Peter Wintonick
IDFA and Canadian filmmaker Peter Wintonick had a close relationship for decades. He was a hard worker and often far from home, visiting festivals around the world. In 2013, he died after a short illness. His daughter Mira was left behind with a whole lot of questions, and a box full of videotapes that Wintonick shot for his Utopia project. She resolved to investigate what sort of film he envisaged, and to complete it for him.
Maneuvers in the Dark is the story of how three young Swedish entrepreneurs manage to sneak through the backdoor of North Korea in an attempt to produce jeans in the country, and of the spiraling repercussions that follow as they begin to trade with the worlds most sealed dictatorship.
From cinema-verite; pioneers Albert Maysles and Joan Churchill to maverick movie makers like Errol Morris, Werner Herzog and Nick Broomfield, the world's best documentarians reflect upon the unique power of their genre. Capturing Reality explores the complex creative process that goes into making non-fiction films. Deftly charting the documentarian's journey, it poses the question: can film capture reality?
A non-fiction ghost story, featuring the last generation of Gaelic storytellers on Scotland's Isle of Skye.
The impact of consumer video equipment on international political activism efforts.
A documentary about direct-cinema from its very beginnings (Nanook of the North) to the fake-direct-cinema of the Blair Witch Project. All the important direct-cinema filmmakers are portrayed and/or interviewed: Leacock, Wiseman, Maysles, Pennebaker, Reisz and others.
The Street is a gritty portrait of 3 homeless men living on the streets near Guy metro in Montreal. Made over a period of 6 years, the film follows the ups and downs of these deteriorating lives and is an intense, intimate portrait of street life.
Plot details not available.
A film about the noted American linguist/political dissident and his warning about corporate media's role in modern propaganda.
Shot over eight months, often in dangerous conditions, the film chronicles the three points of an often-violent political triangle: the legal left; the illegal, armed leftists of the New People's Army; and the armed, reactionary right-wing groups operating on both sides of the law. The fascinating personalities on display include a former guerrilla leader now running for election; a rabidly right-wing radio DJ propagandizing for the death squads; and a rebel Catholic priest who shares command of the NPA. "There is (also) the puzzling dark side to Mrs. Aquino's presidency. The film captures the tragedy of the Mendiola massacre where famers were killed marching on the palace to demand land reform, and the president's confusing endorsement of the vigilante groups which have brought back the terror of the Marcos era ... A Rustling of Leaves places us in a most privileged position to hear their various rationales, to test the evidence, and to decide for ourselves" (Vancouver I.F.F.).
Peter Watkins' global look at the impact of military use of nuclear technology and people's perception of it, as well as a meditation on the inherent bias of the media, and documentaries themselves.
