‘Closer’ wins at Hot Docs
LOS ANGELES, May 3, (RTRS): Domestic detective story “The Closer We Get,” UK director Karen Guthrie’s feature bow, has won the International Feature Documentary Award at the 2015 Hot Docs festival, where it had its world premiere earlier this week. The award comes with a CAN $10,000 ($8,223) cash prize.
At Friday’s award ceremony, the special jury prize for international doc feature was presented to Ukrainian director Ostap Kostyuk’s “The Living Fire,” with an honorable mention going to US helmer Adam Lough’s “Hot Sugar’s Cold World.”
Evangelia Kranioti’s “Exotica, Erotica, Etc.” nabbed the Emerging International Filmmaker Award.
The Canadian feature documentary award went to Charles Wilkinson’s “Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World,” which looks at the lives, work and current challenges of aboriginal right activists, newcomer ecologists and islanders living on Haida Gwaii, the stunningly beautiful archipelago on Canada’s northwest coast.
Emerging
Sophie Deraspe’s “The Amina Profile” took home the special jury prize for Canadian feature doc, while Ryan Mullins’ “Chameleon” nabbed the emerging Canadian filmmaker award.
“Warriors From the North,” Danish director Soren Steen Jespersen’s inside look at Western Muslim youth who join radical groups abroad, won the mid-length documentary prize. The jury also gave an honorable mention to Adam Benzine’s “Lanzmann.”
UK director Eleanor Mortimer’s “Territory” was named best short documentary, while Sona Kocharyan and Marine Kocharyan’s “How to Cross (From Jiliz to Jiliz)” received an honorable mention.
The Lindalee Tracey Award, which goes to an emerging Canadian filmmaker with a “passionate point of view, a strong sense of social justice and a sense of humor,” was presented to Yosef Baraki and his film “Mina Walking.”
Veteran Chilean director Patricio Guzman received the festival’s 2015 outstanding achievement award. Veteran Toronto producer Anne Pick was honored with the Don Haig Award, which recognizes the creative vision an independent Canadian producer with a film in the festival.
During the confab, which unfolded this past week, Takahiro Hamano, senior producer at Japan’s NHK, was honored with the 2015 Doc Mogul Award.
The Hot Docs audience award and the list of the top 20 favorite Hot Docs films in 2015 will both be announced on May 4.
Andrew Niccol’s “Good Kill,” opening on May 15, tells the story of a Las Vegas-based US military drone pilot (Ethan Hawke) who grapples with the moral questions of increasing escalation of airstrikes via joystick, a new type of warfare that is put under greater control of the CIA.
The movie comes as new doubts are raised about the drone program following the White House’s recent announcement that two Western hostages were accidentally killed in a drone strike in Pakistan. Members of Congress and even the administration have called for the Defense Department to take the lead on the program.
Drone
“Good Kill” shows the unprecedented effectiveness and precision of drone strikes, but its focus is on the lives of the pilots, at times called to pull the trigger even when there is certainty that the casualties will include civilians in the unfortunate vicinity of terrorist targets, like a funeral of a Taleban member killed in an earlier strike. That, Niccol says, was based on real incidents.
“I’m only telling the truth, so I am only saying what is, so from that point of view, I am being as evenhanded as you can,” Niccol tells Variety’s “PopPolitics.” “As I say, this is extremely precise. It’s not like we are carpet bombing anymore. We have lowered collateral damage to the lowest. The thing is ... it depends on the intel. You can hit the house you want to hit, but you have got to make sure it is the right house.”
As CIA buzzwords like “proportionality” are used to justify the killing of presumably innocent civilians near suspected terrorists, one of the pilots (Zoe Kravitz) at one point asks, “Why are we Hamas?” Other pilots are better able to compartmentalize their duties, leaving the ethical questions to their superiors.