Urban Toronto at Hot Docs 2010

[interchange42]

Are you interested in Cities? In Architecture? In Urban Planning? Does the way we all connect with each other amidst the tall buildings and bustling streets of the places we call home endlessly fascinate you?

Sure it does: you’re a member of UrbanToronto.ca!

I ask all this because, if you haven’t paid attention to HotDocs before, you might want to take some time to discover some of the documentary films that will be flickering on Toronto screens starting a week from now.

HotDocs, North America’s largest documentary film festival, will present over 160 feature documentaries for all interests between April 29 and May 9 at cinemas throughout the core, including the Bloor, the Cumberland, the ROM theatre, the Royal, the Royal Conservatory’s new Koerner Hall, U of T’s Innis Town Hall and Isabel Bader Theatres, all starting with an opening night splash at the Winter Garden.

Over the next few days we’ll give you a preview of a number of the upcoming films that should appeal to the architect, urban planner, or social scientist in you, and you might want to run right off to hotdocs.ca now to check the films out yourself now. Today however, I want to draw your attention to a new feature of HotDocs, namely their Critical Mass Speakers Series, and one of those talks in particular.

On May 3 at 7 PM, at the Al Green Theatre in the Miles Nadal Centre at Bloor and Spadina, CBC’s mellifluously voiced Michael Enright will be interviewing Paul Goldberger, acclaimed Architecture Critic for The New Yorker and author of several books on the subject.

Paul Goldberger

In an evening that few architects, architecture students, and buffs will want to miss, Pulitzer Prize winner Goldberger will be discussing the latest trends and ideas fueling architecture: you’ll want to get your tickets soon.

You can find the box office for HotDocs in Hazelton Lanes (55 Avenue Road), or go visit hotdocs.ca for full information, and to secure your tickets online. Single Tickets are $12. Passes will get you into more films, as well as this event, for less.

42

 

[interchange42]

Hot Docs 2010: Citizen Architect, Small Wonders, Neighbours

Today, three films at HotDocs which may be of interest to UrbanToronto members:

CITIZEN ARCHITECT: SAMUEL MOCKBEE AND THE SPIRIT OF THE RURAL STUDIO

Citizen Architect chronicles the work of the Rural Studio, an outreach of Auburn University’s school of architecture, in rural Alabama... and I have no hesitation is saying that every architect, architecture student, and every amateur architectural philosopher and enthusiast here on UrbanToronto would really enjoy a viewing of this engaging film.

The late Samuel Mockbee was an idealistic Mississippi architect, full of ideas but short on commissions, who left his practice to teach at the University of Auburn. Once there he created a field course in designing and building for poor families and needy communities in the most impoverished corners of rural Alabama. The resultant small projects are remarkable for their imaginative and inexpensive solutions, and their attention to the needs of the individuals who will live, work, and play in them. The rural Alabamans themselves, like Music Man, pictured above at right, are a fun, colourful bunch too, and add much to the film.

Featuring interviews with both Cameron Sinclair, co-founder of Architecture for Humanity, and de-constructivist architect cum Yale architecture prof Peter Eisenmann, a pair who represent two opposing ends of the social spectrum, Citizen Architect presents us with a unique set of projects to enjoy, and a unique architectural philosophy to consider.

Highly recommended.


SMALL WONDERS

For anyone who loves Mom-and-Pop shops, or for anyone who wonders how small, independent stores get by in a modern world that tends to shop big box and mass market, Small Wonders is an open window into that world, and a quiet paean to it.

Director Tally Abecassis’s Montreal based film was shot over the course of a decade in a local hardware store (above), a watch repair shop, and a portrait studio. The film is paced at a relaxed speed, gradually revealing the work and lives of our three quirky, and oddly endearing small business owners, creating intimate portraits of them as they fight to hold off big box encroachment in particular and the march of time in general.

Will small independent stores survive? Small Wonders gives the viewer some material with which to better to mull over that question.


NEIGHBOURS

From my POV, Neighbours is not a good title: it tells you next to nothing, and to me sounded like it was something either entirely more Middle-America, or possibly an English sitcom. This film is neither however, for Neighbours takes place in Cairo’s plush downtown neighbourhood called Garden City, built in the 1920s to rival the best neighbourhoods of London and Paris. Garden City’s mansions are now dwindling in number thanks to tall new apartment blocks, the fortification of the American embassy in the heart of the district, and changing social conditions in Egypt. The film interviews 30 locals from all walks of life and economic strata; from the Egyptian upper class to the lower, from French expats to English diplomats, from Syrian refugees to the American Ambassador. Neighbours starts by mostly focusing on Garden City’s early 20th century glory, and then moves on to present day troubles and concerns for the neighbourhood's future.

Those who spend their time considering how cities work would do well to get a ticket for Neighbours. With so much going on here - Egypt’s changing sociological, economic, and religious times, alternately cherished and reviled memories of its colonial past, the pressures of urban intensification, the intrusion of fortress America - the film is a fascinating study of a beautiful but embattled urban neighbourhood and its people.

Follow this link to HotDoc's schedule to get up-to-date times and ticketing information for these films!

42

 

[interchange42]

Another film to consider at HotDocs this year:

LISTEN TO THIS

A quick description of Listen To This would not make it obvious why UrbanToronto is previewing this film - a new public school music program helps disadvantaged children break out of their shells - but adding a couple of details explains it nicely. The charming Listen To This is very Toronto in fact, as the school in question is Firgrove, near Jane and Finch, so it serves the very diverse, somewhat impoverished, and sometimes troubled community.

As the film beings, four professional musicians have come to Firgrove to lead a course that will give kids the confidence to open up and express themselves musically, and find that inner artist, if one lurks inside them. A number of the kids do respond to the stimuli: Donta, Jasmine, and Whitney each travel their own path as they learn to deal with the pressure of opening themselves to the scrutiny of their peers, their teachers, and their family. None want to disappoint, nor be made fun of, and not all of the kids are ready for the attention. For some though, this musical adventure may be their ticket to a better future.

Having seen the film, I think I have a better feel for what it is like to grow up in Jane-Finch now, and have a better understanding of the situation that many parents and children find themselves in when everyday is a scramble to get food on the dinner table. Teachers in this area too have more to deal with in making sure these financially disadvantaged kids still get a good education. I would not have considered myself insensitive to situations like this before, but I certainly appreciated this film for better informing me about a part of the city that we only really hear about when something bad happens. Not only does something good happen at Jane-Finch in this case, it’s positively heartwarming in fact.

That leads to this, a not so secret joy of attending festivals like HotDocs: if you have developed a crush on, or, hmm, to re-state, have come to admire the subjects of a documentary, sometimes you have the opportunity to meet them, or at least cheer for them, as they are often in attendance for the premiere, and are normally introduced during the Q&A session that invariably follows. The premiere of Listen To This would be the perfect occasion to bring the elementary school-age stars, (it would be a cruel trick to rob them of a chance to meet their cinema audience), as this is already one of those times I know I want to stand and applaud.

Follow this link to HotDoc's schedule to get up-to-date times and ticketing information for these films!

42

 

[interchange42]

DISORDER

Cops raid a store illegally dealing in bear paws. The owner runs off, and customers loot the shelves.
A cockroach is reported floating in a noodle soup. The health inspector doesn’t seem sure it came from the restaurant’s kitchen.
A man lies on the street, pinned by a car, but the driver who hit him is convinced the victim is exaggerating his injuries.
Shoppers leave a market by crossing by busy street where another shopper has just been run over and killed. Meanwhile, there’s a pedestrian bridge scant metres away.

It’s not Toronto. Could this happen anywhere in the West? Is China’s modernization happening faster than it can cope with?

Over 58 minutes, the fascinating Disorder weaves together 20 scenes of a city gone mad: traffic chaos, bizarre behaviour, criminal acts, natural disaster, civil unrest, the aftermath of crazy accidents, all in an unnamed Chinese city experiencing severe growing pains. Weikai Huang deftly edits together so many absurd situations caught on camera, it beggars the imagination... but it’s all real, and a proof of the axiom of truth being stranger than fiction. Taken together, the incidents build to a dystopian onslaught of mind-numbing proportions. Wow. Forget silly disaster films like 2012: Disorder is the real urban dystopia thing. Amazing.Showing together: OUR HOUSE and ARCHITECTURE OF HOME

An interesting double-bill: not for everyone, but if you’re in the right mood, then you are in for some surprises with this pair.

OUR HOUSE

What happens when homeless hippie punk Christian vegans (not sure about the order of qualifiers there) move into an abandoned building in Brooklyn? Our House examines an unorthodox home for unlikely rebels and the recently marginalized, the community they create, and how things change when their shelter is demolished to make way for a new condo.

This film is not exactly what one would expect when one first thinks “homeless squat”; if you have preconceived notions about the kind of people who take over abandoned buildings, Our House will likely challenge those.

ARCHITECTURE OF HOME

Residents of an apartment block in Reykjavik wax eloquent about what it means to live in their complex, built in 1937 after a 1929 order to improve conditions for the working class. The building is a classic now, and everyone seems obsessed with restoring it to original fittings... except for the electrical.

The residents are all quietly eccentric, down to the kids, and we are treated with a half hour of quirky insights into the Icelandic psyche.

42

 

[interchange42]

So far it’s been relatively smooth sailing, several days of positive reviews, positive to one degree or another. Today, however, it’s time to do a little spring cleaning.

A DIFFERENT PATH

Are you sleep deprived? Are you concerned that most films are too easy to watch? Is life too hectic, and you’d prefer to be bored out of your mind for an hour and a half? If so, A Different Path may be your ticket to a pleasant snooze in an air conditioned cinema. This film follows, in a sketchy, unfocused and rambling way, the attempts of a group of seniors in suburban Seattle to get a sidewalk on their street so that they aren’t killed by speeding cars, attempts by a Toronto cycling activist to get more bike lanes on streets, and attempts by a New Yorker to commute by kayak... all terribly worthy causes.

So why make a film that’s so hard to watch? The filming here is mostly dark; light often flickers on and off.
So why make a film that’s so deathly dull? Low-Fi voiceovers go on and on; visuals are endlessly arty.
And then, why program it at a festival? It just allows a filmmaker’s bad ideas to run amok, possibly infecting festival audiences across the world.
If you go see this thing, bring along a selection of innoculants to administer to yourself.

And then there's this gem:

PARKING LOT MOVIE

I really wanted to like this film. I was very impressed to see that it would be shown on the top deck of the Cumberland parking garage in Yorkville - what an amazing venue! On a nice night, it could be the ultimate urban movie experience! Too bad the people interviewed in this film are such self-satisfied jerks.

Here’s the premise: a parking lot in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia, is the centre of the universe. Charolttesville is home to the University of Virginia, and as such has a ready-made supply of philosopher types in need of part-time jobs, whom the parking lot owner has sought out over the years to man his booth. They are an eclectic bunch, and some might even be fun to have a friends; the problem is that they spend the entire film talking about how great they all are, and how awful the people who patronize the lot are. The whole damn film.

At the end of the film we are treated to a where-are-they-now montage, the type you get at the end of an Oceans 11/12/13 flick, it’s just this list runs to all 20 of the attendants. I don’t care where any of them are.

Think twice about these two films!

 

[interchange42]

Okay, so it’s opening day for HotDocs, with 10 days of films ahead of me, and you couldn’t find me in a happier natural state. I have grabbed a seat in one of the mezzanine boxes at the Winter Garden theatre, a spot that everyone thinks has a lousy view, so I have it all to myself. Yeah the screen is at a bit of an angle from here, but your brain soon works it all out and you just let yourself fall into the film. Besides, the high backed chair is very comfortable to type in until the lights go down, and I am not bothering anyone, so all is well in the world. (Why can’t all HotDocs films screen in this wonderful days-gone-by theatre, festooned with branches and leaves and patio lanterns? If you have never been in the Winter Garden, find an excuse to see it.)

Babies are on order for the evening... or actually BABIES is on the order, this years’ opening film. Now Babies is not really an UrbanToronto type of film title, but we are here to kick off the festival, and besides there’s more to life than skyscrapers and architecture and subways, even if the rest of it’s not really that important...

Tonight French director Thomas Balmès brings us his third feature film, one which he considers very experimental: Babies is virtually narrative free, and focuses on the first year-or-so of life for four children, one born in San Francisco, one in Tokyo, one on the Mongolia Steepe, and one in the Namibian desert. Now it probably all sounds cutesy-poo, and it certainly could have been, but instead Babies is utterly charming and sweet, but without mawkishness of any sort. It’s kind of, uh, elemental, life at its most unaffected, shot with a mostly static camera which waits for moments of revelation, or joy, or the occasional brief terror, to spread across its young subjects' faces.

Babies jumps back and forth from continent to continent and culture to culture as developmental milestones occur. This emphasizes both the universality of our shared humanity, and the particular traits of our distinct cultures. It’s one of those films that makes you wonder why no-one has done this before, it seems so obvious.

Anyway, I don’t expect that this is going to be huge with the UT crowd, but it just might become a touchstone film of a sort. Nobody needs to do this one again: Balmès has got this just right.

Babies repeats only today, Friday, at 1:45 PM at the Isabel Bader Theatre, and if you’re not in the rush line now, you’re probably not going to get in, but it will be opening at regular theatres as of Friday, May 7th, so if you are interested, you do not have long to wait.



Besides the new, every year HotDocs pulls out some of the best films of past festivals or previous Doc Soup screenings for another showing. This year’s golden oldies, which are normally criminally under-attended, are grouped as RIPPING REALITY: Essentials From Documentary’s New Wave. I have seen a number of the selection over the years, so I can make some recommendations:

The first to screen from this series is TARNATION, Jonathan Caouette’s spellbinding 2003 experimental memoir of his tortured childhood and challenging day-to-day, blending old photos, home movies, and reenactments to paint a picture of a lost and longing soul in a damaged world. Jonathan’s schizophrenic mother is the lynchpin of dysfunction in his life, and her overdose on lithium sets the stage for an incredible examination of Jonathan’s life. If you have not seen this film, then you have never seen anything like it. Rather perfectly, Tarnation has been programmed at the Bloor Theatre only tonight, Friday April 30th, at 11:30 PM.

42

 

[interchange42]

Spending ten or eleven days in a row in and out of cinemas is, as festival going audiences have come to know, a pretty great way to spend ones time, when possible. Depending on how happy-go-lucky one is about a which films one sees, a festival goer can make their picks that day and take what’s available, or one can start planning and reading a week, or weeks in advance, and have it all locked in before the event has even started. Owing to the popularity of TIFF now, one pretty much has to go the latter route: plan ahead or perish in rush lines. The growing audience for HotDocs is pushing it in that direction too, although tickets for daytime screenings (for those who have the time off) can still normally be obtained the day of.

Neither planning ahead nor spur-o-the-moment guarantees a perfect festival: if you are seeing 20, 30, or 40 films, you are always going to end up at some duds, but with the calibre of festival we have with both TIFF and HotDocs, the duds are the exceptions at least.

No prizes for guessing that tonight I ended up at a dud. A friend programmed it after reading up on it a couple of weeks ago; the programme guide said it was beautiful. And the guide was right, for the most part the visuals were beautiful. Too bad the guide did not mention the narrative was utterly incoherent: 72 minutes of disjointed musings can feel like forever. I do have a day to warn others prior to a second screening though, so General Orders No. 9 would be best avoided by all but the most hardcore rambling-film-lover.

DISCO AND ATOMIC WAR

Far better tonight was Disco and Atomic War, a film made by an Estonian who looks back to his youth, when Soviets ruled his country, and everyone in Tallinn covertly watched Finnish TV as a way to learn about the world that had been fenced off from them by their masters. Made for a home audience, the film occasionally assumes the audience will already be fully versed on the majority of the events of recent Soviet-Estonian history, so it may give too short shrift to some events for all to be understood by audiences not so well versed, but nevertheless Disco is a captivating assemblage of period footage and contemporary reenactments. The Disco of the title refers to one of the delights of western television that Tallinninites (sp?) availed themselves of that those in the Soviet union who were beyond the reach of Helsinki’s television signals were doing without. The American shows Dallas and Knight Rider also loomed large in the lives of the covert TV watchers of the time, and much of the film is spent explaining the their influence in helping to end the communist regime in Moscow.

Dallas brought about the end of the previous world order? Who knew?!

The problem with me having made a last minute decision to see this film was that now I only have minutes left to me to get the word out about the second screening: today, Saturday May 1st, at the Cumberland 2, at 2 PM.

So there you go: if you’re reading this soon enough, you have a chance to see it.

Yesterday I mentioned that HotDocs was bringing back some golden oldies: three of those play Saturday. Of the three, Spellbound and American Movie are fairly well known, so the less well known third film is the best one for me to write about.

CZECH DREAM

Czech Dream, a.k.a. Cesky Sen, really impressed me for its audacious hoax when it debuted at Doc Soup in 2004.

A couple of Czech film students have something to say about their country’s rush to consumerism in the time since the wall fell in 1989. Everything seems to be about what you own now, and Czechs, who were for so long deprived of the Western material cornucopia, are in a headlong ask-no-questions rush to have it all now. To explore whether or not all of this is healthy, the filmmakers devise an elaborate marketing plan for a new hypermarket, and mount an aggressive advertising campaign promising unbelievable bargains for all, that culminates in a grand opening in Prague’s western suburbs...

It’s just that the store doesn’t exist. Will the horde that has shown up for the bargains get the message? Will they get the joke? And how will the Czech populace feel about it all when it comes out that this hoax was taxpayer funded? It’s a pretty amazing film, this. Run don’t walk, Czech Dream screens at the Isabel Bader Theatre at 11:30 AM.

42

 

[urbandreamer]

I have a proposal for a 2012 hot docs entry: "Urban Toronto: A Look into the past decade's most addictive forum" featuring the characters of UT, particularly the core group of the first few hundred members.

Anyone have access to a camera and funds and/or gov't grant writing experience? I'll write the script.

It would be quite successful--by 2012 UT should have at least 10,000 members. So charge each member $10 and you raise enough to cover the cost of filming and make a tidy profit.

 

[interchange42]

It was great to see a full theatre last night at the UofT's Innis Town Hall for Citizen Architect: Samuel Mockbee and the Spirit of the Rural Studio, the first HotDocs film I previewed this year, up in post #2 above. It would also be great to know if any among the crowd were UrbanToronto members, so, if you were there, please weigh-in and post your thoughts about the film in this thread!

A good (and all-too-brief) Q&A session followed the film. Director Sam Wainwright Douglas turned out to be an interesting character himself, and it was great to have Jay Sanders of the Rural Studio, (and a solid presence in the the film) there too. I never want to divulge too much about a film in my previews, so if I helped cement your interest in seeing the film, I suspect you found that there was much more to it once it proceeded, and I suspect Citizen Architect will spur some water cooler talk in TO architecture offices this week. It screens again on Tuesday at 2 PM at the ROM.

42

 

[urbandreamer]

I can't ever get myself to go to these festivals, as I hate crowds.... The Bloor Cinema was packed with so many people this afternoon, massive line ups. I am too impatient to deal with crowds. Now, writing and directing a hot doc about UT? Yeah, I could do that.

 

[interchange42]

Just a reminder that tonight's the night to catch Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Goldberger in conversation with the CBC's Michael Enright. Tickets are still available (as of writing time) at the link below:

Paul Goldberger, May 3 at 7 PM, at the Al Green Theatre, Miles Nadal Centre at Bloor and Spadina, in coversation with the CBC’s Michael Enright, acclaimed Architecture Critic for The New Yorker and author of several books on the subject.

Paul Goldberger

42

 

[interchange42]

Tuesday at HotDocs brings another chance to see the very worthwhile Citizen Architect: Samuel Mockbee and the Spirit of the Rural Studio, playing this time at the ROM theatre at 2 PM. This film has gone Rush Only (I hope we have helped with that!), but there are always some rush tickets, so if you have the time...

In the evening, consider the amazing urban dystopia flick Disorder, also reviewed above. It plays at the U of T's Innis Town Hall theatre at 9:15 PM. Same Day tickets will be available at the Innis Town Hall box office until they are sold out, after which Rush Line tickets will still be availble.

Those are just the urban issue and architecture related movies of the day of course: many more films of high quality with show throughout the day. One that looks particularly promising to me is Marwelcol, about a man who recovers from a vicious beating by building a miniature World War II era town in his back yard. He populates the sets with dolls representing his friends, his family, and even his attackers, in an attempt to heal his psychic wounds. Meanwhile, the work that Mark Hogancamp puts into his meticulous sets, turns him into an instant local celebrity It sounds fascinating.

THE PEOPLE VS. GEORGE LUCAS

One more option, if you are a night owl, that I can attest to being excellent, is The People Vs. George Lucas, which examines the fan phenomenon supporting the Star Wars universe... and criticizing it whenever George Lucas wanders off course. You know how you feel about JarJar Binks: meet hundreds of others who share your view. The People is a very comprehensive, very deftly put together, and a very cathartic experience for anyone who both enjoy all things Star Wars, but also feel that sometimes George Lucas has taken them for a ride.

Tuesday's screening of The People Vs. George Lucas will take place at the Bloor Cinema at 11:45 PM. It promises to be rowdy, and a pile of fun!

42

 

[interchange42]

Were any UTers at the Paul Goldberger talk on Monday evening? Were you as disappointed as I was with Michael Enright's questions? Obviously he had prepared by reading a number of Goldberger's works, but his subsequent questions were often vague, they often garbled urban planning issues with architectural ones, and they were often uninformed about Toronto issues. By being uninformed, he may have represented the average Torontonian's take on problems such as the slow progress of the Bloor Street makeover, but as the facilitator of the evening, I do not want someone who just perpetuates misinformation.

Goldberger himself was quite interesting to listen to, but I got the feeling that better questions would have led to even more interesting answers.

For the record, Goldberger on local landmarks:

ROM: okay, not great. works better than Libeskind's similar Denver Art Museum, as our Museum's 3D objects do not depend so much on straight walls to dsiplay them. wishes the level of finish inside was better

AGO: had less expectations because it was mostly a redo, but was very impressed by Gehry's ability to fix problems with the old building, to unify, and to bring excitement to it all with new work

OCAD: very impressed with its presence (this is also Michael Enright's favourite new cultural building in the city)

4SCFTPA: finds the exterior utilitarian, but that leads to delight when attendees discover how wonderful both the public space and the hall are inside

RCM: Goldberger LOVES the Conservatory's expansion, especially Koerner Hall; this is his favourite new cultural jewel in Toronto

42