"The only reason anyone is interested in me," Carolyn Cassady declares in the film's opening moments, "is because I was married to Neal Cassady and lover of Jack Kerouac." But despite that claim — and the film's subtitle — Love Always, Carolyn is much more interested in Carolyn Cassady than Neal Cassady or Jack Kerouac. It does touch on their days together at the height of the Beat movement, but only briefly. Instead, the film is a portrait of the woman today: a senior citizen still struggling to come to grips with the death of her husband and lover all those years ago and the public attention they left her alone to deal with.
Carolyn met the Beats at the University of Denver in the late-'40s. She soon started an affair with Cassady and when she moved to San Francisco, the Beats followed. Before long, Carolyn and Neal were married with three kids. But that didn't stop him from living the same kind of drug-fueled, sexually-adventurous life he was used to. While he traveled across America on a bender, she was left to take care of the children and their home. The trip with Kerouac, which inspired On The Road, she saw as a "desertion". The bus ride with the Merry Pranksters that spawned The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Trip was him acting "like an idiot". She makes it clear that the man readers fell in love wasn't the man she'd fallen in love with. Her Cassady was a man who wanted to be respectable, confided that he hated himself on drugs, and loved wearing a suit and tie. "And this is what he's celebrated for," she says over footage from one of his trips, "which is so sad." Eventually it killed him, and Kerouac, too, the man she'd been having an affair with at her husband's insistence.
Today, she's still alone, and the world insists on celebrating the central tragedy of her life as a cultural triumph. She's constantly pestered with endless, brazen questions about her relationships with those men. And she's clearly conflicted about how to deal with it all. On one hand, she's uncomfortable with the attention. She has no problem being curt with those who cross the line or misunderstand her history. On the other, she clearly wants to set the record straight and, more importantly, needs the money. She's still living off the royalties from some old Beat photos and her children — particularly her son John, who admits, "I sort of dig the attention" — push her to capitalize on everything from DVD sales to a Beat-themed jug wine. They seem willfully ignorant of her open disdain for the schemes.
It's all a melancholy reminder that cultural heroes can leave behind a very different kind of legacy in their personal lives. Burning out may be romantic from a distance, but it's hell for the people who love you the most. And so, more than sixty years after falling in love with an icon, Carolyn Cassady is still paying the price.
This summer, when blockbusters like Pirates of the Carribean and Cars 2 open in Colombia, they'll be shown with a trailer for Little Voices. That might not seem strange given that it's a 3D animated kids film, but it's not every 3D animated kids film that recounts the horrors of the Colombian war as told by some of its youngest victims.
The project started six years ago, when the filmmakers interviewed displaced children in Bogota — some of the one million child victims of the conflict — about their experiences, and had them draw pictures of what they'd seen. A few were then chosen for the movie, their recordings used for the narration and their drawings turned into 3D animation.
The result is like being immersed in the most horrifying picture book you've ever seen. Little Voices stays away from blood and gore (so that kids can safety go to see it, one of the directors of the film explained in the Q&A after the screening), but it's still a deeply upsetting movie. One by one the children's peaceful lives are shattered by violence. Crayon-drawn guerrillas kick families out of their homes. They lure one boy away to join a rebel training camp. Another loses his arm when a bomb explodes nearby.
But in the end, the film is actually unexpectedly hopeful. The children are incredibly resilient; they find ways to stay positive despite all of the horrors they've been forced to endure. "I guess you have to carry on," the boy who lost his arm explains as he wakes to discover he's lost a leg as well, "to overcome any obstacles that come up. And keep going!"
It's safe to say, Little Voices is a uniquely powerful experience.
The Future Is Now! isn't really a documentary in the traditional sense. Instead, it's a series of conversations with contemporary artists and thinkers — philosopher Alain de Botton, poet Christian Bök and architect Shigeru Ban among others — all bound together by a ridiculous fictional conceit about a journalist (The Woman Of Tomorrow, played by New Waterford Girl's Liane Balaban) trying to convince a cynic (The Man Of Today, played by Quebec actor Paul Ahmarani) to have more faith in the world. It's a modern re-telling of a French film from 1949, La Vie Commence Demain, which did the same thing with Picasso, Sartre, Le Corbusier and others.
The conversations are fascinating. Bök explains his project to turn a poem into genetic code, insert it into a bacterium and have the bacterium produce another poem in response. Ban discusses both his modernist mansions for millionaires and the low-cost, paper housing he builds for victims of natural disasters. Artist Marlene Dumas shares her views on how to connect to and fall in love with modern art. Unfortunately, far too little time in the film is devoted to these conversations and far too much to the intentionally silly narrative. The Man Of Today's journey from cynic to slightly-less-cynical-cynic, told with the aid of painfully clunky dialogue, does help frame the interviews, but the journey isn't anywhere near as interesting as the people he meets along the way. During the Q&A after the screening, the directors — Gary Burns and Jim Brown, the same team behind 2006's suburban sprawl doc Radiant City — admitted that they had a hard time cutting the interview footage down to the few minutes they used from each. It's a shame they didn't take that as a sign: they'd have been better off cutting the crappy parts instead.
Photo: Paul Ahmarani and Christian Bök in The Future Is Now!
You’d be forgiven for thinking that last year’s mayoral campaign had to be some kind of farce - some kind of parody of what a real mayoral election was like in a major city, maybe produced by whomever is responsible for Corner Gas (I would look this up but my research allergies are going nuts this time of year).
Alas, no. Here we are on the other side of that decidedly real election and each day seems like one hilarious (if you live outside the 416) joke after another. Did you hear the one about the library they closed? The LRT’s they chucked out in favour of phantom subways? Hilarious!
Over in Iceland, that country you generally don’t consider unless there’s a volcano erupting or Bjork’s releasing a new album, their biggest city actually did elect a mayor who ran as a joke. His name is Jón Gnarr, Reykjavik's answer to Rick Mercer. Upon seeing how boring and broken the parliament is in his hometown, he decides to form “The Best Party”, a motley crew of punks, miscreants, and folks that are generally the opposite of what one imagines the typical parlimentarian to look like. The punchline, of course, is that they win.
One amazing thing about Gaukur Úlfarsson's documentary is that it covers Gnarr’s rise to power from the very beginning, long before his win is even the remotest possibility. We see him promising outrageous things like bringing a Disneyland to Reykjavik and making admission free, acquiring a polar bear for the zoo, and “all sorts of things for weaklings” (a campaign promise that, as far as I can tell, is never expanded upon), with the sort of zeal only seen in someone that doesn’t expect anyone to take him seriously. But as the campaign wears on and we see Gnarr’s poll numbers rise, he begins to expose the tedium and hypocrisy of his opponents through hilariously farcical debates and stunts. While this does get a little repetitive about ¾ of the way into the film, it does leave the viewer on an unspeakably positive note and that’s more than one can say of pretty much any political documentary that’s come before. Also, any film that counts among its scenes a group of people singing a bastardized version of Tina Turner's "Simply The Best" with lyrics about polar bears (seriously watch this, especially if you're having a particularly crummy day) is just pure amazingness.
There are certainly parallels to be drawn between the events of Gnarr and the NDP’s rise to power in last week’s federal election, but I’m not going to try to make them with the amount of Nyquil in my system and will leave such things to Rex Murphy. Differently, I’ll just leave you with some inspiring words from the Best Party.
“Hooray for all sorts of things!”
Photo: A movie poster of Gnarr, the movie that you just finished reading a review of.
This review was written by Sachin Hingoo, a freelance writer when he is not working at an office job that is purpose-built for paying the bills while he works as a freelance writer. His writing has appeared on Mcsweeneys.net, the CBC Street Level Blog, Ohmpage.ca, and The Midnight Madness Blog for the Toronto International Film Festival. He has also been featured at Toronto lecture series Trampoline Hall (which is rumored to be excellent). His mutant power is 'feigning interest'. You can read all of his posts here.
Do not raise a baby chimpanzee as if it was your own human child. It's a lesson that a surprising number of scientists had to learn back in the '70s. One of the most tragic examples is the story of the ridiculous charismatic and adorably-named Nim Chimpsky. The new documentary from the director of the Oscar-winning Man On A Wire tells Nim's story from the day he was taken from his mother in 1973, to his death in the year 2000.
It was all part of a project conceived by a professor at Columbia, Herbert Terrace, who wanted to see if a chimpanzee raised as a human and taught sign language would be able to spontaneously create his own sentences as a human child would. Nim got off to great start, rapidly expanding his vocabulary, but there were also signs of trouble. In his interviews, Terrace is downright creepy in a sleazy, combed-over, '70s professor kind of way. It's no coincidence that he places Nim with the family of an ex-student/lover and that he hires a series of young, good-looking female research assistants to work on the project. Nim's well-being never seems to be a real priority for the professor. And those who do care the most and who work with the chimp most often are soon facing bigger and bigger challenges.
Nim, of course, is constantly testing his boundaries and growing quickly. As he matures, and Terrace pulls him out of the house where he's been raised and into a mansion in the country, that begins to become dangerous. He's a loving and caring animal, but also wild. In some of the film's most memorable interviews, research assistants itemize their scars. One had to get 37 stitches for just one of her many wounds; another recounts the time Nim bit straight through her cheek and she was forced to walk around with a gaping hole in her face for three months.
Things go downhill from there. It seems that Terrace never really had an exit strategy for the project, so the second half of the film follows Nim as he's moved from one sad living situation to another: a parade of barren cages, a medical research laboratory and a lonely ranch in Texas. In the end, it's up those who care that most for him — and who realize how badly they've failed him throughout his life — to try and give Nim's story at least something of a happy ending.
Project Nim will be getting a theatrical release this summer.
Elmo = love. That's the unapologetically uplifting message of Being Elmo, which tells the story of Kevin Clash, the man behind the world's most popular furry red monster. And it's a surprisingly powerful one.
The film traces Clash's life from his days growing up in Baltimore, idolizing Jim Henson and the other Sesame Street puppeteers. He taught himself to build his own puppets based on what he saw his heroes doing on TV. Eventually he worked his way onto local television and then Captain Kangaroo before he finally got his break with Henson as one of the puppeteers on Labyrinth. From there it was on to Sesame Street itself where a frustrated colleague, Richard Hunt, was fed-up with his own deep-voiced version of Elmo. That gave the up-and-coming Clash his chance to bring his own loving vision to the character. In the film, he recalls Frank Oz teaching him that each muppet should have a central hook (Fozzie is a vaudeville performer; Miss Piggy is "a truck driver who wanted to be a woman"). "I knew that Elmo should represent love," Clash explains, "just kissing and hugging." Children around the world responded.
The most touching part of the film is what Clash — a shy and humble man — has been able to do with that popularity and his remarkable talent. Being Elmo is full of scenes of children's faces lighting up: in the classes he performed for as a teenager, the dying girl he meets through the Make A Wish foundation, the young aspiring puppeteer he tours around the Muppet Workshop just like he got to when he was a kid. It's enough to melt even the most cynical of hearts; two of the filmmakers on stage for the Q&A after the screening admitted that they'd found Elmo annoying before falling in love with him through working on the film. And with Clash's ability to connect with people, it would be hard not to. Being Elmo left even a theatre full of adults in awe, wiping away their tears.
Being Elmo will be released in theatres later this year. It plays at Hot Docs again tonight at the Isabel Bader Theatre at 7:15 — rumour has it that Clash may be there in person — and then again Sunday afternoon at the TIFF Ligthbox. Only rush tickets are available.
Fuuuck. I just got home from seeing We Were Here and I'm kind of a mess. I can't imagine I'll see a more emotionally powerful film at this week's festival — or probably anywhere else this year. It tells the story — through archival footage and interviews with five people who were there — of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco during the '80s and early '90s.
It is devastating. We don't seem to have much of a cultural memory for the sheer enormity of what happened, so if you weren't involved yourself, or are too young to remember, it comes as a bit of a shock. The film opens in the late '70s, just as gay rights activist Harvey Milk is assassinated. HIV is already there, though no one realizes yet. Guy, an immensely charming flower salesman on the Castro, remembers the first time he saw polaroids of red welts posted in the window of a pharmacy, warning of a mysterious "gay cancer". By then it was the very early '80s and 20% of the gay men in the community were already infected. Soon, that number would be up to 50%. By 1994, 1500 people in the city were dying of AIDS every year. Daniel, another of the film's subjects tells the story of how he and his partner both found out they had tested positive at the same time. They entered a study for experimental treatment and were both forced to pull out when the side effects of the drugs proved to be too strong. Within a few short months, Daniel's partner had died, along with every single other one of the 80 people in the study. A few days earlier another of Daniel's close friends had passed away. Two weeks after that, his best friend was gone, too. Years later, he'd lose a second partner. "It was an avalanche," he says. And as We Were Here makes clear, his story was a common one. More than once the Castro is compared to a war zone.
But as devastating as it is, the story is also an inspiring one. The gay community was essentially left to fend for themselves, abandoned by the Reagan administration and ostracized in a nation where — as Tom Brokaw reports in one clip — half of all Americans thought HIV victims should be quarantined and a full 15% thought they should forcibly tattooed. (A statistic that provoked an audible gasp from the audience at my screening.) Left to their own devices, the community learned how to build the outreach groups, advocacy organizations, and health care support they needed. With their friends and families dying all around them — and while many of them were sick themselves — they built much of the infrastructure from the ground up and were eventually able to turn back the tide. It's an incredibly powerful and valuable lesson — particularly at a time and place when our governments are more interested in finding ways to cut services than help people.
We Were Here will be playing in Toronto again later this month as part of the Inside Out festival and should be hitting theatres in September.
It's a New Orleans tradition that stretches back more than 150 years — a way for the descendants of slaves to honour and remember the Native Americans who helped their ancestors escape to freedom. Each year on Mardi Gras, as the tourists are getting drunk on Bourbon Street, the Mardi Gras Indians parade through their own neighbourhoods in a whirl of colour and music. It's a spectacular sight. But even before Katrina, it was getting harder and harder to preserve.
Bury The Hatchet opens in 2005, months before the storm hits, and follows three Big Chiefs as they put the finishing touches on their suits for that year. It's an expensive and painstaking process. The Chiefs pour thousands of their own dollars into beads and feathers and canvas, and the film spends much of its time with them at the kitchen table, surrounded by their families and tribes, as they hand-sew their elaborate designs. (One suit, for instance, recreates entire tableaus from Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit".)
Seeing the work that goes into the tradition makes it all the more powerful when the men share the challenges they've been facing. In one scene, Big Chief Alfred Doucette walks through the neighbourhood where the tribes gather on Mardi Gras morning — once a tree-lined boulevard, it's now the concrete underside of the massive Interstate 10. There's harassment from the police, too; they remember the days when the Mardi Gras Indians were associated with violence and — in one of the film's tensest moments — they shut down the St. Joseph's night parade. When the Indians get a chance to publicly air their concerns to Mayor Ray Nagin, the most revered Big Chief of them all, Tootie Montana of the legendary Yellow Pocahontas, collapses at the microphone. By the time Katrina does arrive, it truly feels like the storm could be the death knell of the culture.
But it isn't. A few months after the hurricane, it's Mardi Gras time again, and the Big Chiefs are back out in the streets. And the most hopeful note of all came after the screening, in a Q&A with director Aaron Walker. The parades are experiencing a revival, he says, in part thanks to the storm. The youth of New Orleans — who have seen all the recent media coverage of their traditions, including HBO's brilliant series Treme — have been inspired to take up the mantle. Despite all the obstacles in their way, it seems the Mardi Gras Indians' spectacular tribute will live on.
Every single one of At The Edge Of Russia's 72 beautifully-shot minutes happen on the very outskirts of the nation, in a vast field of ice and snow. It's where one of twelve outposts was built by the Soviets in the '50s to patrol the arctic border — and in all of the decades since there hasn't been a single military incident to speak of. It's here, in the middle of a nothingness where nothing ever happens, that the film's main subject, a young military recruit named Aleksey, has just arrived to begin a year and a half living in a small hut with a handful of other Russian soldiers.
That may sound like the premise for a rather boring film, but the colourful cast of characters brings the screen to life. Surrounded by photos of Vladimir Putin and their families, with little more than some booze, a guitar and the constant, droning wind for company, the men are so richly detailed that at times it's hard to believe they aren't fictional. The fresh-faced Aleksey has a lot of lessons to learn about how to survive in the arctic — including 30 grueling hours spent in a hole dug out of the snow — but the bigger challenge seems to be finding his place in the social order of the hut. The men are gruff and hard — even the endearing Captain, who lost the fingers of one hand in a mining accident and likes to talk about the body's mystical "inner energy". But particularly difficult is the temperamental Walentin, a vaguely threatening figure throughout the film, who grows increasingly erratic as the day when he'll head back home to civilization — and the wife he fears will leave him — nears.
"Here you can't survive by yourself," the men explain to the new arrival at one point, "but no one expects it of you." It's seeing how Aleksey learns to survive with the others that makes At The Edge Of Russia so fascinating to watch.
It's a story we're becoming all too familiar with: local residents in Western democracies feeling threatened by immigration and turning to right-wing extremists as the answer. But you rarely get as intimate and fascinating an account as the one in The Battle For Barking.
The film tells the story of one race in one constituency during Britain's federal election last year. Barking is in East London, an area that has seen lots of recent immigration and resulting tensions. In 2005, that meant a 17% vote for the racist British National Party, enough for the party's leader, Nick Griffin, to pick Barking as his best chance to win a seat in 2010. As he takes on long-time Labour MP Margaret Hodge, director Laura Fairrie is there to follow both campaigns as they head out into the neighbourhood to battle for votes.
And it is a battle. The BNP spark outrage everywhere they go. Within the first few minutes of the film, they're already being shouted at on the street. There are multiple scenes of them being screamed at, denounced as Nazis or even spit on. And they give as good as they get: at one point a BNP councillor starts a fistfight in the street when someone launches a wad of saliva in his direction.
But despite the violence and the remarkable access to the campaigns, many of the film's most powerful moments are the quiet ones, when Fairrie stops and talks to the constituents themselves — particularly the BNP supporters. Nick Griffin is an easy and deserving villain, but seems more a symptom than a cause. Instead, the least conspicuous scenes are the ones that come closest to uncovering the root of the problem, and the source of the vile hatred his party spews. A mother in public housing crying as she explains how she feels her family has been passed over for opportunities in favour of more recent arrivals. Or the charming old man who claims not to believe in the BNP's policies, but also says, "This is my country — it's our country — and at the end of day they're giving it away," before cheerfully casting his ballot.
Photo: Nick Griffin in a still from The Battle For Barking
You'll find the Ten Films We're Dying To See At Hot Docs here.
We kind of freaking love documentaries. It's as if you took the best part of school (learning shit), got rid of all the crappy bits (tests, homework, thousands of dollars in tuition) and added popcorn. So, as you might imagine, we're ridiculously excited that one of the world's biggest documentary film festivals, Hot Docs, is about to take over Toronto's theatres for the next couple of weeks. We spent a silly amount of our Easter weekend diving into the schedule, reading blurbs, watching trailers and generally getting ourselves all worked up about how many potentially amazing films there are at this year's fest. We have, somehow, managed to narrow the field down to the ten we're most dying to see, which we present to you now, along with the trailers and blurbs from the Hot Docs website that have us so excited. You can also head on over here for the full schedule and ticket information and all that kind of stuff.
We'll be seeing as many films as we can during the festival, and posting our reviews between screenings.
At the Edge of Russia Sat, Apr 30 6:30 PM Cumberland 2 Tue, May 3 1:15 PM TIFF Bell Lightbox 2 Fri, May 6 7:00 PM Cumberland 2
"Hundreds of miles from the nearest town or tree, a smooth-faced young recruit arrives at his Arctic post. Here, etched somewhere into the endless white, is a border. The boy, Aleksey, joins five men, together charged with the absurd task of patrolling the invisible border for invisible enemies. Through a crisp and unblinking lens, we watch as the gruff old soldiers, each a refugee from civilization in his own way, initiate the boy into their rigorous daily life. It’s a cold, hard routine, the discipline broken only by the occasional vodka and sad song. Polish director Michal Marczak has assembled a formidable cast of characters in this breathtaking debut, both delicate and bold. At the Edge of Russia is a metaphorical portrait of a crumbled empire whose diligent men still busy themselves tracing meaning in the infinite white. - Samara Chadwick". More information here.
The Battle for Barking Sat, Apr 30 9:30 PM Cumberland 2 Mon, May 2 4:30 PM The ROM Theatre
"It’s all-out war in London’s borough of Barking where Nick Griffin, leader of the far-right British National Party (BNP), is screamed at and spat upon by locals as he pounds the pavement for votes in the UK’s 2010 federal election. Leveraging white, working class fear in a multi-racial area with skyrocketing unemployment and high immigration, he threatens to oust long-term incumbent, left-wing Labour MP Margaret Hodge. The BNP’s solution to all of Britain’s problems? Return Britain to its former ethnic “purity” by halting immigration and 'firm but voluntary repatriation' for those with 'non-British' ancestry. As Hodge describes Griffin, 'He hates women, he hates Jews, he hates immigrants, and I’m all of them.' More horrifying: he could actually win. Director Laura Fairrie’s fly-on-the-wall, year-long backroom access to both candidates makes for gripping viewing as a study on how rapidly the disenfranchised become radicalized when their leaders stop listening. - Gisèle Gordon". More information here.
The National Parks Project Sat, Apr 30 9:30 PM TIFF Bell Lightbox 1 Mon, May 2 9:15 PM The Royal Cinema
"In an increasingly urban nation, Canada’s national parks are a treasured escape into extraordinary beauty and rugged wilderness. If the Group of Seven were an introduction to the landscape’s majesty, National Parks Project is the next logical chapter. Fifty-two contemporary artists from across the country, whose talents are as diverse as the parks they set out to explore, used their surroundings as a source of inspiration to blend musical and cinematic skills into collaboratively crafted vignettes. Epic in its ambition to celebrate these locales during Parks Canada’s centennial year, this omnibus film resonates with the knowledge that our unprotected land is more vulnerable than ever. Including films by Zacharius Kunuk, Peter Lynch, Sturla Gunnarsson and John Walker, and music by Sarah Harmer, Sam Roberts, Cadence Weapon and The Besnard Lakes, among many others, National Parks Project is a one-of-a-kind documentary experience. Alex Rogalski". More information here.
"Academy Award-winning director Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side) and co-director Alison Ellwood serve up the ‘60s in this psychedelic road movie adventure, an acid trip on wheels. In 1964, Ken Kesey, celebrated author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, assembled a ragtag crew of friends and lovers known as the Merry Pranksters to take an LSD-fuelled road trip from California to the New York World’s Fair. Driven by none other than Neal Cassady, Jack Kerouac’s On the Road muse, their ramshackle bus was tricked out with cameras to capture free-form impressions of America and the seemingly limitless drug-induced antics of its passengers. More than 40 years later, Gibney and Ellwood re-imagine Kesey’s original film, audio tapes and photographs into one of the year’s trippiest and most creative time capsules. Relax, man, and enjoy a truly Magic Trip." More here.
Bury the Hatchet Sun, May 1 7:00 PM Cumberland 3 Tue, May 3 4:30 PM Cumberland 3
"Aaron Walker’s new film takes you deep into the heart of New Orleans to discover a celebration hidden from mainstream Mardi Gras. Each year, members of a predominantly African-American neighbourhood dress up as Indians to honour the Native American communities that harboured blacks escaping from slavery. A Mardi Gras tradition that dates back to perhaps as far as the mid-19th century, the ‘Indians’ have created a highly intricate structure, with over 40 ‘tribes’ featuring hierarchical roles such as chief, medicine man and flag boy. Through Walker’s portrayal, audiences experience the rich history and struggles this community has faced. Enduring street violence, police harassment and Hurricane Katrina’s devastation, the Mardi Gras ‘Indians’ find the strength to carry on their traditions. Bury the Hatchet also presents a soundtrack of rare music passed down through generations, many of the songs having never been written down or recorded before the 1970s. - Heather Haynes". More information here.
I Am Jesus Sun, May 1 9:00 PM Cumberland 2 Tue, May 3 4:00 PM TIFF Bell Lightbox 3
"Attention, Christians! Jesus is here. There’s just one problem: there are three of Him. Filmmakers Valerie Gudenus and Heloisa Sartorato cross the globe to investigate each person who claims to be the One. In Brazil, Inri Cristo has hardly kept himself a secret, appearing on every TV show possible and actively posting videos on YouTube with the help of his mainly female followers. Across the pond in the UK, the Messiah appears as a distinctly mortal figure in David Shayler. A former British secret service agent turned whistleblower, Shayler experienced a spiritual awakening in prison before taking up with anti-government squatters. Russia’s Vissarion, a Siberian introvert, preaches self-reliance on an organic farming commune, where members welcome his polygamous family teachings. I Am Jesus is a fascinating exploration, not only of the Christ persona, but of the conflicting needs for leadership and spiritual belonging around the world. - Myrocia Watamaniuk". More information here.
We Were Here Tue, May 3 9:30 PM TIFF Bell Lightbox 1 Thu, May 5 1:45 PM The ROM Theatre
"Before AIDS even had a name, San Francisco’s gay community felt an unsettling presence taking hold. Loved ones suffered from strange symptoms, friends fell seriously ill, some just disappeared. Five ordinary residents open up about what life was really like as the AIDS epidemic seized their city. An activist, a nurse, a caregiver, a friend and a lover each reveal how the fear surrounding the 'gay plague' was transformed into a model of political change and social healing. Homophobia was pitted against healthcare, but community action spread just as fiercely, especially among lesbians who came together to fight for their gay brothers. Through deeply moving testimonies and archival imagery, filmmaker David Weissman reconstructs the era that saw unspeakable horrors inspire courageous action, and that taught the world how to battle what is now a stoppable disease. Myrocia Watamaniuk". More information here.
Project Nim Thu, May 5 9:45 PM Isabel Bader Theatre Fri, May 6 11:00 AM Isabel Bader Theatre
From the Oscar-winning team behind Man on Wire comes the story of Nim, the chimpanzee who in the 1970s became the focus of a landmark experiment which aimed to show that an ape could learn to communicate with language if raised and nurtured like a human child. Following Nim’s extraordinary journey through human society, and the enduring impact he makes on the people he meets along the way, Project Nim is an unflinching and unsentimental biography of an animal we tried to make human. What we learn about his true nature—and indeed our own—is comic, revealing and profoundly unsettling. Using extraordinary archival footage, director James Marsh constructs a seamless narrative that twists and turns, and ultimately accrues the thematic and emotional arc of an epic." More information here.
Little Voices Fri, May 6 6:30 PM TIFF Bell Lightbox 1 Sat, May 7 3:45 PM TIFF Bell Lightbox 2
Which colours would you use if asked to paint a picture of war? It may come as a surprise that when a group of Colombian children, victims of that country’s long-standing internal conflict, were asked to paint and draw their stories, they painted flowers, chose a bright yellow for the sun, and depicted landscapes full of trees, white clouds and clear blue skies. They also drew children whose eyes sparkled, even when faced with the bleakest of circumstances: an innocent rural girl forced to move to the big city, a boy tricked into joining the guerrilla ranks, another who loses a leg to a landmine. There is always a smile. Children are children after all. Their stories and artwork are the basis for this touching, animated documentary—a Hot Docs first—about the Colombian conflict as seen through the eyes of the most innocent of victims. - Juan Baquero". Screening in 3D. More information here.
Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey Fri, May 6 7:15 PM Isabel Bader Theatre Sat, May 7 7:15 PM Isabel Bader Theatre Sun, May 8 4:30 PM TIFF Bell Lightbox 1
“This Sundance Special Jury Prize winner is heart-warming and fun for the whole family. Being Elmo is the inspiring story of how a shy nine-year-old Kevin Clash pursued his dream of becoming a puppeteer on Sesame Street. Raised in a low-income community, Clash’s talents were evident in his homemade prototypes and the puppet shows he staged for his mother’s daycare kids. But it was after his first gig on a local children’s TV show that he was truly on the path. Featuring exclusive behind-the-scenes access at Sesame Street, Being Elmo captures the magic created by Jim Henson, and is a tribute to Henson’s legacy and the community of puppeteers who’ve enchanted generations of children around the world. - Karina Rotenstein". More information here.
