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Today is THURSDAY OCTOBER 29, 2009



RIDM 2009: Documentary fest is looking good

By LIZ FERGUSON TUE, OCT 27 2009 COMMENTS(0) THE CINÉ FILES

Filed under: documentary, Cinémathèque Québécoise, RIDM, film festivals

There was a full house today at the Cinémathèque Québécoise, where organizers of Les Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal (RIDM) presented this year’s lineup.

(In fact, many people were standing in the aisles.)
So don’t let anyone tell you there isn’t a market and an appetite for documentaries.
After we saw some brief snippets of films we were asked if we now had the desire to see more.
The answer from the gathered scribes was a resounding “Yes!”
Among those snippets were scenes from opening film Last Train Home, directed by Montrealer Lixin Fan.
China has 150 million migrant workers and during the Spring Festival, most of them want to go home to see their relatives.

The scenes in the train station are not for the claustrophobic.
War+Love in Kabul is described as a Romeo and Juliet kind of tale,
The movie H2Oil, which  has already garnered lots of attention at other film festivals, is about the human and environmental cost of the Alberta Tar sands.

And guess what? The oil industry calls the land, trees and  rivers that impedes its access to the tar sands  “overburden.”
Callous, no?
H2Oil is just one of many films in the section called ÉcoCamera.

Others look at mining, the dangers of the nuclear industry, pesticides that kill banana workers, the militarization of space, etc.
Other sections are called Camera-Stylo, Camera at the Ready and DocTape. (That last one sounds much more fun in French - it’s called Rubans Canard.
The festival runs from Nov. 11-21, at Cinémathèque Québécoise, the National Film Board, Concordia University and several other screens around town.
For more information about the festival visit www.ridm.qc.ca



Liz Ferguson