If it feels like there are more one-off screenings happening around town, well, that’s because there are. This week, for example, finds the latest Cinema Politica and MDFF screenings competing for your attention with the monthly Doc Soup premiere. Strap in, I’ll try to get through them all.
Tonight (Tuesday November 3) at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema, Cinema Politica kicks off its 2015 screening series with On The Side Of The Road, a documentary about the collective amnesia in Israel – both institutionally and among its individual citizens – about the events that led to the birth of the Jewish state.
Director Lia Tarachansky has an interesting perspective on the material, having grown up on a settlement in the West Bank before moving to Canada with her family in 2000. Returning to the territory to investigate the historical question, she’s created a thoughtful (if quietly angry) film that pushes people to face some very uncomfortable questions about history and culpability.
It’s definitely worth a look, and Tarachansky’s post-screening Q&A should be very lively. The show starts at 6 pm full details are here.
Tomorrow (Wednesday November 4), things get a little experimental with the latest in MDFF’s screening series at Camera. Kazik Radwanski and Dan Montgomery have curated a double-bill of two avant-garde features, Gina Telaroli’s Here’s To The Future! – which deconstructs a scene from Michael Curtiz’s 1932 drama The Cabin In The Cotton by having an assortment of people perform it over and over again – and Kurt Walker’s Hit 2 Pass, which starts out being about some guys and a car and turns into an examination of the human need to construct narratives in the face of an indifferent universe. (At least, that’s what I think it’s about.)
The two films complement each other in really odd ways, so if anything in the previous paragraph intrigues you, you should definitely take a look. The show starts at 7 pm, and the full details are here.
Over at the Bloor, Doc Soup’s selection for this month is Nelson George’s A Ballerina’s Tale, which tracks the path of American Ballet Theater dancer Misty Copeland through a potentially career-ending injury and her slow recovery – while also examining her career in the larger context of African-American dancers through the decades. George approaches his subject with a great deal of respect, which sometimes makes the film seem a little remote – but the more we learn about what Copeland’s gone through to get to where she is, the more respect we have for her ourselves.
Doc Soup is screening A Ballerina’s Tale at 6:30 pm and 9:15 pm on Wednesday evening and again at 6:45 pm on Thursday (November 5), each with an introduction and Q&A from director George, producer Leslie Norville and dancer Deirdre Kelly, who appears in the film. Tickets are still available for Wednesday’s 9:15 pm show, but the other two have gone rush.
normw@nowtoronto.com | @normwilner
