Should I simply refer to the American documentary “A Photographic Memory” as rich, eerie, extensive, thorough, melancholic, uplifting and intriguing? Or might I say it is going to be remembered as one of the best Hot Docs 2024 documentaries? Considering the enormous sums I am paid to review films, the mind-boggling swag bags that flow… Read More RKS 2024 Film: Hot Docs 2024: “A Photographic Memory”
Carol Doda (1937-2015) has been recognized as the first “legal” topless dancer in the United States. Using archival footage including press interviews we trace the history of Carol Doda and perhaps of more interest the evolution of American attitudes towards sexuality and the feminist movement. The film also delves into (although not expressly) the American… Read More RKS 2024 Film: “Carol Doda: Topless at the Condor”: Artistic Exploration Sputters to Nostalgia Act
In a small Indian village Kiran, a 13-year-old, is savagely beaten and raped by three young men and then threatened with death if she tells anyone about the rape. Kiran tells her father Ranjit of the gang rape and he notifies the police. The lads are arrested and jailed. Given the prevalence of rape in… Read More RKS 2024 Film: “To Kill a Tiger”: Up for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film
Telus Originals honours Black History Month in Canada with the launch of Documentary Features “Union Street”, “Handle with Care” and two shorts “Unshook” and “Out There”. “Unshook” is a short film documentary in which 19-year-old Afro-Cuban Canadian René Osmani Diakité copes with the recent death of his African born physician father and his grandfather dying… Read More RKS 2024 Film: “Unshook”: Part of the Telus Celebration of Black History Month
On 1July1997 British rule ended in Hong Kong and its fate was handed over to the People’s Republic of China which promised democracy would live on but who believed that? And authoritarian rule gradually seeped into Hong Kong. Youth led protests to the anti-democratic manoeuvres by PRC to eliminate democracy really crystallized with promulgation of… Read More RKS 2023 Film: “Hong Kong Mixtape”: PRC’s Iron Fist Suffocates Hong Kong
“Make People Better” is documentary about genetic engineering of human embryos. Your initial reaction may be strongly against “playing God”. After the documentary you might be thinking if controlled and regulated there is a valid use for it. He Jiankui (JK) is a young Chinese biologist that had gone further than others by genetically engineering… Read More RKS Film: “Make People Better”: Toronto Hot Docs Film Festival
Seyran Ateş is a Turkish born woman who at a young age moved to Berlin. She had a strict Muslim upbringing making her feel like a prisoner. Only whores would go to movies with their friends. Women don’t read books so that was forbidden. Hating her lonely and oppressed teenage years she ran away from… Read More “Seyran Ateş: Sex Revolution and Islam”: A Courageous attempt to bring Islam into the 21st century: Toronto Hot Docs
“Untying The Knot” is a very unpleasant documentary as it applies to “partner abuse” in Bangladesh where 73% of married women are subject to abuse by their husbands. That is a shocking number but what is more shocking is that it is accepted as a social norm by many. Most women are treated as maids… Read More “Untying the Knot”: Misogynist Bangladesh Exposed
Most documentaries are enlightening but it is rare they are joyous and uplifting. “Gaza” is one of the latter. The documentary focuses on what life is like in Gaza for the Palestinians sealed in this 25-mile-long and 7-mile-wide narrow strip of land on the Mediterranean coastline bordering Egypt and Israel. Both of these countries have… Read More Toronto Hot Docs: GAZA
(TORONTO, ON) – The documentary Kusama – Infinity, written, directed, and produced by Heather Lenz, is a wonderful journey through Kusama’s early, formative, and struggling art years in Japan and New York City. The film culminates with Kusama becoming an internationally recognized contemporary, and the top selling living female, artist globally. The documentary reveals Kusama’s story through interviews with the… Read More Kusama Infinity The Documentary
Set the Bar 