This week and all month we honor and celebrate the LGBT community with extraordinary stories from around the world about remarkable people. In Darling! The Pieter-Dirk Uys Story, see what one AIDS activist is doing to transform South African Society. In Harsh Beauty feel the love among eunuch's who struggle for acceptance in Indian society. Then in Super Amigos, see how a real life super hero fights for the rights of LGBT citizens in Mexico City. And don't miss our feature premiere of Artemisia, the story of a Taiwanese widow who comes to terms with her son's homosexuality and her daughter's illegitimate, mixed race child.
Bro'Town 2 Episode - Zeelander
Erin Donovan |
Inevitably at the end of every big film festival I go through the same parallel Kubler-Ross process of reconciling all of my new experiences, knowledge and feelings. In one week at Hot Docs, the largest documentary film festival in North America, I've been amazed, infuriated, saddened, shocked and ultimately hopeful when I see the incredible drive, determination and creativity in this business we call show. Even as the odds seem to exponentially mount against our industry, film-makers are finding new methods and frontiers for documentary story-telling. The emotional, intellectual and physical reaches film-makers go to tell new and important stories never ceases to amaze.
One film that keeps coming to mind as I watch the screaming talking heads of cable news is Ian Old's (Occupation: Dreamland) Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi. The film recounts the story of the kidnapping of an Italian news team that ended in the negotiated release of a western journalist and the murder (by decapitation that was then broadcast on the internet) of two Afghans including 24-year-old Naqshbandi. Similar to Werner Herzog's 2005 doc Grizzly Man the film relies heavily on a wealth of informally shot footage by an American journalist who partnered with Naqshbandi six months prior. The story encapsulates the seemingly impossible road to forming a national identity facing the Afghan people.
It's Morningside Fashion Week, and one of the world's top fashion designers discovers Jeff da Maori and catapults him to international catwalk fame. New Zealand's first adult-targeted animated series, Bro'Town follows five teenagers through the "mean streets" of Auckland, New Zealand.
