If you missed it at Hot Docs this spring, you have another chance to walk the dystopia blocks of Baltimore in Rat Film, a documentary playing the Ted Rogers Hot Docs Cinema on Bloor at Bathurst tomorrow at 8.45 PM.

Part pest control how-to, part social science study, part apocalyptic fantasy, Theo Anthony's Rat Film looks at Baltimore through the lens of a rodent infestation, and how it is still linked to a fateful home insurance policy move in the early 1900s to classify areas of Baltimore. A little more rambling than might be good for it, but memorable nevertheless, the film is an absorbing essay on the price a city has paid for the resulting social division, and the ongoing, splintered fight to deal with the consequences. Ontario law requires that people going into the theatre be warned that they are going to see violence inflicted upon animals in the film—even if rats aren't as typically sympathetic and endearing as dogs or cats or pandas—but if fishing for rats might be as cathartic for you as it is for some of the characters in Rat Film, then you'll make it through the screening just fine.

Rat Film, image courtesy of Hot Docs

Rat Film is screening on Friday, September 22 at 8:45 PM at the Ted Rogers Hot Docs Cinema on Bloor at Bathurst.