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The documentary Meet the Patels continues its Toronto theatrical run by opening today at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema for a week-long run. The documentary focuses on Ravi Patel, who undergoes the matchmaking process by his very traditional parents. The whole process was filmed by Ravi’s sister Geeta and turned into a romantic comedy-styled documentary. Meet …

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The documentary The Overnighters opens this Friday, November 7, 2014 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.  The film focuses on the booming oil town of Williston, North Dakota and the local Pastor Jay Reinke, who starts allowing outsiders, who come to the town looking for work, to stay in the church.  The Overnighters is directed by …

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Here are my brief thoughts on the four short documentaries I saw during Hot Docs: Love YaScreening with Mugshot, this short consisted of a split screen view of six couples talking about their relationship with each other.  The short was shot with an “interrotron” apparatus, originally developed by Errol Morris, so the couples saw each …

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This semi-experimental documentary features intimate confessional interviews with 50 unique individuals. Sitting in front of a blank white screen, these people talk about everything from relationships, the search for identity, family violence, depression, suicide, sexuality, mental illness, aliens, religion and death.  These interviews are accompanied by a subtle synthesized score and the occasion inclusion of …

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Winner, Best Canadian Feature Documentary Award In this follow-up to last year’s NCR: Not Criminally Responsible, director John Kastner returns to the Brockville Mental Health Centre, which is a forensic psychiatric unit, dealing with mentally ill individuals, who committed criminal acts.  Having unpredicted access to the facility, Kastner focuses on a number of patients over …

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Best known for their 1995 hit song “Common People,” British rock band Pulp stopped playing around 2001-02.  With frontman Jarvis Cocker wanting to give the band a happy ending, they reunited for a tour of the UK in 2012.  Pulp: a Film about Life, Death & Supermarkets follows the band as they prepare to play …

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Hot Docs has announced the awards for this year’s festival, which were presented yesterday Windsor Arms Hotel in Toronto. The awards were determined by four juries: The Canadian Feature Documentary Jury: Shelley Ambrose (executive director, The Walrus Foundation; publisher, The Walrus magazine), Malcolm Ingram (director, CONTINENTAL, Hot Docs 2013), Stephen Schroeder (executive director, Calgary International …

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In 2005, Scottish rock musician Edwyn Collins, best known for his 1994 hit “A Girl Like You,” suffered a serious stroke.  After waking up, Collins was only able to utter the phrases “Grace Maxwell” (his wife) and “The Possibilities are Endless.”  The Possibilities Are Endless places the audience into Collins’ mind as he recovers from …

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In this follow-up to his 2011 documentary You’ve Been Trumped, Scottish director Anthony Baxter gives an update on the fight against Donald Trump’s golf course in Aberdeenshire, while also exploring the larger issue of the wealthy 1% building golf courses on the world’s most fragile ecosystems.  Particular attention is given to the historic Croatian town …

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In May 2008, same-sex marriage became legal in California.  However, mere months later, conservative forces placed a proposition on the November ballot, which defined marriage as being between a man and a woman.  This initiative, known as “Prop 8,” passed, resulting in the banning and invalidation of same-sex marriages in the state.  The Case Against …

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Inspired by the memoir by author Poe Ballantine, Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere examines an unsolved mystery in the isolated prairie town of Chadron, Nebraska.  In the Summer of 2006, a somewhat aloof but brilliant mathematician named Dr. Steven Haataja entered the town and began teaching at the local college. A …

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From Oscar-nominated director Joe Berlinger (Paradise Lost) comes this film, which follows the 2013 trial of Boston ex-mobster James “Whitey” Bulger.  Bulger has ruled the organized crime world in Boston for over 25 years and was finally apprehended in 2011, after being on the run for 16 years, and charged with 19 counts of murder.  …

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While growing up as a first-generation Indian-American, Ravi Patel lived a double life.  At home he maintained a traditional Indian lifestyle, while in the outside world he lived as a modern American.  This included his only meaningful, yet secret, romantic relationship with a red-headed girl named Audrey.  Shamed about living this double life, Ravi breaks …

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Anyone who grew up watching the long-running children’s television series Sesame Street would likely be familiar with the show’s signature Muppet characters Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch.  However, fans of the show might not be as familiar with Caroll Spinney, the man behind the characters.  Now in his 80s, Spinney is one the last …

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Following the fall of the Soviet Union, there was growing perception that all the women from Ukraine become prostitutes.  To combat this, the feminist activist organisation FEMEN was formed.  FEMEN members perform topless protests to speak out against the patriarchy left over from Ukraine’s Soviet past.  However, when it comes to the rights of women …

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