Hot Docs Canada
It is huge in content and very professional in communication. The festival in Toronto gets closer as does the parallel TDF, Toronto Documentary Forum: April 30-May 10 for the festival, May 6-7 for the forum. A newsletter comes out for free with a bombardment of information, every little detail is explained.
A look at the festival programme’s competitive programme reveals the screening of the new, long awaited documentary by Peter Kerekes, ”Cooking History” that goes out in Czech cinemas just after Easter. It is such an original subject by a very original director (”66 Seasons”). Read the annotation from the catalogue, 88 minutes long is the film, shot 7 languages:
Who would have imagined that wars could also be fought with pots, pans, and pepper shakers? Military chefs have a unique, and until now, unshared influence on the battlefield. “A hungry soldier doesn’t feel safe,” explains a sausage-wielding army cook. Feeding troops is a tactical strategy used to truly astounding results in major European conflicts of the 20th century. A Russian woman’s meat blintzes provide 11 million soldiers the necessary courage to conquer in the Second World War. A Jewish prison camp breadmaker executes a plan against his Nazi captors with the only tools at his disposal. Tito’s personal chef shares the state dinner menus whose warring national cuisines foretell the Balkan War itself. By turns wry and rousing, the personal stories of history’s forgotten witnesses quietly humanize war’s unrecorded battles and their costs. Six wars, 10 recipes, and 60,361,024 dead – Cooking History is a fascinating retelling of the past. Written by Myrocia Watamaniuk.
The Hot Docs festival is rich in programme and geographical spread. The Forum is more main stream predictable in its selection with a focus on American and Canadian projects on Mumbai, Guantanamo… and Rock Hudson!
