[Excerpt from a post originally made on the "Tales from the Freakpit" blog]
Okay, after a brief burst of activity it's all gone a bit quiet again. I am now in Toronto however for HotDocs 2008 (North America's largest documentary film festival) and you may remember that last year I managed some blog entries while there. No difference this year, as it gives me a chance to shelter from the sweltering heat outside.
After a combination of late-night arrival, tiredness and a sun-burn inducing baseball match I've only seen two films so far - MEMORY BOOKS and SEAVIEW.
SEAVIEW is a haunting documentary about a grave situation in Ireland where asylum seekers are being held - in many cases for years - in a former Butlins holiday camp while awaiting a decision on their fate. The contrast of their life in the camp compared with the camp's holiday-maker glory days is a stark but effective one, and the ghostly, poetic shooting style makes it all the more affecting. If all this sounds familiar to you, it's because I already saw it and reported on it when it received its Irish premiere at Stranger Than Fiction last year. It was just so good I had to see it again.
(Last year it was called MOSNEY - I spoke to one of the directors last night briefly who explained why, for reasons I won't go into here, they changed the name. But whatever it's called, it's worth seeing - as both an artistic piece of cinema and an important insight into a major human rights issue.)
Okay, after a brief burst of activity it's all gone a bit quiet again. I am now in Toronto however for HotDocs 2008 (North America's largest documentary film festival) and you may remember that last year I managed some blog entries while there. No difference this year, as it gives me a chance to shelter from the sweltering heat outside.
After a combination of late-night arrival, tiredness and a sun-burn inducing baseball match I've only seen two films so far - MEMORY BOOKS and SEAVIEW.
SEAVIEW is a haunting documentary about a grave situation in Ireland where asylum seekers are being held - in many cases for years - in a former Butlins holiday camp while awaiting a decision on their fate. The contrast of their life in the camp compared with the camp's holiday-maker glory days is a stark but effective one, and the ghostly, poetic shooting style makes it all the more affecting. If all this sounds familiar to you, it's because I already saw it and reported on it when it received its Irish premiere at Stranger Than Fiction last year. It was just so good I had to see it again.
(Last year it was called MOSNEY - I spoke to one of the directors last night briefly who explained why, for reasons I won't go into here, they changed the name. But whatever it's called, it's worth seeing - as both an artistic piece of cinema and an important insight into a major human rights issue.)
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