BRICK BY BRICK: THE STORY OF THE EVERGREEN BRICK WORKS (Catherine Annau, Canada). 47 minutes. Saturday (October 15), 4:15 pm, ROM.
PLANET IN FOCUS: INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL FILM & VIDEO FESTIVAL through Sunday (October 16) at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, ROM and Miles Nadal JCC. $5-$12, closing gala $22, passes available. 416-599-TIFF. planetinfocus.org. See Indie & Rep Film Rating: NN
Director Annau (Just Watch Me: Trudeau And The 70’s Generation) tackles the complexities of Geoff Cape’s elaborate project to transform the industrial ruin of the Toronto Brick Works into a viable public space – and tries to do it in a TV-friendly 47 minutes.
The result is more of a gloss on the process than a proper documentary, with each step in the reclamation and redevelopment of the space compressed into a news bite to fit comfortably between commercial breaks. (The doc aired recently on OMNI.) The creation of the Don Valley Evergreen Brick Works is an amazing story, but we only get glimpses of it here.
