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Hot Doc a Day: 'Dolphin Boy'

By Mark Wigmore (Subscribe to Mark Wigmore's posts), Posted May 2nd 2011 7:00AM
Filed under: Documentaries, Hot Docs Film Festival, Moviefone Canada


Hot Docs, North America's biggest documentary film festival, kicks off its 2011 run on April 28 in Toronto. Jam-packed with documentaries running through May 8, Moviefone Canada will be there from start to finish, offering up looks at some of the festival's noted films.

This doc takes the 'Flipper' concept to the next level. 'Dolphin Boy' is the four-year study of a teenager who's reborn thanks to the help of everyone's favorite aquatic friends. At the heart of the drama is a life-threatening conflict that lands 17-year-old Morad in the hospital. Beaten within an inch of his life over a misread text message, the young man is left for dead by his assailants. When he comes to, he can't speak, communicate, or focus on anything.

Enter Dr. Ilan Kutz. The renowned psychologist takes on this troubling case, using all the treatments in his medical toolbox that have been known to help patients suffering from Post-Traumatic Disassociation (PTD). While tests are done and drugs are prescribed, Morad's parents narrate their feelings. Both his mother and father seem distraught from a caring parent point-of-view, but it's Morad's father who views the act as more of a personal insult. He makes an on-camera vow to bring his son back from the abyss, quits his job and takes serious action.
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Hot Doc a Day: 'The Redemption of General Butt Naked'

By Mark Wigmore (Subscribe to Mark Wigmore's posts), Posted May 1st 2011 7:00AM
Filed under: Documentaries, Hot Docs Film Festival, Moviefone Canada


Hot Docs, North America's biggest documentary film festival, kicks off its 2011 run on April 28 in Toronto. Jam-packed with documentaries running through May 8, Moviefone Canada will be there from start to finish, offering up looks at some of the festival's noted films.

Every year there are few films at Hot Docs that cut through the pack. 'The Redemption of General Butt Naked' stands as one of the most memorable stories to come out of this year's festival. Despite a giggle-inducing title, there are few laughs in the film. 'The Redemption of General Butt Naked' asks the question: Can one be redeemed through faith, even in the aftermath of committing countless murders and child sacrifice?

The backdrop of this story is the Liberian civil war, a bloody battle that kept its people in fear and misery for 14 years. The most feared group on either side of the conflict was a commando unit known as the Butt Naked Brigade. Lead by Joshua Milton Blahyi, this impossibly vicious man has been attached to human sacrifice, cannibalism, black magic, devil worship, the recruitment of child soldiers and the deaths of 20,000 Liberians. The crown jewel of his mythical status was his lack of clothes when battling the masses, a practice that made him feel invisible and resistant to enemy fire.
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Hot Doc a Day: 'The Lumberfros'

By Mark Wigmore (Subscribe to Mark Wigmore's posts), Posted Apr 30th 2011 7:00AM
Filed under: Documentaries, Hot Docs Film Festival, Moviefone Canada


Hot Docs, North America's biggest documentary film festival, kicks off its 2011 run on April 28 in Toronto. Jam-packed with documentaries running through May 8, Moviefone Canada will be there from start to finish, offering up looks at some of the festival's noted films.

You've probably heard of, known, or are one of those people who take five months of the year to go tree-planting. It's one of those jobs that works its employees hard for a short amount of time. The reward is decent pay and the balance of the year to rest your weary bones.

Take a tree-planting career, put it on steroids and you have the subject of the surprisingly satisfying 'The Lumberfros.' Brush-cutting requires that you be able to wield an industrial-sized weed-whacker, endure staggering heat and fight off swarms of nasty bugs. Many attempt the gig with hopes of big money made in the romantic outdoors, and most leave with their tails between their legs.
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Hot Doc a Day: 'Wiebo's War'

By Mark Wigmore (Subscribe to Mark Wigmore's posts), Posted Apr 29th 2011 7:00AM
Filed under: Documentaries, Hot Docs Film Festival, Moviefone Canada


Hot Docs, North America's biggest documentary film festival, kicks off its 2011 run on April 28 in Toronto. Jam-packed with documentaries running through May 8, Moviefone Canada will be there from start to finish, offering up looks at some of the festival's noted films.

How much do you know about Wiebo Ludwig? If you're like me –- not much.

Here's some basics: Wiebo and his family live near the gas-rich Peace Valley region of Northern Alberta. His compound holds several families who live off the land and practice a strict religious regiment. He has a big, bushy beard. Pictures of Wiebo Ludwig have been seen in magazines, newspapers, and even on international news broadcasts due to his association with bombings and sabotage related to the oil and gas industry. Some call him an eco-hero, others a terrorist.

Other than a few curious go-getters who have actually dug into the stories of the reverend and his cult-leader status, most people have branded him a religious lunatic or zealot, and left it at that -- but as 'Wiebo's War' shows, that might not be the case.
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Hot Doc a Day: 'POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold'

By Mark Wigmore (Subscribe to Mark Wigmore's posts), Posted Apr 28th 2011 7:00AM
Filed under: Documentaries, Hot Docs Film Festival, Moviefone Canada


Hot Docs, North America's biggest documentary film festival, kicks off its 2011 run today in Toronto. Jam-packed with documentaries running through May 8, Moviefone Canada will be there from start to finish, offering up looks at some of the festival's noted films.

A movie about selling ad-space within a movie seems like a curious and potentially boring premise. But it's brought to life thanks to the hilarious personality and ambitious creativity of Morgan Spurlock, the man who brought us the experimental McDonald's doc 'Super Size Me.'

The sensational documentary filmmaker is back, and this time, with 'POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold,' he wants to play in the vast and cash-flush sandbox of advertising. More specifically, he wants to sell product placement spots in his 90-minute feature film.
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'The Girl Who Played With Fire' Director Daniel Alfredson Explains the Phenomenon

By Mark Wigmore (Subscribe to Mark Wigmore's posts), Posted Jul 8th 2010 11:11PM
Filed under: Celebrity Interviews, Summer Movies
What do you do when you're shooting a Scandinavian regional TV series, only to suddenly discover that the production needs to work as a set of internationally-distributed full-length feature films? This is the puzzle that Swedish directors Niels Arden Opleu -- and more recently, Daniel Alfredson -- faced when working on their adaptations of author Stieg Larsson's 'Millennium' trilogy. Before anyone could say 'That's a wrap!', the late author's books became worldwide best sellers, and shooting plans had to change... drastically.

"It was extremely odd and complicated," admits Alfredson, on the phone from Stockholm. Alfredson is the director of the trilogy's final two installments, 'The Girl Who Played With Fire' and 'The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest,' both of which follow the critically-acclaimed 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,' which was released earlier this year.
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'This Movie Is Broken', or Is It?

By Mark Wigmore (Subscribe to Mark Wigmore's posts), Posted Jun 24th 2010 11:48PM
Filed under: Made in Canada

Live concert meets rom-com -- that is the premise behind Canadian Bruce MacDonald's buzzed-about NXNE film. The conceit of 'This Movie is Broken' involves weaving a rom-com storyline into the songs and images from a Broken Social Scene concert. The loose script features several young Torontonians lost in love as they're trying to make it to the show. The motives and ambitions of the project have raised a collection of critical eyebrows, but just the idea of a BSS concert film has fans reeling with anticipation.

Bruce MacDonald's take on how to capture a live concert on film will certainly go down as an original concept, but will audiences respond positively? The Canadian director has experimented before with music movies, with projects like 'Roadkill', 'Robbie Robertson Road Songs', and the Canadian classic 'Hardcore Logo'.

Poised to shoot everyone's favorite interchangeable act on Toronto Island in the summer of 2009, everything about the project was uncertain. Funding, location changes, and concept concerns swirled in a hurricane of chance, and now that the storm has cleared, 'This Movie is Broken' is the documentary left to ponder.
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