Arctic Defenders (Opening Night Film) Borne from director John Walker’s lifelong love and his youthful infatuation with “Eskimo” culture and artwork, this disarmingly poignant look at First Nations families relocated decades earlier with hopes of establishing Canadian sovereignty in the literal Great White North balances the personal and the political with great and subtle dexterity. […]
With a whole lot of catching up still to be done, our film and arts editor gives brief reviews of the Calvin and Hobbes documentary Dear Mr. Watterson and the teen drama Geography Club, and tells you where to check out his reviews of the British dystopian drama How I Live Now and the WWII fable The Book Thief.
Alcan Highway Hese is a 44 year-old Finnish man trying to solve the paradox of wanting to be constantly on the move and to find a home to settle down. To this end, he plans to build a mobile home and find a place to turn off the engine for good. He travels from Finland […]
InRealLife The Internet has been a major part of society since the early ‘90s, but while its effects on society across the globe are obvious, the effects on the psychology of younger generations are hardly clear. Beeban Kidron’s documentary, InRealLife, sets out to explore the social and psychological impact of the Internet on the youth […]
This week at The Bloor, urban sprawl goes under the microscope in The Human Scale, and Toronto's own Alan Zweig looks back on When Jews Were Funny.
Sole Survivor It’s one of the most rare occurrences possible. In the entire history of commercial flight, only fourteen times have there been crashes with a single survivor. Ky Dickens examines what it’s like to be one of these fourteen people in the new documentary, Sole Survivor. The film deals specifically with four sole survivors: […]
Pandi Mental illness is grappled with by families all across the globe, knowing nothing of racial or cultural boundaries. Pandi is an intensely intimate investigation into the death of a family member who struggled with depression. A hugely personal film about her own family, director Maria Saroja Ponnambalam explores the mysteries behind her uncle Pandi’s […]
The Naked Room Looks at childhood mental illness never get rawer than this chilling and thoughtfully stripped down look at young adults in the intake room of a Mexican hospital. Listening in to the preliminary interviews with children and parents coming to the hospital for a wide range of issues from eating disorders and suicide […]
Alien Boy: The Life and Death of James Chasse An incendiary look into a case of police brutality, Brian Lindstrom’s look at one schizophrenic man’s undignified and completely preventable death might be the heaviest film in this year’s festival line-up, but it also might be the most important. On the afternoon of September 18th, 2006 […]
Oil Sands Karaoke is a fun film with some great music that humanizes the often vilified faces of the men and women working in the oil sands.
Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey A pretty standard rock documentary, Ramona Diaz’s look at Filipino cover band singer Arnel Pineda’s unlikely rise to become the lead singer of the established rock band Journey hits all the standard inspirational movie beats, and somewhat unwittingly paints the band itself in a less than flattering light. Overcoming poverty […]
Without Shepherds Pakistan is a country that so many have heard about, or read about, or seen on the news, and the impression here in the West is that it’s of some kind of hellhole where the people are religious fanatics and the government is evil. It’s been called the most dangerous country in the […]
Linsanity There isn’t a sports fan across the globe that isn’t at least somewhat familiar with the remarkable story of Jeremy Lin. Linsanity allows fans a glimpse at the man whose boyhood dream of play pro basketball came true, but it slants into areas that it doesn’t need to. From a humble background to an […]
Famed First Nations filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin takes a look at one Northern Ontario community's decade long fight for a new school in the documentary Hi-Ho Mistahey!, a suitably rabble-rousing and eye opening look at how the Canadian government has turned a blind eye to a community in need of something that should be seen as a basic human right.
In the documentary Griot, trumpeter Volker Goetze takes a look at his collaborations with musician Ablaye Cissoko, a man who keeps the historical and cultural traditions of music alive in his home country of Senegal.
