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!

http://www.hotdocs.ca/

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Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

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