Our Lady of Perpetual Hell

After much thought, I decided I would go down to Toronto for at least a bit of the Hot Docs film festival this year. For quite awhile, I have been trying to decide about it—not really feeling like I was in the mood for it this year, but thinking I’d regret it, later, if I didn’t make the effort. Plus, I’ve read that it can be good to not let grief stop you from doing what you enjoy even if you don’t think you feel like doing it. Apparently, chances are you’ll end up enjoying it despite everything, y’know? Now, normally, I go for the whole 10-day festival, but I decided I would just go for the first Friday-Monday (May 1-4 inclusive) this time. So I got a smaller festival ticket package than usual (10 films + I get in free to all the screenings after 11pm) and made a hotel reservation.

I really hadn’t paid much attention to the newsletters that I’d been receiving from Hot Docs over the past few weeks, so I was delighted to discover that two directors whose films were among my favourites at Hot Docs ‘07 are back this year with new films! And both of them are screening during the period when I’ll be there, hoorah! So I’ve reserved tickets for each screening.

A Hard Name is the new film by Alan Zweig–whose previous film, Lovable, I told you about a couple years ago. Based on that film, a ticket to the world premiere of A Hard Name on May 3rd was the first one I reserved.

I expect this will be very different from Lovable and its two companions in his “mirror trilogy”, Vinyl and I, Curmudgeon, however–this one’s not about himself. In fact, he doesn’t appear onscreen and I’m not sure if we will even hear him offscreen. It features interviews with eight ex-cons who talk about their lives inside and outside. I will go into this film with high expectations.

Unfortuately, I can’t find a trailer to post here. Booooo!

(Incidentally, if anyone reading this happens to have copies of Vinyl and/or I, Curmudgeon and/or Lovable, please let me know. I do have the latter, but only on VHS (!). And, seeing as I never even unpacked my VCR after I moved, the tape is little more than a paperweight.)

Objectified is the new film by Gary Hustwit–whose previous film, Helvetica, I have also told you about. This is the other screening that was important enough to me to make sure I had a ticket in advance.

Objectified is about the design–and the designers–of objects that surround us every day. Director Hustwit: ‘Objectified is a documentary about industrial design; it’s about the manufactured objects we surround ourselves with, and the people who make them. On an average day, each of us uses hundreds of objects. (Don’t believe it? Start counting: alarm clock, light switch, faucet, shampoo bottle, toothbrush, razor…) Who makes all these things, and why do they look and feel the way they do? All of these objects are “designed,” but how can good design make them, and our lives, better?'’

To be honest, though, the first film that caught my attention when I started to look through this year’s schedule was Cat Ladies. As a longtime fan of Cute With Chris, the sight of a film about “cat ladies” (the “crazy” adjective left unsaid) made me practically leap from my seat. It appears to be a relatively sympathetic portrait of four women whose cats fill some kind of emotional void in their lives. One household has only 3 cats… but another has hundreds of them.

And each one comes with a box of poo.^©

I also hope to see Necrobusiness, a film by Swedish filmmakers Richard Solarz and Fredrik von Krusenstjerna. Set in Lodz, Poland, it features feuding funeral home directors, paramedic poisoners, murderous morticians… and it sounds very blackly humourous. Right up my alley, in other words.

I can only find a trailer with its Swedish subtitles but it at least conveys the tone of the film…

Over the Hills and Far Away looks really interesting to me, too. This film, directed by Michael Orion Scott, is about a family dealing with an autistic son who they discover has an unusual bond with horses, and their horseback journey through Mongolia in search of a shaman who can successfully treat him.