Published May 2001

Documenting the world's best and worst

As North America's largest documentary film festival Hot Docs Canadian International Film Documentary Festival has emerged in only eight years to become one of Toronto's most important cinematic events. Taking place at the Royal Theatre in Little Italy, and at Carm Bardolero's Bloor Cinema, this year's fest features nearly a dozen movies dealing with Black Diaspora and African themes.

From the festival's International Showcase Programme there's Leo Regan's 100% White (UK), where the filmmaker follows the same gang of neo-Nazi skinheads he photographed a decade earlier. What he discovers is a group of disenchanted men who try to fit into a society they so violently abused years earlier. Although their intentions seem good, the task of becoming accepted is not so easy.

Also interesting Branwen Okpako's Dirt For Dinner (Germany), the remarkable story of Sam Njankouo Meffire, the black East-German-born police officer who became a poster boy for an award-winning anti-racism advertising campaign. A former star athlete, Meffire was interviewed by celebrities and cited by ministers as example of a Black Saxon. Unfortunately, Meffire falls out with the police department, goes off on his own and eventually becomes a notorious criminal. Truth is certainly stranger than fiction.

Timna Goldstein and Hadar Kleinman's Sister-Wife (Israel) is also worth checking out. This is the disturbing tale of a group of Black-Americans who formed a religious community in Dimona, Israel. Following an ancient Hebrew text, the men are allowed to take up to seven wives. Sister-Wife follows one particular woman, Zipora, who's been married for 21 years to a man who has now decided to take a second wife, 14 years younger than his first wife. The younger woman must now live in the Zipora's home, and even though she gives birth to a child, it becomes obvious the woman feels a prisoner in her new situation. Needless to say the only person happy in this arrangement is the man.

Emanuelle Bidou's The Flowers' Beauty (France) is a new look at how political conditions in South Africa have changed the lives of the Zulu population. Bidou here focuses on a group of Zulu labourers who've migrated to Cape Town and Johannesburg in search of work, but find themselves poor and living in desolate hostels. These particular guys stay out of trouble by forming a musical band, Ubuhle Bembali (The Flowers' Beauty) and preparing for a local competition.

Quite depressing is Lalee's Kin: The Legacy of Cotton (USA) by Susan Froemke, Deborah Dickson and Albert Maysles. Set in the immensely poor Mississippi Delta, the doc centres on two issues: a black matriarch, Lalee Wallace, and a frustrated educator, Reggie Barnes. Illiterate, Lalee attempts to raise her grandchildren and great-grandchildren in a trailer while hoping to inspire some of them to go to school. On the other side, Barnes wants to improve his school district's school rating, which at the beginning of the film stands as the one of the lowest in the country. It becomes obvious that only once educationals standards are raised that people like Lalee can rise from the pits of despair. Very powerful.

From Australia comes Kate Gillick's Remembering Country, which details the government's shameful practice of removing children of mixed aboriginal descent from their families in the Northern Territories, and placing them in group homes where they were forcibly ingegratd into white society. Using archival footage from the fifties and sixties, Gillick tells the story of Harold Furber, who recounts being raised by Methodist missionaries from the age of four. The experience has left man with a deep sense of alienation and bitterness.

There are also gems to be seen in the Canadian Spectrum Programme, one of which is Isaac Isitan's Gangs, Laws on the Street, where the film crew follows 18-year-old Javelynne who, got caught in the gang wars of Montreal, drags her family - and the director - into the violent world with her. Richard Meech's In the Shadow of a Saint is also worthy in its portrait of Toronto resident Ken Wiwa, the journalist son of executed Nigerian political activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who returns his father's home to arrange for a proper funeral. It's difficult to sympathize with Wiwa who misses no opportunity to voice his frustration at being the son of such an important man, wishing everyone would leave him alone. There's a very interesting scene where Wiwa seeks the advice of Steven Biko's son on how to deal with the situation.

Rob Thompson's Journey to Little Rock: The Untold Story of Minnijean Brown Trickey is also worth seeing. Trickey was one of the Little Rock Nine, the nine black students who defied racism by attending an all-white high school in Arkansas in the 50s. A life-long social activist, Trickey moved to northern Ontario with her draft-dodging husband and raised her children in a remote farm. Although she continues her socially conscious work, she also criticizes her adopted country of Canada.

Alanis Obomsawin's Rocks at Whiskey Trench continues the award-winning filmmaker's preoccupation with the lives and struggles of Aboriginal people. This is the latest document about the events leading up to the Mohawk rebellions at Kanehsatake. Closing the fest is Bay Weyman and Luis O. Garcia's Spirits of Havana, an uneventful (if you've already seen Buena Vista Social Club) detailing of jazzists Jane Bunnett and Larry Cramer as they search for musical inspiration in Cuba.

Angela Baldassarre can be heard live on Reel Entertainment at www.2kool4radio.com

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