Around the world in 135 films
Festival highlights documentaries both foreign and local
From a man living with HIV to the rough-and-tumble gals of Montreal’s roller derby, a lively street in Mexico City, aboriginal issues, a female Tamil poet and eccentric American actor Harry Dean Stanton, the 16th Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal (RIDM) points a wide lens at our world from Nov. 13 to 24.
By the numbers, RIDM boasts 135 films from 43 countries, including a dozen international or world premières, 41 Quebec premières and 18 films by Quebec directors.
Among the entries in the international feature competition are Joaquim Pinto’s E agora? Lembrame (Portugal), an autobiographical account of a year in the life of the director, who is afflicted with HIV and hepatitis C. The film won the special jury prize and the FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics) prize at Locarno.
Jason Osder’s Let the Fire Burn (U.S.) uses archival footage to follow the rise and aggressive government dismantlement of Philadelphia’s radical African-American protest group MOVE in the mid-’80s; Indian director Sourav Sarangi’s Char … The No-Man’s Island profiles the life of young Rubel, a poor child liv- ing on Char, an eroding land mass in the river between India and Bangladesh; Gerardo Barroso Alcala and Lisa Tillinger’s Calle López is a black-and-white snapshot of a day in the life of a street in Mexico City; and Finnish filmmaker Susanna Helke’s American Vagabond details the struggles of two young gay men to find their place in society.
In the Canadian feature competition are: Alanis Obomsawin’s Hi-Ho Mistahey, about the ongoing fight for accessible education for First Nations children; Helene Klodawsky’s Come Worry With Us!, taking viewers inside the lives of Montreal musician couple Jessica Moss and Efrim Menuck (of Thee Silver Mt. Zion and Godspeed You! Black Emperor); and Dominique Gagnon’s Hoax_Canular, using amateur online videos to look at teens who spread rumours and share secrets on the Internet.
Among the films in the international short and medium-length competitions are: American director Jessica Bardsley’s 19-minute The Blazing World (U.S.), examining the root emotional causes of shoplifting among women; Oksana Buraja’s 28-minute Lisa, Go Home (Lithuania/Estonia), about the imaginary world of a girl with a troubled family life; and Dora Garcia’s 53-minute The Joycean Society (Belgium), about the animated discussions of a group of hardcore James Joyce enthusiasts.
Special presentations include: Frederick Wiseman’s At Berkeley, a four-hour look at the present and future of American university life; Rithy Panh’s L’Image manquante (Cambodia/France; winner of the Cannes Grand Prix, Un Certain Regard section), a look at the director’s childhood, which was cut short by the Khmer Rouge; Kim Longinotto’s Salma (India/U.K.; winner of the Sundance world cinema jury prize), detailing the long path to literary recognition and political power for a woman whose Muslim family kept her locked up for 25 years; and Sophie Huber’s Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction (Switzerland), observing the actor who has worked with everyone from Wim Wenders to David Lynch and Ridley Scott.
The pop-culture fringe gets nods in Maya Gallus’s Derby Crazy Love, about Montreal roller derby team New Skids on the Block; the NFB-produced My Prairie Home, about a transgender country singer; Our Vinyl Weighs a Ton, looking at L.A. indie/hip-hop label Stones Throw Records; and The Punk Singer, about Bikini Kill/Le Tigre vocalist Kathleen Hanna.
The festival also features tributes to Franco-German filmmaker Marcel Ophuls, Quebec directors Michel Brault and Arthur Lamothe, and Italy’s Yuri Ancarani; a spotlight on Harvard University’s Sensory Ethnography Lab; and a look at the Franco-Belgian TV series Strip-Tease.
The Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal runs Nov. 13 to 24. For tickets and more information, visit ridm.qc.ca.