  I was the 'usher' for latecomers so I got to watch both movies.  Plus I had bought tickets for an evening show.

During my shift I saw ...
How Many Roads & Glenn Gould Hereafter.
How Many Roads is about Bob Dylan and Glenn Gould Hereafter is about, you guessed it, Glenn Gould.  How Many Roads looks at the importance of the music of Bob Dylan to a variety of people from a hip hop spoken word artist to a teacher in her 50's who drives to every Dylan concerts she can make.  Dylan himself never appears in the film and it is not biographical.  It really looks at Dylan, the icon, and how his music and writing affected such a wide range of people.  Beautifully shot and edited.  Look for this on PBS, I'm sure it will get picked up by them.

Glenn Gould Hereafter
Glenn Gould is probably the most mythical and mystic Canadian musician.  The film maker uses old footage of Gould (and was he filmed alot!) combined with interviews with people who were moved by Gould's music.  Similar to How Many Roads, the film maker chose to interview people who were not 'experts' on the music but rather were emotionally close to it.  I didn't think I would watch this entire film but I found it quite interesting.  It had some beautiful shots but the editing could have been a bit tighter.  The film maker was from France but went to lengths to give Goulds lifelong home, Toronto, a role in the film.

During my shift, I also met Harvey, who volunteers at every single Toronto film festival including HotDocs.  Soon there is going to be a documentary made about Harvey (really, they start shooting next month).

Our Own Private Bin Laden and Ghosts of Mardin
The Ghosts of Mardin was a short piece about the film makers' family who fled their Armenian village in Turkey to Eygpt then left Eygpt for Montreal.  Using music and pictures we travelled back in time to show a common story amongst Canadians, how people have to leave their homes due to war and conflict.  It was a beautiful tribute to his family.

Our Own Private Bin Laden was an investigative doc that centred not on who is Bin Laden but on what many Americans asked after 9/11 'why does he hate us?'.  The film traces back the history of conflict in Afghanistan to the Soviet invasion and the eventual rise of Muslim fundamentalism.  The film makers' main goal was to show how after 9/11 Bin Laden became almost a mirror for all of the deepest fears in America and she wanted to understand the history with the hope of overcoming the fear. 

This was an interesting doc, challenging to follow at times but the film maker did a good job of handling the confusion by using narration to admit that the more she learned, the more confused she became.  By the end of the doc, it is clear that Bin Laden and 9/11 are really a product of a intricate web of geo-political events that occurred over the last 30 years.  It is a far more complex story than we see in most media outlets. 

There was a very interesting Q&A after in which the film maker said that no American festival, even ones that asked her to submit her piece, were after viewing it, willing to screen this documentary.  This should be screened on PBS but may be too controversial for that network.  Perhaps it will get aired on The View From Here?

Today, I proudly donned by Hotdocs volunteer shirt and did  a volunteer shift.  In volunteer training, we were warned that you can't assume you will get to see the doc screening so I didn't expect it.  But I did get to watch two films!  Volunteering was really fun.

My Grandmother's House
I didn't see this full doc.  As I missed the beginning and left before the end.  It is about a grandmother who is taking care of her young granddaughter.  Meanwhile she is being evicted from her house as new apartments are being built in her block.  I loved the film makers' shooting style and the colours she used.  I found the doc didn't do enough to connect me to her her subject but maybe it was because I missed the beginning?

Arctic Son
Highly recommended.  Beautifully shot documentary of a son who returns from city living to the traditional lifestyle of his father in the Arctic.  The doc shows the father teaching the son the techniques of living off the land.  The son gradually finds himself through this and moves away from his destructive habits (drinking, drugs etc.).  This film really portrays the stark differences between the lifestyle of the Inuit with the southern Whites while leaving you with hope for the future.

Country
Country was made by a Quebec film maker about the phenomena of country festivals in Quebec during the summer.  People who enjoy country music and the country culture (rodeos, shirts with tassles) drive around to each festival all through the summer.  It is a warm environment and the people who participate in the country fair find it lifts their spirits.  This was a beautifully shot documentary that illustrates that even in our mass communication people still are drawn to very personal cultural experiences.

Badal & Inshallah
Inshallah is a Danish doc about a Dane who is Muslim, choses to wear a headscarf and so can't get a job.  It was extremely well done.  I hope it is widely shown in Denmark.  The doc really illustrates how the 'foreigners' in Denmark really live like Danes - they speak Danish in the privacy of their own home, they eat Danish style meals, they use candles to create hygge.  But they chose to practice their faith in secular Denmark.  It was an excellent examination of a challenge in Danish society to truly include immigrants into the country without requiring assimilation.


Badal was about a marriage tradition in Palestine of marrying sisters and brothers in one family to those in another family.  As the doc develops, its clear that badal is used to marry off girls by leveraging the inherent value of the 'boy' child.  It also showed the contradictions of a country like Palestine where those with progressive and traditional beliefs live side by side.

Heavy Metal Jr & Beyond Beats: A HipHop Head Weighs In On Manhood in the HipHop Culture
Highly recommended. Both docs are good.  Heavy Metal Jr. follows a young heavy metal band trying to make it in Scotland.  Losing a bass player is tough but the band pulls together for their big act. 

Beyond Beats was a great examination of hip hop culture.  I am tired of having conversations with people who say they don't like hip hop or rap except they listen to music that uses elements from both.  Beyond Beats looks at hip hop from the perspective of someone who identifies it as their own music but is tired of the gangsta image.  The doc becomes really interesting when it starts to look at how much hip hop is consumed by White audiences and how it became more and more gangsta when the small labels (ie. Def Jam Records) got bought by the big labels (CBS Records).  After watching Rize and now this doc, I am more convinced than ever that we are in a peak of hip hop and something new is about to emerge.


The Duckling
I was unsure of this doc but I wanted to see at least one from Japan, one of this year's featured countries.  At times The Duckling seemed like the video diary of a typical 20 year old, slightly lost and largely self absorbed.  However, at other times it was a brilliant investigation into self-discovery.  It is sometimes brave as well as the film maker decides to confront each of her family members with their emotional affect on her as she grew up.  Her parents for example sent her at 5 years old to a kindergarten for one year where she had to live away from home in a rural and natural environment.  It came out during the Q&A that this was a trend in Japanese society when it went through its rapid economic growth in the '80's. 

HotDocs has posted the 2006 Programming Schedule here.

It will also be in this weeks Now and Eye which come out on Thursdays.  I plan to pick up tickets as soon as I have a copy of the schedule that I can read through.  Tickets for the good ones go fast!

HotDocs has organized their general volunteer orientation.  I got an email about it today.  If you would like to volunteer for HotDocs then sign up at their site.

Or you can just sign up to be notified when the festival schedule goes live!

I created a Hot Docs category.

Hot Docs is coming and this year I fully intend to blog it!  In the spirit of retro-active blogging, I have posted on the best docs I saw at 2005.  I am pretty much relying on memory so these are the films that really stood out for me.

If you know me, you've heard me talk about volunteering with HotDocs.  I truly recommend it.  It was an excellent experience for me.  Arts events like Hot Docs cannot happen without the volunteers.  And the Hot Docs staff is incredibly pleasant, approachable and appreciative of volunteer efforts.

HotDocs is important to me because the documentaries shown at HotDocs tell stories that traditional Hollywood film makers would not tell.  It is important to get these stories out, it makes a difference, it educates and it entertains.

Want to volunteer, go here.