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.
There is a horror renaissance going on right now that everyone should be excited about. The genre has struggled to keep up with the horrors of the real world and has returned to top form; with many of the best films of the last few years coming from the auteurs of screams. One of these films, a film which made this critic’s top ten list last year, is Julia Ducournau’s Raw, which is finally getting…
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.
Israeli filmmaker Shimon Dotan’s previous efforts have earned him recognition in his home country, where he has won nine Israeli Academy Awards for his work as a writer, producer, and director. Though most of his films are narrative-based, the documentary Hot House (2006) earned acclaim when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
I don’t know much about MyFrenchFilmFestival, but Rudi Rosenberg’s The New Kid has made me want to study up on the online global collective.
Movies can be delicious, such as this year’s rom-com Bakery in Brooklyn. Despite the fresh food, the charming chemistry between the two leading women is what made the film buoyant. On the other end of the scale, you have Menorca, which is deliciously bad. This film feeds us so much camp, we’re begging for more when the movie begins to clam up.