HOT DOCS CANADIAN INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL at various venues, April 28 to May 8. $17, special events $22, packages and passes available. 416-637-5150, hotdocs.ca.
Aim For The Roses
Canadian stunt driver Ken Carter’s 1976 announcement that he was going to jump the St. Lawrence River in a rocket-powered Lincoln – and the years it took him to craft the stunt, which didn’t go quite as expected – inspired Vancouver musician Mark Haney to compose and produce a strangely soothing concept album, Aim For The Roses, three decades later. John Bolton finds the common ground between the very different dream projects. May 1, 2 and 6.
NORMAN WILNER
Audrie and Daisy
After scores of reports of online bullying and its effects – including the suicides of its victims – this account of two teenage girls who brought their stories into the public eye shows how sharing the details of a trauma can spark essential social change. May 3, 4 and 8.
SUSAN G. COLE
De Palma
Consider this a film nerd’s dream come true. Co-director Noah Baumbach (The Squid And The Whale, Frances Ha, While We’re Young) talks to Brian De Palma about the latter’s legendary career, which has included such films as Carrie, Scarface, The Untouchables and the first Mission: Impossible. Both directors are super-articulate about their own and others’ work. This can’t miss. May 2, 3 and 6.
GLENN SUMI
Do Not Resist
If the last couple of years have taught us anything, it’s that America’s police departments are increasingly militarized and prone to using excessive, lethal force against black people. Craig Atkinson shows how this became standard operating procedure and what that means for our civil liberties in general. Incidentally, it screens with Frame 394, a short doc about Toronto cinematographer Daniel Voshart’s examination of the police shooting of South Carolina resident Walter Scott. May 3, 5 and 7.
NW
Kettle
Hot Docs’ Command + Control program of shorts -focuses on the ways personal issues become very political – and vice versa. The most overtly political entry, Kettle, documents the appalling police tactics during the G20 summit six years ago. Using crowd-sourced footage, police radio and bodycam recordings, it tracks one of the most disgraceful examples of police excess in Canadian history. April 29, May 1 and 7 as part of the Command + Control Shorts Program.
SGC
KONELĪNE: Our Land Beautiful
Nettie Wild’s stunning feature about the BC Tahltan tribe’s dilemma over how to deal with mining interests taking over their gorgeous land may sound like a story you’ve heard before. But you’ve never seen it told with such spectacular imagery, subtle nuance and compelling characters. Make sure to see it at the TIFF Lightbox – this pic merits the best screening conditions. April 29, May 1 and 7.
SGC
Operation Avalanche
Toronto filmmaker Matt Johnson (The Dirties) doesn’t do anything the easy way, so of course he’d come to Hot Docs with a work of total fiction. Operation Avalanche is a period conspiracy thriller about junior CIA agents whose attempts to out a Russian mole in the space program lead to a mission to fake the Apollo 11 moon landing. It’s not a documentary, but Johnson’s method of shooting clandestinely at real locations – including NASA’s Texas complex and Mission Control itself – qualifies it for the wilder, woollier DocX series. April 29.
NW
Strike A Pose
The legendary music video for Madonna’s song Vogue (directed by a then unknown David Fincher) and the subsequent kiss-and-tell doc Truth Or Dare were pop culture milestones. Now, a quarter of a century later, Madonna’s glamorous backup dancers – most of them young, queer, non-white and impressionable – reveal how being a bit closer than 20 feet from stardom affected their lives. Not all of them survived, and many have lived with secrets, until now. Let the healing – and the posing – begin. April 29, 30 and May 7.
GS
Thank You, Del: The Story Of The Del Close Marathon
Del Close, the guru of Chicago’s Second City, died in 1999 but remains a legend among improv performers, who celebrate him annually with a weekend of performances that attract people like Upright Citizens Brigade founders Amy Poehler, Matt Besser, Matt Walsh and Ian Roberts, Broad City’s Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, Nick Kroll and writers for everything from The Daily Show to Key & Peele. This doc, directed by UCB veteran Todd Bieber, looks back at the man as well as the marathon. April 29, 30, May 8.
NW
Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru
It costs $5,000 to attend motivational speaker Tony Robbins’s infamous one-week-a-year Date With Destiny seminars. Director Joe Berlinger (Paradise Lost, Some Kind Of Monster) and his crew were the first to be allowed to document it, and what they capture defies description, revealing how the charismatic, empathetic Robbins has helped everyone from Bill Clinton and Mikhail Gorbachev to Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela. Robbins and Berlinger will appear at the premiere screening of what could be a life-changing experience for you. Seriously. May 8.
GS
Check back at nowtoronto.com/hotdocs for more reviews and features about the fest.
