The Best of Hot Docs at Vancity Theatre By Adam Cook From July 7-11th we’ll be bringing some of the best of the Hot Docs International Documentary Festival to Vancouver at our own Vancity Theatre—with one very special bonus screening of a Hot Docs’ first original project, In the Name of All Canadians. But first … Continue reading
Finland’s Would-Be Boxing Hero By Adam Cook Olli Maki carried the hope of an entire nation. In 1962, the amateur turned professional boxer was poised to take on standing champ American Davey Moore, a milestone for Finnish boxing. But as Juho Kuosmanen’s wonderful film, The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki, shows us, … Continue reading
Behind Closed Doors: Frederick Wiseman’s Titicut Follies By Adam Cook On June 13th, we’re screening Frederick Wiseman’s breakthrough masterpiece Titicut Follies to honour its 50th anniversary. In the five decades following this film’s controversial release—more on that later—Wiseman has spent his prolific career peeking into American institutions, and picking them apart, but not with the … Continue reading
Land of Mine: A Different Kind of War Film By Adam Cook The most intense war-time drama since Kathryn Bigelow’s riveting Oscar-winner, The Hurt Locker, Land of Mine is a harrowing look at man’s inhumanity to man during a relatively forgotten period in Denmark after the end of WWII. Denmark’s border was filled with thousands … Continue reading
Jane Jacobs and the Cities By Adam Cook Citizen Jane: Battle for the City is an enthralling new documentary with a classic David Vs. Goliath story at its core. You may be familiar with Jane Jacobs, the civil hero who had a far-reaching influence on city planning and civic consciousness. Her vision of communal and … Continue reading
Cut Through the Stigma: An Interview with Hugh Gibson on The Stairs By Adam Cook Hugh Gibson’s award-winning documentary The Stairs deservedly joins the ranks of Canada’s finest documentaries. A humanist portrait of drug users in a harm reduction program in Regent Park in Toronto, Gibson avoids sensationalist tendencies and focuses on the people, their … Continue reading
