Hot Docs
Hot Docs Review: 'Consuming Contemporary' Shows How Culture Is Safe-Guarded by the Upper Class
Directed by Ana Aleksovska
PUBLISHED Jun 10, 2020
On the face of it, Macedonian short documentary Consuming Contemporary is about an older woman, Sunchica, enriching herself through coordin...
Hot Docs Review: 'The Chimney Swift' Shows Inhumane Labour from a Child's Perspective
Directed by Frédéric Schuld
PUBLISHED Jun 10, 2020
The Chimney Swift is simultaneously two different tales. The narration is a story gleaned from the actual accounts of adult chimney sweeps...
Hot Docs Review: 'Hoop Dreams' Filmmaker Examines the Nuances of Chicago Life in 'City So Real'
Directed by Steve James
PUBLISHED Jun 9, 2020
Laquan McDonald, a Black 17-year-old, was shot 16 times while turned away from the Chicago Police Department officer who murdered him in 20...
Hot Docs Review: 'The Painter and the Thief' Turns Crime into Art
Directed by Benjamin Ree
PUBLISHED Jun 8, 2020
Plenty of entertaining documentaries are built from being in the right place at the right time. The Painter and the Thief — a doc filled wi...
Hot Docs Review: 'The Dakota Entrapment Tapes' Approaches the True Crime Genre with Empathy
Directed by Trevor Birney
PUBLISHED Jun 3, 2020
The discovery of the body of college student Andrew Sadek in the Red River of sleepy North Dakotan town Wahpeton rightfully shocked the pop...
Hot Docs Review: 'The Earth Is Blue as an Orange' Is a Powerful Account of Art During Wartime
Directed by Iryna Tsylik
PUBLISHED Jun 3, 2020
It is the height of the Russian-Ukranian conflict in 2015, and in the small town of Krasnohorivka, the Trofymchuk family are huddled in the...
Hot Docs Review: 'The Forbidden Reel' Is an Essential Crash Course in Afghani History as Told Through Its Cinema
Directed by Ariel Nasr
PUBLISHED Jun 3, 2020
The Afghan Film Organization was, at one point in time, the last respite for the preservation of Afghanistan's rich yet underexposed cinema...
Hot Docs Review: 'Mayor' Highlights the Day-to-Day Practicalities of Palestinian Political Life
Directed by David Osit
PUBLISHED Jun 1, 2020
Few documentaries come across discussion of a Christmas tree that's politically fraught. In Mayor, director David Osit's sophomore feature,...