Docs on the Spot

The Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) will return for its 21^st annual edition this November 8 to 18. With 157 films from 47 countries and an extensive program of discussions and free activities, the RIDM is more committed than ever to its mission of democratizing and promoting auteur documentary cinema.

The festival will present 25 world premieres, 17 North American premieres, 30 Canadian premieres and 51 Quebec premieres. With 71 films from Quebec and the rest of Canada, the RIDM stands out as an essential event for local artists. The festival is also reaffirming its goal of promoting works by women, with 81 women filmmakers (along with 77 men) in this year’s selection. 11 awards will be presented to the makers of the best films at RIDM 2018.

The RIDM is very proud to open the festival with What Walaa Wants, a Canadian film by Christy Garland and an official selection for the Canadian feature competition. It is an unforgettable portrait of a strong-willed young Palestinian woman, and a subtle observation the daily tensions experienced in Palestinian families and society. The opening feature will be preceded by the short film Printemps Now ! directed by Jean Jean as part of the Regard sur Montréal residency program.

The festival’s closing night will also focus on a singular personality, with the Canadian premiere of John McEnroe : The Realm of Perfection, a brilliant, genre-defying essay by Julien Faraut, narrated by Mathieu Amalric, which reinvents the sports documentary by exposing the essence of a camera-shy maverick athlete.

RIDM 2018 TEASER : vimeo.com/295056974

OFFICIAL COMPETITION

International feature competition

The 12 films in the international feature competition, presented by Bell Media, comprise an original reflection on today’s world, thanks to an eclectic group of approaches exploring the full range of possibilities available to documentary filmmakers.

Shadows of the past figure prominently in several of the films in this year’s selection, including readers’ letters to a feminist magazine in the 1970s, read by women of all ages in Yours in Sisterhood (Irene Lusztig); contemporary footage of Uruguay’s 1980 referendum campaign edited three decades later in Unas Preguntas (Kristina Konrad); rural China’s suppressed history, juxtaposed with young people’s hopes in Self-Portrait: Sphinx in 47 KM (Zhang Mengqi); the legacy of an Argentinian avant-garde icon in Segunda Vez (Dora García); a dialogue on cinema and politics between a young filmmaker and his estranged father, who was one of the key documenters of the Irish conflict in The Image You Missed (Donal Foreman); the persistence of the Soviet mindset in Moldova in Extinction (Salomé Lamas); or the memories of home of a young Syrian refugee in Germany in Central Airport THF (Karim Aïnouz). The pain of exile is also expressed with exceptional power in Chaos (Sara Fattahi).

At the other end of the spectrum, immersion in the present can also be a way to look to the future: through the radical redefinition of the on-screen representation of African-Americans in Hale County This Morning, This Evening (RaMell Ross); immersion in the melancholy of Taipei at night in Closing Time (Nicole Vögele); observation of the destruction of innocence in the interest of radicalization in Of Fathers and Sons (Talal Derki); and a case of not imagining a near future in which America implodes in Empty Metal (Adam Khalil and Bayley Sweitzer).

Canadian feature competition

The 13 films in the Canadian feature competition run the gamut from intimate explorations to ambitious portraits filmed around the world. For the first time, all screenings in the Canadian feature competition will be preceded by a short film produced by the Wapikoni mobile, to highlight the diversity and originality of young indigenous filmmakers.

Yuqi Kang presents a good-natured portrait of young students in a Nepalese monastery in A Little Wisdom; Danae Elon looks into the complex relationship between two sisters, one of whom has decided to live in a convent in A Sister’s Song; Nadine Gomez records the people and unique ambiance of a famous Greek neighbourhood in Exarcheia, le chant des oiseaux; Aïda Maigre-Touchet creates a close-up portrait of Haitian poet, journalist and actor Dominique Batraville in Les flâneries du voyant; Zaheed Mawani invites us to share the life of a family of Kirghiz farmers in Harvest Moon; Jennifer Alleyn takes us on a creative quest, part fiction and part documentary, with Impetus; Hind Benchekroun and Sami Mermer observe a Kurdish village in Turkey, run entirely by women after most of the men went abroad to find work in Xalko; and Catherine Hébert looks back on the career of an important but largely unknown artist in Ziva Postec. La monteuse derrière le film Shoah.

20-22 OMEGA (Thierry Loa) is a sensory experience somewhere between the worlds of Godfrey Reggio and avant-garde city symphony films, about the significance of the Anthropocene epoch; Premières armes (Jean-François Caissy) documents life in a Canadian Forces boot camp; Soleils noirs (Julien Elie) combines ambitious journalism and stunning aesthetics in its investigation of the wave of killings that has shaken Mexico for more than a decade; and Symphonie in Aquamarine (Dan Popa) invites us to ponder our relationship with the ocean, on both emotional and professional levels. The opening film, What Walaa Wants (Christy Garland), is also part of the Canadian feature competition.

International short and medium-length competition

The 14 international short and medium-length films in this year’s competition boast an impressive array of different approaches. Four of the films invite us to consider Palestine: I Signed the Petition (Mahdi Fleifel) uses a simple device (a discussion between two young Palestinians about the boycott of a Radiohead concert) as a starting point for a frank discussion of the Palestinian condition; Salarium (Sasha Litvintseva and Daniel Mann) combines geology and geopolitics in a reflection on the failure of the Promised Land; When Things Occur (Oraib Toukan) questions the impact and nature of photographs of Gaza; and Your Father Was Born 100 Years Old, and So Was the Nakba (Razan AlSalah) uses Google Street View to pay tribute to the first generation of refugees. This Shaking Keeps Me Steady (Shehrezad Maher), The Disappearance of Goya (Toni Geitani) and Gulyabani (Gürcan Keltek), use memory, fiction and experimental cinema to do justice to their respective subjects: the experience of Pakistani paramedics; the memory of the Lebanese civil war among young people who did not experience it; and the repressive acts of the Turkish government in the 1970s and 80s. Rekindled memories are also at the heart of Between My Flesh and the World’s Fingers (Talena Sanders), a film about the life and work of provocative American author Mary McLane; Our Song to War (Juanita Onzaga), a mysterious chronicle of a Colombian community haunted by the ghosts of war; and La rivière Tanier (June Balthazard), an animated portrait of a Mauritian grandmother who has lost her memory. While memory is also a problem for the loveable grandparents and Young and the Restless fans in Retour à Genoa City (Benoît Grimalt), it is a source of questions and doubts in the mesmerizing, unsettling mountaineering film 4 Years in 10 Minutes (Mladen Kovacevic), an ascent of Everest in the form of an inner journey like something out of a novel by Haruki Murakami, whose mysterious universe seems to have taken over the life of his Danish translator in Dreaming Murakami (Nitesh Anjaan). A hilarious and utterly unique work, La chanson (Tiphaine Raffier) takes us from the founding of Disneyland Paris to the formation of an ABBA tribute band, to the likely end of the world.

Canadian short and medium-length competition

The 8 films in the Canadian short and medium-length competition are a testament to the talent of our local filmmakers. Filmed in northern Chile and Argentina, Altiplano (Malena Szlam) captures, on film, the inner essence of splendidly imposing landscapes; with Interchange, Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky take an original look, at once cinematic and photographic, sociological and philosophical, at a neglected part of Montreal; Teta, Opi & Me (Tara Hakim) shows us an unusual romance, framed as a tribute to courage and nonconformity; Time Is Out of Joint (Victor Arroyo) confronts us with the horror of the violence of Mexican drug cartels; Turning Tables (Chrisann Hessing) is a portrait of a creative, highly original indigenous DJ and musician; Video Home System (Sharlene Bamboat) is a funny and original exploration of the relationship between pop culture and politics in Pakistan in the 1980s and 90s; and Zagros (Ariane Lorrain and Shahab Mihandoust) is a magnificent look at the ancient traditions of wool dying and carpet weaving in Iran.

PANORAMA

Special presentations

Legendary filmmakers, sneak previews and festival hits share top billing in our special presentations. Local works include Alexandre Chartrand’s continued observation of political upheavals in Catalonia, Avec un sourire, la révolution and Nicolas-Alexandre Tremblay and Stéphane Trottier’s touching trip to the communities of Quebec’s Basse-Côte-Nord, Les Coasters.

Among the international entries, Claire Simon and Nicolas Philibert return to the festival with Premières solitudes and De chaque instant, touching, funny and topical looks at a high school on the outskirts of Paris and a nursing school, respectively; Wang Bing’s Dead Souls is an epic, important film about the survivors of Chinese re-education camps; Sergei Loznitsa condenses the complex repercussions of the Soviet Union’s triumph over the Nazis into a single day in Victory Day; Corneliu Porumboiu presents a deadpan documentary fable about a dreamer who wants to revolutionize soccer in Infinite Football; Peter Mettler and Emma Davie go to the heart of the Wyoming wilderness in the immersive essay Becoming Animal; Ruth Beckermann brilliantly exposes the issues with one of the most scandalous presidents in Austria’s history with The Waldheim Waltz; and Robert Greene blends documentary and re-enactments as a way to explore a dark chapter in American history with Bisbee ’17.

Both have had closing films at the RIDM (2009 and 2011), and both are back with dramatically different and equally unforgettable films: Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher give us an unexpected but much-needed dose of optimism in The Gospel of Eureka, a portrait of a small town in Arkansas, while Stefano Savona’s Samouni Road immerses us in an original combination of documentary and animation, the only technique available for recounting a Palestinian tragedy.

States of the World

The States of the World section presents a selection of politically aware films. A behind-the-scenes look at Russian special forces training (Le fils by Alexander Abaturov); a meditation on the unusual routines on an Australian island where thousands of crabs live – along with detained asylum seekers (Island of the Hungry Ghosts by Gabrielle Brady); a frank portrait of young Congolese activists (Kinshasa Makambo by Dieudo Hamadi); a look at a large-scale planting initiative that leads into a reflection on biodiversity and geopolitics (Wild Relatives by Jumana Manna). Three memorable films from Quebec and Canada complete this section: filmmaker and activist Astra Taylor inspires us to think about the deep foundations of democracy in What Is Democracy?; Julien Fréchette profiles four Westerners who signed up to join Kurdish militias in the fight against the Islamic State group in Ma guerre; and Jonathan Durand reveals the forgotten story of the many Poles who where exiled after the Second World War in Memory Is Our Homeland.

Portraits

The 8 films in the Portraits section tell inspiring individual stories with universal resonance. In On Her Shoulders by Alexandria Bombach and Laila at the Bridge by Elizabeth and Gulistan Mirzaei, the cameras follow every step of two exceptional women’s brave struggle: the difficult work of political mobilization around the Yazidi people led by Nadia Murad (Nobel Peace Prize 2018) and an Afghani woman’s campaign to eradicate drug addiction in Kabul. There are more profiles of women: New Memories, a posthumous film by the late Michka Saäl, about a Toronto street photographer with a heart of gold and My Dearest Sister, a poetic and political self-portrait by Kyoka Tsukamoto. The impact of war is central to the heartbreaking The Distant Barking of Dogs by Simon Lereng Wilmont, a portrait of childhood on the front lines of the conflict in Ukraine, as well as Lost Warrior by Nasib Farah and Søren Steen Jespersen, about a neglected topic: the fate of young Muslims who are reformed Islamist fighters. Lastly, two documentaries take a rare cinematic approach: Distant Constellation by Shevaun Mizrahi is a sensitive look at a Turkish retirement home, and My Father is My Mother’s Brother by Vadym Ilkov is a surprising and unsettling portrait of a family and the artistic life.

ARTifice

The ARTifice section, exploring artistic practices of all kinds, returns after several years. On the menu this year: brilliant portraits of artists (André Forcier in Des histoires inventées by Jean-Marc E.Roy); three politically active indigenous musicians in Du teweikan à l’électro : voyage aux sources de la musique autochtone (Kim O’Bomsawin); Ensemble (Jean-Nicolas Orhon) about the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal and Yannick Nézet-Séguin); reflections on the nature of art and its commercialization in L’Apollon de Gaza (Nicolas Wadimoff), about the mysterious appearance and disappearance of an ancient statue in Gaza; The End of Fear (Barbara Visser), about the violent fate of a Barnett Newman painting; The Proposal (Jill Magid) on the problematic conservation of the legacy of Mexican architect Luis Barragán; and Stealing Rodin (Cristóbal Valenzuela) about the unlikely theft of a Rodin sculpture in Chile. The links between theatre and politics are seen from deeply moving perspectives in Antígona (Pedro González Rubio) and Srbenka (Nebojša Slijepčević). And a passionate, environment-friendly New York luthier, admired by his many clients – from Jim Jarmusch to Jamie Hince of The Kills – is the fascinating subject of Carmine Street Guitars, the latest film by Ron Mann.

The Human Animal

Since 2017, this section has explored the complex connections between people and work. With Beautiful Things, Federico Biasin and Giorgio Ferrero have made a spectacular audio-visual symphony on the life cycle of everyday objects and the solitary workers who make or dispose of them; Cynthia Choucair follows Clowns Sans Frontières and the organization’s refugee-related bureaucratic woes in Counting Tiles; Paweł Wojtasik paints an ambitious portrait of Indian workers in The End and the Means; Antoine Bourges brings documentary gravity to Fail to Appear, a fictional story about a young social worker and her ex-con client; Marta Prus observes the arduous daily life of a Russian gymnast in Over the Limit; less dramatic but just as sensitive is Christine Chevarie-Lessard’s look at the ambitions of students at the École supérieure de ballet du Québec in Point d’équilibre; and Joseph Hillel listens to some urban design stars in Rêveuses de villes, a group portrait of pioneering women architects and planners.

UXdoc

The UXdoc section continues to present interactive and virtual reality experiences, with 7 projects that have political weight as well as a fun and inspiring side. Four virtual reality works, two web projects and a distinctive video game are on the program this year. The VR projects are 310 (Mélina Desrosiers, Emily Laliberté and the girls of the 310), an immersion in the lives of teen girls in Laval Child and Youth Protection Centre; Biidaaban: First Light (Lisa Jackson, Mathew Borrett and Jam3), an eco-futuristic vision of Toronto turned Tkaronto once again; Denoise (Federico Biasin and Giorgio Ferrero), an immersive companion to the feature film Beautiful Things; Disappearance: Hong Kong Stories (Shannon Walsh), a 360° short set in three of the city’s neighbourhoods. Culte, lecteurs sous influence (Aurélie Pollet) in an interactive project built around short, animated instructional films on classic literary works; The Human Link (Sam Motazedi) is an interactive documentary website that takes users inside the challenges and hopes of people around the world. Lastly, Universal Paperclips (Frank Lantz) is a curious minimalist video game based on a simple premise: what if the automated manufacture of paper clips led to an intergalactic war?

The venue for this section, presented by the Canada Media Fund, and co-programmed with MUTEK, is located in the Raoul-Barré room at the Cinémathèque québécoise.

RETROSPECTIVES

Maria Augusta Ramos: exposing the system

Maria Augusta Ramos is a deeply committed artist and one of the most astute observers of contemporary Brazilian society. Combining an uncommonly rich analytical approach with serious cinematic talent, she is the maker of a series of exceptional films exposing the workings and long-term impact of the country’s justice system. This retrospective will be complemented by a master class given by the filmmaker.

Kazuhiro Soda: making images speak

Since 2007, Kazuhiro Soda has self-produced and directed documentaries, following very strict rules descended from the observational cinema tradition. His films, most of which are previously unseen in Montreal, are poetic and funny excursions into the often sullen everyday life of Japanese society, and its profound changes. Soda is widely recognized as the most important contemporary Japanese documentarist, and he will present a master class to accompany this retrospective.

INTERSECTIONS

Each year, the RIDM organizes numerous activities to complement its film programming. These “intersections” enhance the festival’s films and interactive projects with talks, discussions, workshops, concerts and special screenings throughout the 11 days of the festival.

Workshops

For the first time, the RIDM will host three special workshops. Fifty years after 1968, what are the issues facing documentary filmmakers when they film and think about the representation of dissident movements or conflict zones? Documenter : un travail à haut risque, La loi des images and Esthétique et analyse de la révolution invite viewers to take an inside look at how documentaries are made.

Discussions

A debate about urban planning and the role of women in the profession will follow the second screening of Rêveuses de villes.

Alongside the screening of What is democracy?, a round table discussion will bring together a group of experts for a thorough examination of the current crisis of democracy.

Special screenings

A special focus on the work of researcher, collector and creator Rick Prelinger provides insight into the unique approach of a practicing archivist and DIY filmmaker; he will reveal the heart of America through three screening sessions and a master class. A program presented in collaboration with UQAM’s labdoc.

Hosted by Matthieu Dugal, the soirée de la relève Radio-Canada will showcase eight short documentaries by up-and-coming filmmakers. An award will be presented to one of them by a jury of representatives of Radio-Canada and the documentary industry. Here’s a golden opportunity to see gems by new talents on the big screen – for free. The documentaries to be shown at the soirée de la relève Radio-Canada will be available for streaming on ICI TOU.TV for one month starting November 12.

Families are invited to two family sessions designed to introduce young children to documentaries. Each session will be followed by an educational and creative workshop. This year, we are honoured to present both sessions in collaboration with the Carrousel international du film de Rimouski.

To celebrate the 35^th anniversary of the Documentary Organization of Canada’s (DOC), the event DOC35 : a look back, a future vision will screen three landmark films for free, in the presence of their directors: Le confort et l’indifférence (Denys Arcand), Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick) and Undying Love (Helene Klodawsky).

Like last year, RIDM is again partnering with Media Queer for another special session, this time entitled Fine Local Product, a selection of archival videos from 1990 produced by women and people from of the LGBTQ2S + community.

A public listening session will be held once again. This year’s work is a Belgian audio piece called Le demi grand cœur de Michel Berger by Olivier Chevillon and Christophe Rault, preceded by the three shorts works that won the Le réel à l’écoute competition.

L’Inis will present a selection of short films from its documentary direction microprogram. The screening will be accompanied by a discussion with the filmmakers and Pierre Houle, the instructor in charge of the microprogram.

For the first time, the Lab URBANIA, a laboratory for media exploration presented by UQAM and URBANIA, will be part of the RIDM. Two episodes of the podcast Grosses têtes du crime will be presented, with the students who made them in attendance.

Musical programming

Every evening, the Beat Dox Sessions will fill the RIDM’s headquarters with live music and DJ sets. The evenings are a chance for the public and professionals to unwind together after the day’s screenings.

The program, developed by Roxanne Lemieux in partnership with well-known local music industry players like Blue Skies Turn Black, POP Montréal, M pour Montréal and CISM, will feature local talents. Everyone is invited to come out and dance with Pelada, TiKA, Lemongrab, Forever and more. There will also be a variety show, programmed by Never Apart and emceed by Peaches LePage (Jordan Arseneault) after the screening of The Gospel of Eureka.

Thanks to the RIDM’s partners

The RIDM gratefully acknowledges the support of the following institutional, primary and associate partners who are helping make the 21^st RIDM a memorable edition. Thanks to the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications, SODEC, the Secrétariat à la région métropolitaine, Telefilm Canada, the Ville de Montréal, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts de Montréal, Bell Media, Canal D, the Canada Media Fund, TV5, Télé-Québec, FACTOR, CSN, Radio-Canada, Planète+, Tourisme Montréal, the Université du Québec à Montréal, Concordia University, Post-Moderne, Studios Saint-Antoine, Desjardins, PRIM, BDO, the Cinémathèque québécoise, the Quartier des Spectacles, Candlewood Suites Montréal and auberge Pomerol.

Quebec’s only film festival dedicated to documentaries, the Montreal International Documentary Festival presents the best reality‐based films, including the works of established directors and new talents.

The 21^st annual RIDM will take place from November 8 to 18, 2018

at the Cinémathèque québécoise, Cinéma du Parc, Concordia University, Cinéplex Quartier Latin, Cinéma Moderne, Cinéma du Musée and BanQ