Gilbert (DIR. Neil Berkeley) I expected to laugh while watching Gilbert, but I certainly didn’t expect to be misty-eyed and charmed by foul-mouth comic Gilbert Gottfried. Just as Private Parts showed an identifiable side to shock jock Howard Stern, Neil Berkeley’s Gilbert shows Gottfried’s tenderness while staying true to the comedian’s relentlessly profane wheelhouse.
78/52 (DIR. Alexandre Philippe) It’s a testament to Alfred Hitchcock’s talent as a filmmaker that he directed the shower scene from Psycho and he is still known for things other than that; any other director would have simply become known by that singular sequence. Even though, that particular scene may well be the single most studied, analyzed and deconstructed scene in the history of cinema and, as a part of this tradition, there is Alexandre…
Girl Inside (DIR. Maya Gallus) Hot Docs’ Focus on Maya Gallus programme features a screening of the documentarian’s 2007 Girl Inside, a film that chronicles a three-year process towards a substantial surgery for transgendered adult Madison.
Close Ties (DIR. Zofia Kowalewska) The audience, from afar, watches a stubborn married couple in Zofia Kowalewska’s short-form doc Close Ties. They bicker about money and time spent in the bathroom just as often as they look at each other and give “that look” that they’ll always be there for each other.
Spookers (DIR. Florian Habicht) Spookers focuses on the Watsons, a New Zealand family who has run one of the most successful scare attractions out of an old psychiatric ward.
My Enemy, My Brother (DIR. Ann Shin) In 2015, Ann Shin documented a rather unusual event: an Iranian child soldier, Zahed, had recently had a chance encounter with an Iraqi soldier, Najah, whom he had saved during the Iran-Iraq war, at a Vancouver institution for survivors of torture. This chance encounter had made the two men friends. This anomaly had led to the short film My Enemy, My Brother. Now, Hot Docs is home to the…
Mermaids (DIR. Ali Weinstein) Mermaids takes on real-life issues and shows the beneficial qualities of becoming a real-life mermaid.
By: Nick Ferwerda Song to Song is tough to summarize. Then again, I expect nothing less from Terrence Malick. The Oscar-nominated filmmaker is known to make, what can be considered, poetic films that consider plot as a secondary function. Honestly, I’m okay with that. It’s different and, every now and then, it’s refreshing.
Obit opened last week at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox to warm reception. The documentary features the obituary department at The New York Times, and deconstructs the writing craft of an obituarist.
