Oct 21, 2015

18th RIDM festival offers documentaries for days

T'CHA DUNLEVY
MONTREAL GAZETTE
October 20, 2015

The appeal of cults, an intimate portrait of Omar Khadr and conversations on an Amtrak train line are among the topics explored at the 18th Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal (RIDM), on from Nov. 12 to 22.

The annual documentary festival opens with Quebec director Pascal Sanchez’s Les vaillants, looking at life in a St-Michel housing project; and closes with Brazilian director Petra Costa and Danish director Lea Glob’s Olmo and the Seagull, an existential blend of documentary and fiction about an actor couple with a baby on the way.

Standouts in the Canadian feature competition include Montrealer Mia Donovan’s Deprogrammed, a look at what it takes to get out of a cult, using her stepbrother’s experience as a case study; Dominic Gagnon’s Of the North, a survey of YouTube-posted amateur videos showcasing cutting-edge aboriginal cinema; Danae Elon’s P.S. Jerusalem, a personal account of the Montrealer’s three-year pilgrimage back to Israel with her young family, against the wishes of her father, journalist and author Amos Elon; and Winnipeg filmmaker Isiah Medina’s experimental, philosophical collage 88:88, which garnered much buzz at Locarno and the Toronto International Film Festival this year.

http://montrealgazette.com/entertainment/movies/18th-ridm-festival-offers-documentaries-for-days

No comments: