Ferentari is an impoverished ghetto of Bucharest. Adi, an anthropology student, moves there to work on his thesis on manele pop music. He soaks up the local culture at a seedy bar where he meets a guide, Alberto. Alberto is a colourful character, a gregarious man with a gambling addiction and 14 years of prison […]
Tag Archives: JT
June
07
CSFF 2017: Crossing The Line
posted by Jay
Danny Lee Harris, 1984: an American track and field athlete who ran the 400-meter hurdles and won silver medals at the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. He was the guy who always finished behind Edwin Moses, a track and field phenom, known as the guy who never loses – and he never did; he had […]
June
06
CSFF 2017: Keepers of the Game
posted by Jay
High school funding for sports, and girls’ sports in particular, is on the decline, but fundraising isn’t the only issue for the members of the Salmon River High team. As the first all-Native girls’ lacrosse team in their section, they’ve got something to prove, and not just to their rivals, but to their own community […]
May
24
Inside Out 2017: Bad Girl
posted by Jay
Amy (Sara West) is a teenager, a “bad girl” who’s just returned home after some shadowy shenanigans to her adoptive parents who are willing to give her “one last chance.” They’re pretty sure she’s going to hate the new home they’ve bought in rural Australia and they’re right; she’s out the door and doing a […]
May
24
Inside Out 2017: Signature Move
posted by Jay
Zaynab is a Pakistani-American immigration lawyer who is: a) learning wrestling moves from a former pro wrestler who went by the name Jolt; and b) keeping a new relationship with Alma secret from her conservative Muslim mother who doesn’t know she’s gay. “Mothers and daughters aren’t friends in our culture,” Zaynab tells Alma. “That’s a […]
May
23
Inside Out 2017: Sebastian
posted by Jay
James Fanizza writes, directs and stars in Sebastian but does not in fact play him. He plays Alex, the guy who meets Sebastian (Alex House) and initiates a fling – this despite that he has a boyfriend, a boyfriend who just happens to be Sebastian’s cousin. They both agree to feel bad about what they’re […]
May
04
Hot Docs 2017: Hobbyhorse Revolution
posted by Jay
I was excited to see Hobbyhorse Revolution because I’d heard of, and was mystified by, ‘hobbyhorsing’ and needed to know more about it. Hobbyhorsing is a lot like the horse competitions you’re used to seeing on TV, or in Olympic events. Dressage, an equestrian sport, is the highest expression of horse training. In the events, […]
May
03
Hot Docs 2017: A Cambodian Spring
posted by Jay
Land rights are a super contentious issue in Cambodia, where the communist Khmer Rouge regime banned private property in the 1970s, destroying tonnes of land documents in the process. As a result, at least two thirds of Cambodians, most of them poor, of course, don’t have proper deeds for the land they live on. Over the […]
April
30
Hot Docs 2017: Ask The Sexpert
posted by Jay
When Dr. Mahinder Watsa was starting out his career as a doctor, he wrote a medical column in the back of a ladies’ journal. At the time, young women were dying from back-alley abortions while others committed suicide, unwilling to let their prospective husbands know they were not virgins (due to sexual abuse). Dr. Watsa […]
April
30
Hot Docs 2017: Tokyo Idols
posted by Jay
Sad-sack middle-aged men in Japan are flocking to ‘pop’ concerts performed by underage girls. These artist are called Idols, they perform in ‘girl groups,’ and to date there about 10,000 of them. They are so intoxicating that one 43-year-old man has blown his life’s savings on this “religion” that saved him from depression. They’re providing […]
April
27
Hot Docs 2017: Sunday Beauty Queen
posted by Jay
Hong Kong, like many cities around the world, benefits from the help of underpaid Filipino workers. A local domestic worker would cost $8 an hour, but a Filipina in the same role works round the clock, 6 days a week, for just $500 a month. There are strict rules for these poor workers, who aren’t […]
April
25
Hot Docs 2017: Shiners
posted by Jay
Shoe shiners: at the airport, a busy subway station, a kiosk in your local mall, even on the street corner. There they are, every day, providing a service to the people walking by. Yet this humble profession is often overlooked. Who goes into shoe shining, and why? Director Stacey Tenenbaum gives us the answers by putting […]
April
24
Hot Docs 2017: Do Donkeys Act?
posted by Jay
Did you ever have existential questions about donkeys? No? Well, move on. Or not. The truth is, you haven’t seen anything like Do Donkeys Act? It’s a documentary about donkeys, made reputedly by humans (Ashley Sabin and David Redmon), for the enjoyment of – donkeys? There are no talking head interviews in the film, very […]
December
02
Things To Come
posted by Jay
Nathalie (Isabelle Huppert) is a philosophy teacher who takes pleasure in thinking and inner life. She’s a recent empty-nester with a rocky marriage and a demanding mother. If she were to suddenly be shed of all those ‘obligations,’ would it be tragic or frankly freeing? The very plot of this movie, languid as it is, […]
December
01
Don’t Blink – Robert Frank
posted by Jay
When Robert Frank put out a book of his photographs called The Americans in 1958, it was panned by critics. They called him an angry, joyless, outsider. Today that same series of photographs is considered before its time, influential, seminal. The photos haven’t changed at all, nor the man taking them. It is only that the […]
November
30
Miss Sharon Jones!
posted by Jay
When a film includes punctuation in its title, it’s a signal that you should pay attention. The exclamation adorning Miss Sharon Jones is no anomaly. The woman is a phenom worthy of exclamation. Often called the female James Brown, you’ll notice the similarities not just in the soulful tone of her voice, but in her […]
November
28
The Seventh Fire
posted by Jay
Rob Brown takes a moment to consider his beloved Ojibwe community, and pronounces its new tradition: booze and bingo. Director Jack Pettibone Riccobono gives us plenty of cut-away shots of the things that used to feature strongly in the aboriginal culture: water, trees, and sky, but those days are gone. Today Brown’s remote Minnesotan reserve is […]
November
10
Reel Asian 2016: Mixed Match
posted by Jay
If you are facing a life-threatening disease, finding a bone marrow match for donation may be life-saving, even a cure, but as we all know, people languish on lists waiting for matches and sometimes die before they ever find one. For people of mixed race, finding that match is so much harder, akin to finding […]
October
26
Cinéfranco 2016: Made in France
posted by Jay
It starts out reasonably enough: we hear a lecture against pornography. But the words are angry, vehement, and even if we agree with the content, you can’t help but worry about the tone. Then it continues: the Internet is evil too. And so is “fraternization” – males and females hanging out together…merely looking at each […]
October
23
ImagineNATIVE 2016: Dig It If You Can
posted by Jay
This film by Kyle Bell serves as an introductory piece to Native American artist, Steven Paul Judd. Judd is a mostly self-taught man, whether it be film, Photoshop, even writing for television. The need to create drives him but his Native (Kiowa-Choctaw) ancestry is what inspires him. Growing up on a reservation, Judd had limited exposure to […]
