True to its industry roots, Hot Docs continues to host meetings and symposiums for media buyers, producers and directors. This year's opening-night film will be screened at the Uptown Cinema. All other screenings take place at the Bloor or Royal Cinemas. Hot Docs by Joseph Phelan Robert Fulford recently wrote a good column about the epidemic of lying in politics, in business, and in every aspect of our private lives. The folks at Hot Docs, the Canadian International Documentary Film Festival may have been asking themselves a question like this when they picked the Best Docs for the eighth annual program.
Okay lets accept the premise.
But why should we be more interested in hard truths and unpleasant revelations. One can argue that truth, realism, and nonfiction are more authentic. With these observations in mind, MacDonald and I took a conversational walk through some of his favorites films in this year's program. Southern Comfort is a profoundly discomforting, funny, and moving film about Robert a grizzled bighearted female to male transsexual and mother of two grown boys, who in her mid 50s finds himself dying of ovarian cancer. Robert, by bringing together other transgendered people creates a true family that provides him love and support when he most needs it.