Just a quick one.
I'm back from Hot Docs for about a week now and it was brilliant.
Anyone that is interested in documentary should go to check out this festival. Audiences will find some of the best documentaries in the workd playing in some of the nicest settings. Filmmakers will find just about every funder worth talking too for feature-length documentaries. The whole thing is so well organised and friendly. The Canadians are always friendly.
One particular highlight was the Toronto Documentary Forum. It's a filmmakers pitching forum watched by a room full of producers, filmmakers, funders and press. The room itself is magnificent - like an academic auditorium in University of Toronto. It all sounds so daunting writing this but it's so well set up that I could imagine pitching there wouldn't be too bad. And what an opportunity!
They have all sorts of video and reports on the Hot Docs website if you want to learn more.
www.hotdocs.ca
Showing posts with label documentary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label documentary. Show all posts
Friday, May 22, 2009
SurfWise
Right, I've never surfed in my life but I seem to be talking about surfing a lot these days and in the last two weeks I saw two surfing related things that blew my mind in.
The first:
I think it's from a BBC Documentary Series called South Pacific and it show some of the incredible things that can be done with HD Cinematography. The underwater shots are incredible and the shot of Dylan Longbottom surfing through a 12 foot monster barrell in slow-mo is just astonishing. There have been a lot of surf documentaries and I've seen a few of them - this is undoubtedly the best footage I've seen.
The second:
Is a movie called SurfWise that was on More4 last week. It was incredibly compelling. The film is about Dorian Paskowitz - it starts out telling the story of him as a young doctor who tries out a few lifestyles before deciding that the best life for him and his family is to live aboard a 24-foot campervan driving along gorgeous coastlines and surfing.
It chronicles how he has nine kids in total, none of whom go to school but all of whom become fantastic surfers and live a life as far from ordinary as you can get. The film reveals the impact of this seemingly idylic lifestyle on his kids - the ups and the consierable downs. I don't want to say too much because if you like documentaries, you just have to see this film. You need to. It is a fascinating story that reveals a lot about the human condition.
Along with Riding Giants, it just about closes the book on surfing documentaries for me. I can't imagine there will be anything to match them but you never know.
Here's the trailer:
And the website:
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