The Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) continues
for a second week with rich stories featuring engaging protagonists, made by
bold filmmakers. Most of the films are festival exclusives.
The festival’s second half will showcase many women filmmakers, with
almost all of them attending the festival to answer audience questions.
In the New Perspectives section, the audience will discover first features by Emily Gan (Cavebirds) and Oksana Karpovych (Don’t Worry, the Doors Will Open), two young directors from Montreal who revisit where they come from.
Having made a strong impression at the RIDM with Maison du bonheur
in 2015, Sofia Bohdanowicz is back with MS Slavic 7, a fascinating work
straddling the line between fiction and documentary. The film, which was
screened at the Berlin Festival earlier this year, explores the relationships
between family, history and literature.
On a particularly topical note, Lebanon is the site of two intimate,
filmic and political explorations by Lebanese women: a humane, lucid double
profile by Marlene Edoyan (The Sea Between Us) and a poetic essay by Nour Ouayda (One sea, 10 seas).
Meanwhile, Shengze Zhu (Present. Perfect.) and Ute Adamczewski (Status and Terrain) make brilliant use of archival footage (both historical and contemporary)
as they take the socio-political pulse of China and Germany, respectively.
Questioning justice and morality, screenings of the powerful That Which Does Not Kill (Alexe Poukine) and Conviction (Nance Ackerman, Ariella Pahlke and Teresa
MacInnes) will be followed by public debates.
Lastly, Brett Story (The Hottest August) and Sarah Christman (Swarm Season) take
original approaches to the question of climate change. The first meets ordinary
New Yorkers, while the second goes on a strange and hypnotic Hawaiian odyssey.
Closing night
The RIDM’s closing ceremony will take place on Saturday, November 23
at 7 p.m. in the Alumni Auditorium (H-110) at Concordia University, where
11 awards will be presented to the makers of the winning films in the official
selection.
The festival’s closing film is the Canadian production Drag Kids, which follows four colourful pre-teens with a shared passion:
drag-queen shows. Megan Wennberg takes a sympathetic look at their
triumphs and doubts on their quest for freedom and self-expression. The film
will be shown at 8 p.m., in the original English with French subtitles, followed
by a Q&A session with Megan Wennberg and the film’s protagonist, Queen
Lactatia.
The screening is organized in collaboration with the Institute for
Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies at McGill University and Espace
Libre. A second screening of Drag Kids will take place on
Sunday, November 24 at 3:30 p.m. at Cinéma du Parc.
After the screening, festivalgoers are invited to RIDM Headquarters, in the Cinémathèque québécoise (335 De Maisonneuve Blvd. E.)starting at 9:30 p.m. to dance the night away with the provocative and funky Big Sissy and DJ Frigid.
The
22nd annual RIDM will take place from November 14 to 24, 2019.
at the Cinémathèque québécoise, Centre Pierre-Péladeau,
Cineplex Odeon Quartier Latin,
Cinéma du Parc, Cinéma Moderne and Concordia University.
Information : www.ridm.ca / info@ridm.ca
