By: Gesilayefa Azorbo Each year, the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival seems to be getting bigger and better. Considering the press conference at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema on March 18 announcing the 2015 edition, the festival shows no signs of slowing down. Hot Docs ’15 offers 210 films in total (the largest offering of films in the festival’s history to date) and 102 world premieres. Not to mention projected attendance figures of 200,000 – the…
By: Gesilayefa Azorbo Ballet 422, the much-anticipated new film from Jody Lee Lipes (NY Export: Opus Jazz), opens with a couple of facts. 91 – the number of full-time dancers at the prestigious New York City Ballet. 1948 – the year the ballet company was formed. The film then opens with a shot of these elite dancers walking down a darkened hallway to a mirrored practice studio. Then, shots of them stretching, warming up, wrapping their…
By: Gesilayefa Azorbo Last Days in Vietnam, directed by Rory Kennedy, is a gripping look back at the massive, often unsanctioned evacuations of South Vietnamese citizens and Americans in Vietnam that were undertaken in the chaotic final days of the Vietnam War. This is a story told through meticulously researched archival footage and interviews with key players in the US and Vietnamese military and state departments – including Henry Kissinger himself – as well as…
By: Gesilayefa Azorbo The first question Point and Shoot director Marshall Curry asks his subject off-camera is, “So how did a guy from Baltimore end up fighting in the Libyan revolution?” This is likely the question on the minds of every audience member who sits down to watch this film. And, it’s this question that the film itself repeatedly returns to examine through a mix of personal interviews and exposition via first-person video footage shot over…
By: Gesilayefa Azorbo The film begins in the aftermath of a car accident. A vehicle lies on its roof, smoke streaming from its upended bottom on a dark, street-lit road. A moment or two go by before you realize someone is climbing their way out of the car. From the ski mask he’s wearing and the gun in his hand, it’s very easy to identify him as “the bad guy”. But then he stands up, grabs…
The Last Season (DIR. Sara Dosa) By: Gesilayefa Azorbo It’s often said that there’s nothing stronger than the bonds of brotherhood forged between fellow soldiers. Regardless of place of origin or beliefs, the experiences that form one’s life as a soldier are often common across borders, with a mutual understanding that often transcends other differences. The Last Season is ostensibly a film about a mushroom hunt. The town of Chemult, Oregon, population 135, is also home to…