Festival:
The 23rd RIDM
Dates:
November 12-December 2
About:
Montreal’s well-regarded nonfiction event takes a creative approach to presenting its online lineup, highlighting a different collection of thematic sections in each of its three weeks, including a total of approx 50 feature docs – a sampling noted below.
Among the offerings:
Disrupting History
Nov 12-18
LOOKING FOR GILLES CARON
Director: Mariana Otero
A half-century after he disappeared at the age of 30, the work of acclaimed French photojournalist Gilles Caron is highlighted in an intimate and poetic historical study.
Exploring Nature
Nov 12-18
THE MAGNITUDE OF ALL THINGS
Director: Jennifer Abbott
A global, polyphonic mosaic of breathtaking images reveals indigenous peoples and activists experiencing and fighting climate change.
PIEDRA SOLA
Director: Alejandro Telémaco Tarraf
On the high plains of Argentina, a llama rancher must deal with a marauding puma in this dreamlike, mystical, image-rich tale about the human-environment relationship.
CENOTE
Director: Kaori Oda
A Japanese filmmaker explores the cenotes of Yucatán, resulting in an utterly unique audio-visual journey that re-conceives the ecological documentary.
Seeking Communities
Nov 12-18
MERRY CHRISTMAS, YIWU
Director: Mladen Kovacevic
A profile of the workers of the city of Yiwu, China who make Christmas decorations for the whole world.
Contemplating Dystopia
Nov 19-25
TENSION STRUCTURES
Director: Feargal Ward, Adrian Duncan
How do you build something that can stand up to the worst nature has to offer? A melancholy engineer travels Europe in search of the perfect structure.
ME AND THE CULT LEADER
Director: Atsushi Sakahara
A victim of the Tokyo subway sarin gas attack and the spokesman for the cult behind it embark on an unlikely road trip that becomes a gut-wrenching encounter between two solitudes.
BILE
Director: Ira A Goryainova
Using a skillfully assembled collage of medical and personal archives, this fascinating essay surveys history and cultures to reflect on social attitudes toward illness.
FREM
Director: Viera Cákanyová
An expansive and disturbing essay on Antarctica, an extreme but fragile environment that forces humility and the deconstruction of anthropocentrism.
Becoming Oneself
Nov 19-25
PRAYER FOR A LOST MITTEN
Director: Jean-François Lesage
A good-natured and affectionate meditation on loss that begins from a lost-and-found.
PASSAGE
Director: Sarah Baril Gaudet
In this gentle, poetic look at coming of age, Yoan and Gabrielle are 18 and getting ready to leave their native Témiscamingue.
Challenging Power
Nov 19-25
MOTHER-CHILD
Director: Andrea Testa
In a hospital in Argentina, where abortion is almost entirely prohibited, teenage girls confront the realities of unwanted pregnancy.
Redefining Intimacy
Nov 26-Dec 2
SOUTHERN SORCERESSES
Director: Eliane Caffé, Carla Caffé, Beto Amaral
In the heart of São Paulo, a diverse group of activists and artists document their appropriation of public space, with humor and style.
THE GROCER’S SON, THE MAYOR, THE VILLAGE, AND THE WORLD
Director: Claire Simon
A fascinating, bittersweet, and insightful behind-the-scenes look at a major cultural project, Tënk, an online platform for auteur documentaries.
Surviving Violence
Nov 26-Dec 2
WANDERING, A ROHINGYA STORY
Director: Olivier Higgins, Mélanie Carrier
The underrepresented and poetic voice of the Rohingya people, housed in a refugee camp in Bangladesh.
NIGHT SHOT
Director: Carolina Moscoso
In this powerful and brave film, a young Chilean filmmaker invents her own language to express the ongoing trauma of a rape she suffered eight years earlier.
THE BLUE HOUSE
Director: Hamedine Kane
In the heart of the Calais Jungle, a blue house and its occupant powerfully dismantle clichés about migration and migrants.
what (not) to doc 