Latest news with #HotDocsFestival
Winnipeg Free Press
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
History on parade
Even in the joyful, jittery atmosphere of a film première, a sense of gravity permeated the packed house at the Toronto opening of the documentary Parade: Queer Acts of Love and Resistance on April 24 at Bloor Street's Hot Docs Cinema on the opening night of the Hot Docs Festival. The film justified the feeling. Director Noam Gonick's movie — which has its local première at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights on June 28 — is an astonishingly cumulative look at Canada's history of queer activism; the vibe in the house was undoubtedly enhanced by the presence of about 35 of the film's interview participants, many of whom are famous (Svend Robinson, Canada's first MP to come out as gay; Lorraine Segato, lead singer of the Parachute Club; filmmaker John Greyson) and many more who have toiled in relative anonymity in the trenches of the gay rights movement over the past 60 years. 'It's a very unabashed, no-holds-barred love letter to the activists who step off the sidewalk, into the street to change the world they lived in,' Gonick said during an interview after the screening. It is no coincidence that Gonick, the local filmmaker known for Hey, Happy and the Guy Maddin doc Waiting for Twilight, took the helm of the project with a former Winnipegger, producer Justine Pimlott, whose 2024 doc Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story, won a Peabody Award last month for best documentary. Winnipeg-based activism is in the blood of both Gonick and Pimlott. Gonick's father is Cy Gonick, a one-time NDP politician and the editor of the socialist magazine Canadian Dimension. 'The apple didn't really fall from far from the tree, it was just a pink apple,' Gonick says. 'My parents did teach me to question authority. I can remember my dad saying to me at an impressionable age, 'Just because he's wearing a cap like that doesn't mean he can tell you what to do.' So yes, all those little childhood lessons sink in on some level or another.' Pimlott, too, is the child of activists, and she inherited the fire even in her youth when she took it upon herself to organize the first international women's film festival, Film Furies, in Winnipeg in the early '80s. Supplied Noam Gonick's new documentary is a cumulative look at Canada's history of queer activism. 'My mom and dad were trade-union activists. They were part of the left in Winnipeg,' Pimlott recalls in a post-première interview. Pimlott followed suit, and was even encouraged by her mother to join the Nellie McClung Theatre, a trade union theatre collective, when she was a teenager. Combined with her early passion for movies, Pimlott took an activist approach to her film career, always amplifying voices under the National Film Board banner, as well as the shingle of her own company Red Queen Productions, co-founded with her partner Maya Gallus. Her career reached a high point last month with the Peabody win for Any Other Way — a documentary about Jackie Shane, a pioneering, American-born trans R&B singer who found fame in the Toronto jazz scene of the 1960s — which Pimlott characterizes with just one word: 'huge.' 'Particularly in these times, it's even more huge,' Pimlott says, referring to the anti-trans sentiment that has gripped the United States since the 2024 election. Supplied Gonick calls Parade a love letter to activists. 'To have that recognition with everything unfolding south of the border, it's an incredible honour. It's even more of a statement.' ● ● ● Parade promises to be a film with an impact that will ripple through and beyond the country's queer population this summer. Teamed with editor Ricardo Acosta and thousands of hours worth of archival material, Gonick and Pimlott have made a movie that is simultaneously a crucial record of queer activism but also a shocking account of the violence and bigotry that the movement once inspired. 'What I'm hearing from young people is that there's so much they didn't know about the activists whose shoulders they stand on. I get the sense from hearing from the younger community that there is this great need to connect with who their elders are, to have that intergenerational conversation,' Pimlott says. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. For the elders themselves, the film has the power of a family photo album, with attendant feelings that run the gamut from joy to personal tragedy. Supplied Justine Pimlott won a Peabody Award for Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story. 'Flipping through a photo album can evoke many emotions, and it's not always easy,' Pimlott says. The CMHR showing will be followed by a Q&A with Gonick, Pimlott, Connie Merasty and Myra Laramee. Prior to the film, ticket holders can explore the new exhibition Love in a Dangerous Time: Canada's LGBT Purge and participate in an art-making activity. Randall KingReporter In a way, Randall King was born into the entertainment beat. Read full biography Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Winnipeg Free Press
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Animated documentary bite-sized chunk of family life
At the close of the Hot Docs Festival in May, in a field of dozens of live-action films, it was the animated feature Endless Cookie that took home the $50,000 Rogers Audience Award for Best Canadian Documentary, a prize determined by audience poll. Endless Cookie • Directed by Seth Scriver and Peter Scriver • Dave Barber Cinematheque • 97 minutes • Opens Friday, runs to June 22 It was no small achievement for co-directing brothers Seth Scriver, 47, a seasoned artist and animator, and Peter Scriver, 62, a man of many talents, including carver, trapper and poet. Peter, who is of white/Cree lineage, lives in Shamattawa First Nation in Northern Manitoba, 744 kilometres north of Winnipeg. Seth, who is white, is based in the city of his birth, Toronto. The urban/wilderness dynamic between them yields material that is powerful and relevant. But still … a documentary? The film is, after all, a cartoon, and one that is flagrantly impressionistic when it comes to hard-nosed reality. Peter's daughter Cookie, for example, is drawn as an actual chocolate-chip cookie; his dog Nutty is portrayed as Mr. Peanut. The overall look of the film suggests an underground comic come to life. Seth Scriver admits, when the film — which debuted at Sundance 2025 and opened imagineNATIVE 2025 — was presented at Hot Docs, the brothers were surprised it was so fervently embraced by the documentary realm. 'It was funny. We weren't trying to make a (documentary) genre film. It was more like … What is this?' he says. But he and his brother grew to accept the classification. 'It's a documentary because it's real stories. It's like a real family portrait, even though it seems unbelievable. Most of it is based in some reality,' Seth says. Most of the action is set in Shamattawa, where Seth interviews Peter about his life, including their lives together, stemming from a shared coming-of-age in Toronto, where their white father ran a vintage clothing shop in Kensington Market. In contrast to the crazy streets of '80s-era urban Toronto, the scenes in Shamattawa are linked into a familial community, especially Peter's sizable brood of nine children. And therein lies the film's distinction. Supplied It took Seth Scriver nine years to animate the movie. Supplied It took Seth Scriver nine years to animate the movie. When Seth originally discussed the movie with his brother, the idea was to make a film that would just take a couple of years to finish. It ended up being nine years in the making. Part of the reason is that Seth animated the film almost entirely by himself. But also, the project transformed when Seth realized he couldn't make a conventional animation with typically pristine audio. 'Originally, when we started, it was going to be straight-up good recording with no interruption, but Pete lives in a four-bedroom house with nine kids and 16 dogs, so it's insane to try to record anything,' says Seth. Supplied Peter Scriver is a trapper, carver and poet. Supplied Peter Scriver is a trapper, carver and poet. 'So eventually, we gave into the insanity and let it go.' Endless Cookie presents a picture of Indigenous life that veers away from the sombre, serious depictions prevalent in most films that take on the subject. The kids are funny and, cartoon distortion notwithstanding, real. They even contribute their own creativity to the mix with both animation and music. 'It's not for everyone, but we've been really lucky that it's been embraced so much, and people can relate to it,' Seth says. 'Because everyone has crazy families.' Randall KingReporter In a way, Randall King was born into the entertainment beat. Read full biography Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Winnipeg Free Press
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
After a year off, Indigenous film festival ImagineNative returns for 25th anniversary
TORONTO – After taking a year off, organizers at the country's most prominent Indigenous film festival say they are moving ahead with a belated 25th anniversary. The ImagineNative Film + Media Arts Festival opens at Toronto's TIFF Lightbox on June 3 with 'Endless Cookie,' an animated documentary about a pair of half-brothers, one Indigenous and one white. The film picked up the $50,000 audience award at Toronto's Hot Docs Festival earlier this month. An outdoor screening of the 2024 horror-comedy 'Seeds' closes the fest on June 8 at Fort York. The film is about a Mohawk social media influencer who signs a contract with a suspicious corporate seed company. ImagineNative returns after it scrapped plans for its 2024 edition, which would've marked its quarter-century anniversary. At the time, executive director Naomi Johnson said they needed more time to support the festival's growth, develop new programming ideas and themes. Winnipeg Jets Game Days On Winnipeg Jets game days, hockey writers Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe send news, notes and quotes from the morning skate, as well as injury updates and lineup decisions. Arrives a few hours prior to puck drop. The move included shifting its normally fall-based event to June to coincide with Indigenous Peoples' Month. Organizers say this year's overarching theme centres on seedkeeping and the passing down of seeds to the next generation. The 2025 edition runs from June 3 to 8 in Toronto, with an online component from June 9 to 15. Other events tied to ImagineNative this year include its industry days, which feature panels and networking events for the Indigenous community, as well as a closing awards show at the Lightbox with comedian Janelle Niles as host. ImagineNative launched in 2000 and is billed as 'the largest annual Indigenous media arts event in the world.' This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 8, 2025.
Winnipeg Free Press
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
‘Endless Cookie' wins $50,000 audience award at Hot Docs Festival
An animated documentary about the relationship between an Indigenous and white pair of half-brothers has won the top prize at this year's Hot Docs Festival. 'Endless Cookie' took home the $50,000 audience award at a ceremony on Sunday. Festival organizers described the film, directed by brothers Seth and Peter Scriver based on their own lives and families, as 'a colourful collage of animated vignettes' that explore their 'complex bond.' Other awards handed out at the festival in recent days include the $10,000 award for best Canadian feature documentary, which went to 'Agatha's Almanac,' directed by Amalie Atkins. The film portrays a 90-year-old Mennonite woman's life alone on her ancestral farm in southern Manitoba, and jurors praise it as 'poetic and playful, yet intensely political.' Meanwhile the $10,000 award for best international feature documentary went to 'I, Poppy,' Vivek Chaudhary's film about an Indian farmer's fight against corrupt officials. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 4, 2025.
Yahoo
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Always': Chinese director's beautifully poetic film about dreams, imagination and left-behind children
Reflecting on their own childhoods, director Deming Chen and producer Hansen Lin collaborated on the film Always, which had its North America premiere at the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto. The film follows Gong Youbin from age nine to thirteen, born into a poor family in rural China, but able to harness his imagination through poetry. Through exquisite cinematography, we see the evolution of Gong's young life, after his mother left when he was just three months old and he was raised by his father, had his arm amputated after an accident, and grandparents. Meanwhile, in this community in rural China, many people are moving away to find work outside of an area dependant on its agriculture. While Gong isn't specifically talking about the impact of his mother leaving, Always is able to visually translate that trauma the child can't explain. All while his family continues to hope Gong will find academic success to help get them out of poverty. As Lin explained, through a social media post from a friend, Chen saw poems written by kids, which began his journey to want explore this expression of imagination from a child's perspective. Lin and Chen met at a forum where Lin was also pitching a "left-behind children" story, but was interested in how they were able to capture very different images in the same setting of rural China. "Immediately, I fell in love with his image. I think he's a great a visual storyteller," Lin told Yahoo Canada about Chen. "We share the same background as left-behind children, so I really understand what he's trying to deliver through his language." But Chen was also quick to point out that Lin provided a lot of "emotional support" throughout the filmmaking process. While the story is incredibly compelling, the visuals are breathtaking and the visual language of the film really helps to amplify the impact of the quieter moments in this story. Chen was striving to achieve a "poetic" feeling for the audience, even when Gong stops writing. "We can remove all the poems from the film, but we still can feel all this poetic feeling exist ... in the entire film," Lin said, translating in English for Chen. "And we don't actually have a structure, a real, clear structure for the film, because we wanted to be like cinematic poems." "He was fascinated with the poem because it delivered this innocence from the kids. But the innocence is also something we as adults, we are longing for having that, in a sense." Deep in the core of the film is the idea of memories, and the concept that, as we get older, there are some memories we try to hold on to, some that linger with us as we move beyond our childhood. "We wanted to create this experience for our audience too, we want them to watch this film and it becomes a memory they can put into their own emotions, their understanding, and they come out with their own experience with passing time, when they were kids," Lin said, translating for Chen. "We're just trying to create an art form that audiences could fill in to their emotion. There's also the concept of dreams that we put in our story, because we actually are creating a collective dream for both of us, not only focused on the protagonist that we have been following for so many years, but also for the audience who came to watch our film." "So many similar things happened in our childhood," Lin added. "This is a letter to our childhood."
