Hot Docs Film Festival
I love reading biographies and watching documentaries. I guess it’s a yearning for learning and wisdom but I think I always hope to achieve something from the experience.
The Hot Docs Film Festival takes it’s cue from Hot Docs Canada which is North America’s largest documentary festival and conference presenting more than 230 films to audiences numbering over 200,000.
This version is a much smaller scale programme which is great as you feel like you can tackle it much easier!
There is a concise printed programme which is easy to get through and it does feature some fantastic looking films with a variety of themes.
I’m instantly drawn to Orion: The Man Who Would Be King for reasons that are obvious!
The League of Exotique Dancers is a movie to knock over ageism! A tribute to some powerful women who now aged between 65 and 86 broke boundaries as burlesque dancers from the late 1950’s to the late 1970’s.They have been re-discovered and bought back for their story and an encore.
The Legacy of Frida Kahlo is an intimate look in to the much revered artist’slife when the award winning Japanese photographer Miyako Ishiuchi is invited by the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico to photograph Frida’s personal belongings -hundreds of pieces which have been locked away for 58 years and shown to the public for the first time.
The Road directed by Zanbo Zhang is a face to face look at change in China with the construction of a major new highway in Hunan Provence and all of the upheaval and distress that unfolds.
What Tomorrow Brings is a beautiful story of new beginnings when director Beth Murphy goes inside the very first girl’s school in a small Afghan Village.
Hot Docs is screening now until July the 3rd through Palace Cinemas.
Thea Basiliou
Author