Hot Docs Wrap-Up: Favorites and Oscar Prediction

Amir here, to wrap up my coverage of the Hot Docs international documentary film festival. The festival is regarded as TIFF’s younger, less glitzy sister here in Toronto but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an abundance of great films on display.  The real difference is in the pleasure of discovery, since most of the titles come to Hot Docs with very little advance buzz. Coincidentally, though, my favorite film happened to be one of the most anticipated. I still have a couple interviews and screeners but with the festival now over and about 35 films under my belt, it’s as good a time as any to wrap things up. 

Favorites
The audience prize winner was Muscle Shoals, a documentary about the titular town in Alabama that became the spiritual and creative inspiration for many influential musicians of the 20th century. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the film. It’s quite entertaining but it owes its prize more to the magical music of the artists it features than the film that encases them.

my favorites and the Oscar hopefuls after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Hot Docs: LGBT Films

Amir here, reporting from the Hot Docs documentary festival in Toronto. There are a few films at the festival this year that deal with LGBT issues. Paolo has already reviewed one of them – though I’m using the term “issue” very loosely with regards to that one - but on a more serious note, here are three more documentaries about the gay community.

First up is Valentine Road, which explores the story of a 15 year old student, named Larry King, in Oxnard, California who was fatally shot by a classmate, Brandon McInerney, during school hours for confessing his love for him in front of a group of friends. Larry, a biracial boy who had always shown female tendencies, had begun to dress in girls’ clothing and put on heels and make-up to school. On the face of it, the crime is one born of hatred, homophobia and racism, but director Marta Cunningham isn’t satisfied with such reductive explanations. Her film is a wild ride that smacks the audience right out of their conclusions every time one is apparently reached, digging layer after layer of evidence to uncover the complexity of the case.

Valentine Road spends its entire running time exploring the grey areas of human psyche. It’s a gut-wrenching film that patiently and intelligently unravels the background to the dark events of that fateful February 2008 day [more...]

Click to read more ...