Hot Docs Look Ahead: Saturday April 27
by Staff
(April 26, 2019 – Toronto, ON) A quick reminder, instead of posting the Canadian films screening today at Hot Docs, we’ve decided this year to look ahead at what’s coming up tomorrow in the hopes you will have time to adjust your schedule to see some of the films we mention here.
Tomorrow at Hot Docs kicks off early with the 2nd screening of Havana, From On High (pictured above). Anyone who has been to Havana in the last few decades knows so much of the old city is in disrepair or outright decay. Yet atop these once proud and beautiful buildings there is a secret village of squatters. Makeshift homes, populated by people who just can’t find proper housing in the always bustling city that has long suffered from a housing shortage. Directed by Pedro Ruiz, he turns his camera on these survivors of upheaval who are getting by and some might say thriving during this latest period of change in Cuba. The film is beautiful, poetic and mesmerizing.
Havana, From on High screens:
Sat. Apr. 27 at 10:15 a.m. at TBLB
Fri. May 3 at 10:00 a.m. at TBLB
At 12:30 at the Scotiabank, it’s the 2nd screening of Killing Patient Zero, which will have it’s World Premiere tonight. Directed by Laurie Lynd this film is based on the book Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic by Richard McKay, a professor at the University of Cambridge. Part of the Special Presentations program at Hot Docs, Killing Patient Zero reveals the homophobia behind the headlines and traces the devastating impact of the 1980s AIDS epidemic. It also clears the name of the Québécois flight attendant who was infamously known as “patient zero.”
Killing Patient Zero screens:
Sat. Apr. 27 at 12:30 at Scotiabank Theatre
Fri. May 3 at 2:45 p.m. at Hart House
The big film this year—check out the news stories—is nipawistamasowin: We Will Stand Up, which was selected to open the 26th edition of The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival last night. You can find more information here including a link to an on-camera interview with the film’s director Tasha Hubbard.
nipawistamasowin: We Will Stand Up screens:
Sat. April. 27 at 1:00 p.m. at the TIFF Bell Lightbox (TBLB)
Sat. May 4 at 10:00 a.m. at the Isabel Bader Theatre
Also screening at 1:00 p.m. but at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema is Matt Gallagher’s new film, Prey. This is the 2nd screening, it will have its World Premiere tonight. Hot Docs has issued an alert to people who may want to see this important film: “Content notice: Film contains sexual violence trigger material.” Prey is about the indefensible sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. Gallagher’s film tracks the case of a certain Father Hod Marshall, who pled guilty to 17 assault charges. One of his victims, seeking closure for what happened during his childhood, filed suit against the Basilian Fathers of Toronto. The film centres on a man known by some as “the priest hunter,” lawyer Rob Talach and on a number of survivors who provided testimony.
Prey screens:
Sat. Apr. 27 at 1:00 p.m. at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema
Thu. May 2 at 1:30 p.m. at TBLB
A Place of Time and Tide is a very Canadian film. Co-directed by Sébastien Rist and Aude Leroux-Lévesque, this 78-minute exploration is set in the fishing villages along the Gulf of St. Lawrence in eastern Québec. If you thought the end of the cod fishing industry only impacted our Maritime provinces and particularly Newfoundland and Labrador, this film will be an eye-opener on a part of the country long overlooked, almost forgotten, where the older English-speaking population hope to preserve their traditional way of life, while the younger people look elsewhere for their future. This screening is a World Premiere.
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Place of Time and Tide screens:
Sat. Apr. 27 at 3:45 p.m. at TBLB
Sun. Apr. 28 at 8:00 p.m. at the Scotiabank Theatre
Sat. May 4 at 12:00 p.m. at the Scotiabank Theatre
The Daughter Tree will also have its World Premiere Saturday. Directed by Rama Rau. Set in the Punjab region of India there is a village known as the Village of Men. No girls have been born there in more than 20 years. Those men, when they reach a certain age and wish to marry, have to leave home to find a bride. The main focus of the film is Neelam Bala, described as “a warrior midwife” who works to save unborn baby girls, a more-than-difficult task given the cultural preference for sons. When a girl is born in the Village of the Daughter Tree, a fruit tree is planted. When she grows up she will have this tree as her own property and can use it to make a living and perhaps have some economic freedom through the sale of the tree’s fruit. A wonderful tale of resilience and determination against long and entrenched odds.
The Daughter Tree screens:
Sat. Apr. 27 at 6:30 p.m. at TBLB
Tue. Apr. 30 at 10:15 a.m. at TBLB
Thur. May 2 at 9:00 p.m. at Hart House Theatre
At 6:45 p.m., there’s one of the Special Presentation events at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema on Bloor Street. It’s the first of only two screenings and the World Premiere of the film Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind. The 90-minute documentary follows the famed Canadian songwriter and singer from his beginnings in rural Ontario to Greenwich Village to stardom and stadium performances.
Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind screens:
Sat. Apr. 27 at 6:45 p.m. at Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema
Tue. Apr. 30 at 6:30 p.m. Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema. NOTE: At this screening Gordon Lightfoot will be joined on stage by co-directors Joan Tosoni and Martha Kehoe to talk about his life and career.
The next to last Canadian doc to screen on Saturday is Ingrid Veninger’s The World or Nothing and it too is a World Premiere. While this is her first documentary, it has the feel of previous Veninger films, which always had a certain documentary feel about them. In The World or Nothing, two Cuban men, twin brothers, have moved to Spain to seek their fame and fortune, hoping for online stardom as they shoot their own dance videos. Seemingly inseparable, they do everything together. Towards the end one says he will only marry if his intended bride accepts his brother as part of the marriage. While they are, or should be, grown men, they are dreamers who miss their mother, go forward blinded by hope and want nothing less than, as the title says, The World or Nothing.
The World or Nothing screens:
Sat. Apr. 27 at 8:45 p.m. at TBLB
Sun. Apr. 28 at 1:15 p.m. at TBLB
Thur. May 2 at 1:00 p.m. at the Hart House Theatre on the University of Toronto campus.
Finally, Inside Lehman Brothers from director and co-writer Jennifer Deschamps is one of those films that captures a moment in history so clearly it could be used as a teaching tool so that this sort of thing never happens again. Described as “the autopsy of a crime” this is the sad yet very true story of a systemic cover-up of illegal practices that first befell Lehman Brothers and contributed to the worst financial crisis since the Depression. While the financial crisis went into remission during the last decade, experts in the film argue that this disease of greed and willful blindness, aided and abetted by a weakening of financial oversight under President Trump, is now setting the stage for a once impossible return. “NINJA” loans (no income, no job, no assets) have returned to the market with a vengeance.
Inside Lehman Brothers screens:
Sat. Apr. 27 at 9:30 p.m. at TBLB
Sun. Apr. 28 at 1:00 p.m. at Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema
Fri. May 3 at 6:15 p.m. at TBLB
In all there are 48 films on the schedule including these nine Canadian documentaries. Find more information and tickets online at Hot Docs.
