NOW Magazine
Hot Docs 2021: Zo Reken, One Of Ours claim top prizes
Emanuel Licha, Yasmine Mathurin and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers won honours at the annual doc fest By Kevin Ritchie
Courtesy of Hot Docs
Emanuel Licha s Zo Reken looks at the long aftermath of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
Directors Emanuel Licha, Yasmine Mathurin and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers have won the top Canadian film awards at the 2021 Hot Docs film festival.
At a livestreamed ceremony earlier this evening, Montreal’s Licha picked up the $10,000 Best Canadian Feature Documentary Award for Zo Reken, a portrait of Haitians and aid workers in Port-au-Prince dealing with the ongoing humanitarian crisis sparked by an earthquake 11 years ago.
Hot Docs 2021 reviews: directory
Keep checking back as NOW s movie critics continue to review films throughout the festival By NOW Staff
Courtesy of Hot Docs
NOW’s film department has been busy watching selections from Hot Docs 2021’s virtual festival. Most films begin streaming on the festival’s opening day, Thursday (April 29) at 10 am. Keep checking back for more reviews. And remember a > sign indicates a critic’s pick.
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (L) and Tanya Talaga (R) share stories of their communities.
Spirit To Soar (Tanya Talaga, Michelle Derosier), 46 minutes;
Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning Of Empathy (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers), 125 minutes. Both films available Thursday (April 29) at 10 am. hotdocs.ca.
In the Hot Docs films Spirit To Soar and Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning Of Empathy, filmmakers Tanya Talaga and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers take us back to their Indigenous communities and honour the people who provide hope and healing in the face of systemic neglect and trauma.
Talaga’s film, which she co-directed with Michelle Derosier, is a follow-up to her 2017 non-fiction book, Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, And Hard Truths In A Northern City. The former Toronto Star reporter returns to Thunder Bay and revisits the stories and the community impact of the First Nation high school students who were found dead between 2000 and 2011. All had been removed from their homes in r