热门文档编程负责人Shane Smith赞扬节日回到多伦多电影院时的“纪录片”
Hot Docs Programming Head Shane Smith Lauds the ‘Power of Documentary’ as Festival Returns to Toronto Cinemas
三年前，加拿大热门文档加拿大国际纪录片节吸引了近230,000名与会者到多伦多的场地。这是一场创纪录的投票率，也是一个充满希望的预兆，即使在流媒体平台日益加剧的中断之中，观众比以往任何时候都更加涌向北美最大的纪录片节。自那以后，它就没有回到电影院。最后一刻的在线枢轴在2020年，Hot Docs再次被迫去年举办虚拟节。现在，随着节日节目主任Shane Smith的第29版的帷幕，幕后承认长时间缺席后承认了紧张的案例。“我们中有些人已经有一段时间没有上台，”他告诉《综艺》。“但是，回到凹槽，重新激活肌肉记忆将是很棒的。”今年的版本不仅会提醒过去两年中发生了多少变化，而且还可以提醒人们的持续状态。像o在大流行期间被迫适应的节日，背靠背的虚拟活动使组织团队教会了一些有价值的教训，内容涉及热门文档在日益在线世界中如何发展。但这也强调了使面对面放映对热门文档社区至关重要的原因。将电影制片人与观众联系起来。”史密斯说。 “这已经在网上发生了，但是当您在电影院里获得的电力并没有发生，当电影制片人能够实时看到观众对这部电影的回应，我们能够提供帮助……开始迄今为止，迄今为止的回应超出了人们的期望：尽管对大流行旅行的警惕以及许多国际电影制片人涉及的后勤挑战，但史密斯报告说，大约90％的董事表现FHot Docs的ILMS将参加音乐节 - 这个数字几乎与流行前的出勤率一致。然而，组织者仍然被迫做出一些让步。随着世界慢慢开始从大流行中浮出水面，通常在一个国家到下一个国家 /地区，例如论坛，交易商和分销会合等行业计划，这些计划将数百名来自全球的电影制片人和决策者汇集在一起 - 几乎将在今年再次举行。“我们只是不知道该设置是什么，您如何计划与所有这些买家进行20个宣传，并且仍然有旅行限制，仍然有测试限制并且仍然有热门文档行业计划总监伊丽莎白·拉德肖（Elizabeth Radshaw）说。 “这是一个过渡年。节日将于4月28日在詹妮弗·贝希瓦尔（Jennifer Baichwal曾经是一名癌症诊断后与农业化学公司作斗争的前地面管理员。这是Baichwal在2009年的“上帝的行为”之后的第二次开放热门文档，史密斯将某件事称为“她的工作寿命的伟大证明。”这位资深程序员展示了200多个纪录片，包括63个世界和47个国际首映式 - 看到各种各样的电影制片人在过去及其对当今世界的影响，通常以截然不同的方式。他说：“我们在编程中看到的实际上是一种发掘 - 调查，发掘或挖掘事件的深刻态度，并检查过去的事件。”贾斯林·玛拉·洛佩兹（JasminMaraLópez母子离开了14岁的孩子开始新生活后，母子的关系的情感肖像。这部电影将在国际频谱竞赛部分举行全球首映。其他电影则使用广角镜来调查政治和系统性的裂缝。何塞·乔菲利（JoséJoffily）的“普通人交响乐团”在特殊演示计划中进行了国际首映式，对2002年罢免了巴西外交官的修正主义和禁止化学武器的组织负责人Josébustani，作为美国作为美国的主管游行与伊拉克战争。在世界首映的“杀害记者”中，导演马特·萨内基（Matt Sarnecki）挖掘了对斯洛伐克记者谋杀谋杀案的失败，腐败的调查。史密斯（Smith）史密斯（Smith）看到了“对系统的深入调查，周围，\u200b\u200b他归因于冠状病毒大流行的挥之不去的影响及其对我们社会的影响即。他说：“过去几年发生的算法，人们真的在看世界，并以某种方式提出问题，他们可能没有在大流行袭击我们之前。”科迪·希希（Cody Sheehy）的“使人变得更好”（如图），它讲述了中国生物物理学家消失的内部故事，他秘密地创造了第一个遗传设计的婴儿； “才华横溢的罗森伯格先生，” lurid看着由巴里·阿夫里奇（Barry Avrich）执导的臭名昭著的多伦多骗子阿尔伯特·罗森伯格（Albert Rosenberg）的故事； “百万美元的鸽子”加文·菲茨杰拉德（Gavin Fitzgerald）对竞争激烈的鸽子赛车世界的迷人介绍；以及“安静的流行病”，林赛·凯斯（Lindsay Keys）和温斯洛·克雷恩·穆尔多奇（Winslow Crane-Murdoch）对莱姆病的调查，揭示了为什么tick虫和他们所携带的疾病被允许在全球范围内传播。随后是中文伊坎纪录片人克里斯汀·乔伊（Christine Choy）探索了天安门大屠杀后不久就开始工作的纪录片的看不见的镜头。里德·达文波特（Reid Davenport）的“我没见到你在那里”，这是导演轮椅的第一人称残疾人录制的账户，该椅子赢得了帕克城获得最佳导演奖； Chase Joynt的双圣丹斯奖得主“ Framing Agnes”讲述了一个年轻的跨性别女性的故事，她在1958年开始进行性障碍研究，以寻求性别肯定的护理；罗恩·霍华德（Ron Howard）的“我们养活人民”是一本厨师和诺贝尔和平奖提名人何塞·安德烈（JoséAndrés）的编年史，以及他的工作为在灾难地区受影响的人提供健康食品。安德烈斯（Andrés）将加入音乐节与观众进行虚拟的对话。HotDocs还将为Anand Patwardhan颁发出色的成就奖，并放映在印度电影制片人40年职业生涯的整个过程中拍摄的各种纪录片。史密斯说：“他的工作的及时性令人难以置信。”帕特汉（Patwardhan）对政治分裂，宗教原教旨主义，虚假信息和男子气概的危机的探索。 “今天这些主题是如此令人难以置信的共鸣……。他真的是先知。就像2月24日俄罗斯入侵乌克兰以来，Hot Docs召集了对乌克兰电影制片人的支持，策划了一些选择乌克兰纪录片可通过音乐节的VOD平台可供加拿大观众使用，同时为乌克兰或乌克兰电影制片人制作的三部电影。其中包括Olha Zhurba的“外部”，它将在国际频谱竞赛部分进行国际首映。不仅仅是与乌克兰同事团结一致的举动 - 其中许多人在与俄罗斯人作战的前线 - 史密斯说，编程是对受众需求的回应。而且它也是基础纪录片电影在当今世界上所扮演的独特角色。“ [它]仅表示纪录片讲故事的重要性和必要性，以帮助我们向自己解释世界，向我们展示不同的观点和对世界的不同见解，”史密斯说。。在“大规模破坏性世界事件”之后，他补充说，尤其如此。“至少，人们正在寻找答案或寻找信息是有道理的。这是纪录片的力量。
Three years ago, the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival drew nearly 230,000 attendees to venues across Toronto. It was a record-breaking turnout, and a hopeful harbinger that even amid the growing disruption of streaming platforms, audiences were flocking more than ever before to North America’s largest documentary festival.
It has not returned to cinemas since.
After the coronavirus pandemic prompted a last-minute online pivot in 2020, Hot Docs was again forced to host a virtual fest last year. Now, as the curtain is set to rise on its 29th edition, the festival’s director of programming, Shane Smith, admits to a case of nerves after the long absence. “Some of us haven’t been on stage for a while,” he tells Variety. “But it’s going to be great to get back into the groove, get that muscle memory reactivated.”
This year's edition will offer a reminder not only of how much has changed in the past two years, but of what has remained constant. Like other festivals forced to adapt during the pandemic, mounting back-to-back virtual events has taught the organizing team some valuable lessons about how Hot Docs can evolve in an increasingly online world. But it has also underscored what makes in-person screenings so vital to the Hot Docs community.
“Programming the festival online, and presenting it online the last couple of years, has really shown us what we love about what we do, and that is connecting filmmakers to audiences,” says Smith. “That has happened online, but it hasn’t happened with the sort of electricity that you get in a cinema, when a filmmaker is able to see in real time the audience response to that film, and we are able to help…start a conversation between audience and filmmaker.”
The response so far has exceeded expectations: despite lingering wariness about pandemic travel, as well as the logistical challenges involved for many international filmmakers, Smith reports that roughly 90% of the directors presenting films at Hot Docs will attend the festival – a figure that’s almost in line with pre-pandemic attendance.
The organizers have nevertheless been forced to make some concessions. As the world slowly begins to emerge from the pandemic, at a pace that often varies from one country to the next, industry programs such as Forum, Dealmaker, and Distribution Rendezvous – which bring together hundreds of filmmakers and decision-makers from across the globe – will again be held virtually this year.
“We just didn’t know what the setup would be and how could you plan to have 20 pitches with all those buyers in person, and still have travel restrictions and still have testing restrictions and still have so many barriers to movement,” says Hot Docs industry program director Elizabeth Radshaw. “This is a transition year. And so to offer the greatest respect to that market [we decided] to keep it online.”
The festival opens April 28 with the world premiere of Jennifer Baichwal’s “Into the Weeds,” about a former groundskeeper who battles an agrochemical corporation after his cancer diagnosis. It’s the second time that Baichwal is opening Hot Docs, after 2009’s “Act of God,” something Smith describes as “a great testament to the longevity to her work, to her career.”
In the depth and breadth of this year’s selection – which features more than 200 documentaries, including 63 world and 47 international premieres – the veteran programmer sees a diverse range of filmmakers grappling with both the past and its impact on the world today, often in very different ways. “What we’ve seen in the programming is really a sort of excavation – a deep vein of investigation and unearthing or excavating events and examining events from the past,” he says.
Some of that work bears out in an intimate personal context, as with Jasmin Mara López’s exploration of her own sexual abuse in “Silent Beauty,” which world premieres in the festival’s Persister section, or Reed Harkness’ “Sam Now,” an emotional portrait of a mother and son’s relationship after she leaves the 14-year-old to start a new life. That film will have its world premiere in the International Spectrum competition section.
Other films use a wide-angle lens to investigate political and systemic fractures. José Joffily’s “A Symphony for a Common Man,” which has its international premiere in the Special Presentations program, offers a revisionist look at the 2002 ousting of Brazilian diplomat and head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, José Bustani, as America marched to war with Iraq. In “The Killing of a Journalist,” which world premieres in the International Spectrum, director Matt Sarnecki digs into the failed, corrupt investigation into the murder of a Slovakian journalist.
Across the program, Smith sees filmmakers pursuing a “deep investigation of the systems surrounding us,” something he attributes to the lingering influence of the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on our societies. “The reckoning that happened in the last couple of years, people are really looking at the world and asking questions in a way that they may not have been before the pandemic hit us,” he says.
Among the anticipated titles having world premieres in Toronto are Cody Sheehy’s “Make People Better” (pictured), which tells the inside story of the disappearance of the Chinese biophysicist who secretly created the first genetically designed babies; “The Talented Mr. Rosenberg,” a lurid look into the story of infamous Toronto con man Albert Rosenberg, directed by Barry Avrich; “Million Dollar Pigeons,” Gavin FitzGerald’s charming introduction to the wildly competitive world of pigeon racing; and “The Quiet Epidemic,” Lindsay Keys and Winslow Crane-Murdoch’s investigation into Lyme disease that reveals why ticks, and the diseases they carry, have been allowed to spread globally.
Notable international premieres include Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner “The Exiles,” which follows Chinese-American documentarian Christine Choy as she explores the unseen footage of a documentary she began working on soon after the Tiananmen massacre; Reid Davenport’s “I Didn’t See You There,” a first-person account of living with disability shot from the director’s wheelchair, which won the best director award in Park City; Chase Joynt’s dual Sundance prize winner “Framing Agnes,” which tells the story of a young trans woman who entered a sex disorders study in 1958 seeking gender-affirming care; and Ron Howard’s “We Feed People,” a chronicle of chef and Nobel Peace Prize nominee José Andrés and his work providing healthy food to those affected in disaster zones. Andrés will be joining the festival for a virtual conversation with audiences.
Hot Docs will also give its Outstanding Achievement Award to Anand Patwardhan and screen a selection of documentaries shot over the course of the Indian filmmaker’s prolific 40-year career. “The timeliness of [his work] is incredible,” says Smith, pointing to Patwardhan’s explorations of political division, religious fundamentalism, disinformation, and the crisis of masculinity. “These themes are just so incredibly resonant today…. He’s a seer, really. And what he’s seen in India has played out in other countries around the world.”
Like other festivals to unspool since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, Hot Docs has marshalled its resources to show support for Ukrainian filmmakers, curating a selection of Ukrainian documentaries that are available to Canadian audiences through the festival’s VOD platform, while programming three films either made in Ukraine or by Ukrainian filmmakers. Among them is “Outside,” by Olha Zhurba, which will have its international premiere in the International Spectrum competition section.
More than just an act of solidarity with Ukrainian colleagues – many of whom are on the frontlines fighting against the Russians – Smith says the programming is a response to audience demand. And it underlies, too, the unique role played by documentary film in the world today.
“[It] is just indicative of the importance and necessity of documentary storytelling in helping explain our world to ourselves, in showing us different perspectives and different insights into our world,” Smith said. That’s especially the case, he adds, in the wake of “massive disruptive world events.” “It makes sense that people are looking for answers, or looking for information, at the very least. And this is the power of documentary.”
The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival runs April 28 - May 8.
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发表于 2022-7-5 00:48:15
发表于 2023-1-4 10:48:36