Hot Docs '22: Brief Encounters With the Best-Told, Real-Life Stories on the Planet
By Jim Slotek, Thom Ernst, Kim Hughes, Liam Lacey and Bonnie Laufer
The 29th edition of Hot Docs, the world’s largest documentary film festival, is almost here! With 226 documentaries from 63 countries (chosen from a total of 2,563 submissions), 49 percent directed by women, the Festival truly has something for everyone.
Running April 28 through May 8 in cinemas across Toronto — as well as online via streaming to audiences across Canada — the Festival offers programming that reflects every corner and concern of our world, with films from Colombia to Croatia to Canada, Armenia to Austria, Serbia to Switzerland, Mexico to Mali and all points in between represented.
In addition to our preview of the event, Original-Cin offers mini-reviews and interview throughout the Fest to help you pick the best stuff to see. Herewith, our first batch of capsule reviews.
A House Made of Splinters
Filmed in Eastern Ukraine where war is currently raging, Danish director Simon Lereng-Wilmot’s film offers an intimate portrait of a group home for neglected children, where the kids are kept for nine months until they can be moved to foster homes or public orphanages. The children are indirect victims of the eight-year-long war in Donbas, neglected by parents who are struggling with post-traumatic mental illness, domestic violence, and alcoholism. Reminiscent of Alan King’s classic group home documentary Warrendale, this largely fly-on-the-wall film follows three of the children, as we see them exercising, having fights, making friends, and engaged in counselling sessions with the motherly social workers who run the centre. Their stories offer hope — and trepidation — for their futures, even before the invasion. According to Screen International, all the children have been evacuated from the front since the Russian invasion. LL
Fri, Apr 29, 2:30 pm, Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema; Sat. May 7, 5:45 pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox 1; online streaming begins Apr 30, 9 am.
A rock-and-roll memoir with some unexpected depth, Beautiful Scars is based on the 2017 book by Hamilton-born musician Tom Wilson, best known for his work with Stephen Fearing and Colin Linden in the roots-rock band Blackie and the Rodeo Kings. Narrated by Wilson, who sometimes appears on camera reading from his book, the film has the easygoing vibe of a barstool tall tale. Raised by an eccentric older mother and a blind father, Wilson threw himself into music early, eventually earning a good living at his ego-inflating trade, with the usual casualties of marital fidelity and sobriety. Contrary to most rock bios, his bio gets considerably richer after he hits middle-age. At 53, Wilson learned that he had been adopted, and that his ethnicity was three-quarters Mohawk. The uncovering of family secrets, and his reconciliation with his birth mother and extended family, resonates with stories of Indigenous history and the possibilities of regeneration.
Mon, May 2, 5:15 pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox 2; Thu, May 5, 11:15 am, TIFF Bell Lightbox 2; online screening begins May 3, 9 am.
Bernie Langile Wants To Know What Happened To Bernie Langile
An offbeat tale about family secrets that haunt generations, filmmaker Jackie Torrens here assists a man named Bernie Langile who has become obsessed with the mysterious and possibly criminal death of his same-named grandfather. Bernie Langile the elder was a popular and hard-drinking New Brunswick military man who died in 1968 after multiple violent occurrences (including his ambulance getting hit by a train en route to the hospital). Years of ambiguity lead to conspiracy theories, murder, government involvement, etc., a rabbit hole that consumed the life of one of Bernie’s uncles and might do likewise with his. It makes for entertaining detective documentary work, and a fascinating trail to follow. JS
Sat, Apr 30, 8:30 pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox 4; Thur, May 5, 1 p.m. TIFF Bell Lightbox 3; online streaming begins Sun, May 1, 9 am.
Blue Island
A lyrical, genre-scrambling exploration of national identity, Chan Tze Woon’s kaleidoscopic essay film on his native Hong Kong and its history of protests includes conventional documentary, dramatic reenactments, and staged moments of cross-generational dialogue. The film’s boldest conceit is to use contemporary young protestors from the 2019 mass protests, many of whom are facing prison sentences, as actors, playing activists from the past and interacting with the real people. Separate chapters follow Hong Kong’s evolution from British colonial rule to the after-shocks of the Cultural Revolution, and Tiananmen Square massacre, in a survey the director describes as “a desperate attempt to capture the final moments of a sinking island.” LL
Thu, April 28, 5:15 pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox 3; Mon, May 2, 2:30 pm, Varsity 6; online streaming begins Apr 29, 9 am.
The Phillipines island of Palwan is an idyllic tourist draw, home to several Indigenous populations and a diverse, endangered old growth rainforest. It’s also the site of a literal battleground for environmental activists, who defy illegal loggers and miners. With dictator Rodrigo Duterte pushing for development over preservation, the environmentalists and their political allies are targets of land developers’ hired assassins. Australian journalist Karl Malakunas’s investigation often feels more like a combat film than an environmental documentary, as we accompany the activists on raids of illegal loggers, some of who are armed. LL
Fri, Apr 29, 5 pm; Isabel Bader Theatre; Mon, May 2, 10:30 am, TIFF Bell Lightbox 1; online streaming begins Apr 30, 9 am.
A highly watchable, globetrotting peek into the rarefied world of high-stakes pigeon racing (yes, it’s a thing), Million Dollar Pigeons is propelled by its cast of “fanciers” who travel from Europe and the U.S. to South Africa and, more successfully, to Thailand to race their fierce feathered athletes for money and bragging rights. The sport is framed as equal parts obsession and expensive hobby. There’s no denying the competition can be intense: among the many characters introduced is Armando, a Belgian-bred champ which sold to a Chinese fancier for $1.42 million U.S. in 2019. Yes, that price shattered records. Racing chops notwithstanding, smart money says most people couldn’t pick Armando out of a flock on a city street for twice that amount. Shows how much we know. KH
Fri, Apr 29, 8:30 pm, Isabel Bader Theatre; Tues, May 3, 10:45 am, TIFF Bell Lightbox 2; Sat, May 7, 8 pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox 2; online streaming begins Apr 30, 9 am.
Scrap
The sheer mountain of refuse we create as a species is usually couched in apocalyptic terms, a la films like Manufactured Landscapes. But there’s a fair bit of whimsy in Stacey Tenenbaum’s globe-trotting doc, whether it’s an entire Thai family living in the hulk of a jumbo jet in Bangkok (and making money off tourists taking pictures), the “world’s oldest auto junkyard” in Georgia or a modernist church in Spain made entirely from a broken up cargo ship. It’s a film about places where, “things like planes and ships and trolleys go to die,” and the overwhelming emotion it creates is nostalgia. It might as well be called “Stories Junk Tells.” JS
Sun, May 1, 2 pm, Isabel Bader Theatre; Wed, May 4, 11 am; Varsity 8; online streaming begins Mon, May 2, 9 am.
Unloved: Huronia’s Forgotten Children
Yet another outrage from our own backyard, right down to the unmarked graves of children. The now-shuttered Huronia Regional Centre – once actually named the Orillia Asylum for Idiots – was where generations of mentally handicapped, afflicted or simply troubled children were sent and often never heard from again. Director Barri Cohen, who discovered the prior existence of two half-brothers she never knew, tracks their paths to Huronia and interviews survivors of the institutional house of horrors. Victims of abuse, both physical and sexual, won a civil suit against the province and now seek to ensure that it is never forgotten. A moving experience that shakes our expectation that those “in charge” will do the right thing. JS
Tues, May 3, 5:30 pm, Isabel Bader Theatre; Fri, May 6, 2:15 pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox 2; online streaming begins Wed, May 4, 9 am.