Just like the old days

I was standing in line to get in to a film festival movie last night, and thought back to the lineups at TIFF or HotDocs in years gone by. I was even knitting a hat.

This festival is Doxa, a documentary fest. It happens a week or so after HotDocs in Toronto, and on the edge of the continent. I am not sure how these festivals work, but there is very little overlap in content. (Everyone here is looking forward to Yintah, which won the audience award at HotDocs.)

I was ushering, and able to watch the Zola Experience. It's the story of a woman putting on a play, but it's also the play, and the movie, and the rehearsals, so the lines between documentary and fiction are blurred. Is she really in love with him, or playing that on stage, or both? 

Another ushering shift gave me Union, which was one I had been hoping to see. It was a great story, and well told without narration or experts chiming in, but I was not as gripped as I had anticipated. The leader of the gang working to unionize is not especially likeable, and people going to work doesn't make for stunning visuals. I couldn't stay for the Q&A because I was supposed to be working, so I didn't hear the latest news. 

Yesterday I got to use two of my volunteer vouchers and saw movies back to back: The Movie Man and Années en Parenthèses 2020-2022. (You can click something on the top of that page to get English text.)

The Movie Man was the best so far! My Toronto-area friends might know of the Highlands Cinemas, a 5-screen cinema in the middle of nowheres-ville, Ontario. This movie, started before Covid messed everything up, shows us the man behind the crazy idea to build a theatre in a town of 300 people. We all love a single-minded, cat-loving guy, dealing with the unforeseen troubles we each had to deal with in our own little ways. Really fun, and of course locals should take the drive to Kinmount to watch it. 

Années en Parenthèses 2020-2022 was a mish-mash of visuals, poetry, politics from around the world, beautiful images... The director was locked down in Montreal during the pandemic, and unlike a painter or a writer, a movie-maker needs someone else to film and interact with to make a movie. So she asked friends and acquaintances from around the world to send her images or texts, and she carefully edited things down into a pretty cohesive movie. I was expecting something about Montreal, but I got Lebanon and Algeria and Portland, Oregon, Black Lives Matter, Jean-Luc Godard and more. Worth seeing. 

Today, no volunteer shifts and no movies. I am back in action tomorrow morning at 8:45 am!