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The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema has recently announced the Curious Minds Speaker Series, with two extensive courses aimed at providing an in-depth exploration of specifically focused cultural topics. Alongside the culinary series Food for Thought—Inside the Minds of Great Chefs, a six-part series called Toronto on Film will explore the cinematic history of a city that, despite its longtime popularity as shooting destination, has been best known for its protean imitations of more mythologized urban spaces.
Hosted by the Globe and Mail's Geoff Pevere, the two-hour seminar will take place between 10 AM and noon every Thursday, beginning on October 8th. Tickets for the course range from $40-60 (or free for select Hot Docs members), and are available via the Bloor Cinema website.
A description of each seminar—taken from the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema's official site— gives us a rundown of the events:
October 8: The City as Movie, the City as Myth
Cinema elevated cities like New York, London and Paris to mythic proportions, but Toronto remained elusive. What kept this city from dressing up and playing a fantasy version of itself?
October 15: Toronto: The Lost City
Toronto as a place to disappear has proven to be one of the most persistent identifying cinematic tropes in TO films, but what makes it a good place to get lost in?
October 22: Dressing the Strip: Toronto and Its Landmarks
Despite its lack of identifying landmarks and neighbourhoods, Toronto’s defining features have proven persistent visual references for the dreams and nightmares the city has of itself.
October 29: Coming Out: How the City of Toronto Went From Dressing Up in Drag to Playing Itself
Although often cast as a city that could be anywhere, by the 1980s Toronto stepped out in all its diverse, changing and sometimes perverse particularity.
November 5: The City Interpreted: Bruce McDonald’s Toronto
Toronto is a city that each filmmaker imagines differently, but where does the projected vision of the city meet the place itself? Legendary Toronto filmmaker Bruce McDonald (Pontypool, Hard Core Logo, The Tracey Fragments) joins us for a lively discussion.
November 12: The Non-Fiction City: Toronto’s Documentary Legacy
Toronto has a deep and rich documentary history, which is every bit as interpretive, varied, nuanced and fluctuating as the fiction movies made here. There’s no better location than the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema to explore Toronto in docs.
