Hot Docs ’16: No Man is an Island

May 7, 2016Posted in2016, Authors: Bill Chambers, Belgium, Documentary, Film Festivals, Hot Docs, Hot Docs 2016
**/**** directed by Tim De Keersmaecker Hot Docs, the Canadian International Documentary Festival, runs April 28-May 8, 2016 at Toronto's Bloor Cinema. Visit the fest's official site for more details. by Bill Chambers The white sands and turquoise waters of Lampedusa, Italy's southernmost island, have attracted tourists like iron filings in the age of TripAdvisor. It's paradise found, an oasis in the Mediterranean. And it's "the door to Africa," a European outpost at which migrants dock en masse. No Man is an Island alternates between two young refugees who've established themselves there in some capacity. Omar, who fled Tunisia during…

Hot Docs ’16: Sonita

April 29, 2016Posted in2016, Authors: Bill Chambers, Documentary, Film Festivals, Germany, Hot Docs, Hot Docs 2016, Iran, Switzerland
***½/****directed by Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami Hot Docs, the Canadian International Documentary Festival, runs April 28-May 8, 2016 at Toronto's Bloor Cinema. Visit the fest's official site for more details. by Bill Chambers By coincidence or zeitgeist design, Sonita is my third consecutive Hot Doc about the disenfranchised's quest for "personhood." Here it's the titular Sonita Alizadeh, an Afghan teenager who fled the Taliban and, as the film begins, is living in a fleapit in Tehran with her sister and young niece; an unseen brother apparently resides nearby, close enough to duck in and trash her belongings while she's out. Sonita's…

Hot Docs ’16: The Pearl of Africa

April 26, 2016Posted in2016, Authors: Bill Chambers, Documentary, Film Festivals, Hot Docs, Hot Docs 2016, Sweden
***/****directed by Jonny von Wallström Hot Docs, the Canadian International Documentary Festival, runs April 28-May 8, 2016 at Toronto's Bloor Cinema. Visit the fest's official site for more details. by Bill Chambers Cleopatra Kambugu and her husband Nelson Kasaija board a train. Although the seats in their sleeping car are discouragingly narrow, Nelson consults the passenger guidelines and sure enough sex is not explicitly forbidden. It's sitcom-cute that he checks, but his impulse to do so also creates a palpable unease; the accumulation of ominous imagery at the start--a barbed-wire fence; a front door, open though not beckoning; the word…

Hot Docs ’16: Unlocking the Cage

April 26, 2016Posted in2016, Authors: Bill Chambers, Documentary, Film Festivals, Hot Docs, Hot Docs 2016
**½/****directed by Chris Hegedus and D A Pennebaker Hot Docs, the Canadian International Documentary Festival, runs April 28-May 8, 2016 at Toronto's Bloor Cinema. Visit the fest's official site for more details. by Bill Chambers As an idealistic young lawyer, Harvard law professor Steven Wise went looking for the biggest "underdog" he could possibly represent and realized that animals were it. He founded the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) to aid any and all "autonomous" wildlife in cases of abuse, but Unlocking the Cage, the latest from the prolific team of Chris Hegedus and D A Pennebaker, zeroes in on his…