Hot Docs | Through the glass, part 1
photos and text by Ray Pride
Hot Docs is North America's largest documentary festival, conference and market, and its 15th edition ran from April 17-27, with over 170 docs from Canada and around the world. Conferences, market events and the Doc Shop's a state-of-the-art video library system made for an intense 11 days on the ground. Public screenings were packed, and networking events insured an intoxicating amount of idealistic and constructive chatter even amid prevalent concerns about the future of production, exhibition and other ways to disseminate documentaries. A few faces, fixtures and glimpses of the Toronto surroundings follow.
Canada's not just another country; it's another culture, in many subtle and some very bold ways. The street food for one thing: carts dot the city, where vendors sell oversized grilled hotdogs you can garnish with several kinds of mustard, relish, olives, pickles, sauerkraut. Then there's this thing about brown gravy on fries, derived from the deadly delicacy, poutine, which also includes fresh cheese curds drooling onto the frites.
The subject of Siu Ta's "Daddy Tran: A Life In 3-D" demonstrated his remarkable 3-D photography to all; Tran's family history from Vietnam to Calgary is part of the tale, but the irrepressible Daddy Tran is a wonderful subject.
The 58-year-old Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, a pioneer of industrial music, was front man for influential bands from the 1980s, including Psychic TV and Throbbing Gristle, and is one of the figures in "Flicker," Nik Sheehan's portrait of Byron Gysin's hypnotic "dream machine" and his influence on 1960s luminaries such as William S. Burroughs, Iggy Pop, Kenneth Anger and Marianne Faithful. (Flicker won the special jury prize for Canadian feature doc.)
Karol Martesko-Fenster, from new online shorts concern Cinelan, was networking with filmmakers and shared the "Who Is Who in Digital Docland" dais with filmmakers Lance Weiler and Peter Wintonick, among others.
Peter Wintonick, director of "Manufacturing Consent," co-producer of "Be Like Others," "Doc Agora" co-founder, and a genial, knowing figure throughout the 11 days of Hot Docs.
Ray Pride is a contributing editor of Movie City News and Filmmaker and movie critic of the Chicago weekly Newcity as well as a photographer. He observes independent film at Movie City Indie; links to his work are at his own site.
Michael Jones is the film festival editor at Variety.com. 
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