Exclusive
Trending
It’s almost time for me to bid adieu to Hot Docs 2019 (cue: sad trombone). I have one more day of filmgoing before I need to pack it in and start packing for my annual post-festival vacation, during which I try to recover from 10 days of wall-to-wall documentaries...
Okay, it might be time to discuss the new “live open-captioning” policy at screenings this year. In theory, it’s fantastic – a way to make the intros and post-film Q&A sessions at Hot Docs even more accessible to audiences. But so far, more often than not, the captioners are...
We’ve hit the halfway mark of the fest and, perhaps owing to me getting older or just being pooped as a result of high-tailing it from screening to screening, I’m REALLY tired! And I’ve noticed the energy level of my fellow filmgoers also starting to wane a bit. The...
When you attend Hot Docs year after year, you start to discover filmmakers whose work you seek out at subsequent festivals. Back in 2013, I saw – and loved – Jason DaSilva’s When I Walk, which was a deeply personal examination of his multiple-sclerosis diagnosis and its debilitating effects,...
I continue to be dismayed by the number of festgoers who still, despite all the pre-film requests, feel compelled to repeatedly check their email, text, surf the internet or just otherwise be discourteous, distracting dimwits during screenings. Yesterday, every single one of my films featured someone sitting within a...
Could it be that years of pleading that the balcony in Lightbox 1 be open by default during festival screenings has finally paid off? Because yesterday (and, apparently, on other days as well, based on some comments I’d heard from others) it was open from the get-go for my...
Let me begin today by saying I thought I’d seen it all in terms of rude behavior by film-fest audience members over the years: texting or making/taking calls during screenings, cutting in line, sitting down in aisles. But yesterday took the cake when, during Mr. Toilet: The World’s #2...
Ahhhhhhh, it always feels SO good to step back into the world of Hot Docs after a year apart. Perhaps owing to the fact that it was only the first full day of moviegoing, everyone I encountered – from fellow film fans to volunteers and staff – was in...
Some of these films were very good, one was kind of stinky, and the others fall somewhere in between. Here are the last five of the reviews for the 2019 films I saw before the fest got underway. I’m primed and ready to start hitting screenings at the festival...
Though I wasn’t able to catch as many pre-festival screenings as I would have liked (::: shakes fist at day job :::), I did manage to get to a few, and this year’s crop included a number of standouts. Here are eight worth adding to your to-see list! Advocate...
When you attend Hot Docs, you inevitably see a slew of films that change you in some way: they introduce you to people and places you might not otherwise have known, they make you laugh or cry or question… or they motivate you to take action of some kind....
As the kids say: YASSSSSSSSSSSSS. It’s Hot Docs time again and we CAN. NOT. WAIT! Running from April 25th through May 5th, the 26th edition of the kick-ass documentary film festival will unspool some 234 films from 56 countries – and 54% of the directors at this year’s fest...
