On the anniversary of their mother’s death, three sisters are hurtled back in time when their estranged father shows up with a note stating he has Alzheimer’s. Roy hasn’t seen his daughters Anita, Cece and Marie, in years and it’s a visit that is not entirely welcome. But the present Roy is quite unlike the father they remember. This Roy is affable, sensitive, funny, emotional and loving – in total contrast to the unpredictable, often drunk and abusive father of their memories. As they open to the possibility of having him in their lives they are continuously jarred by the sudden trips into the past they are forced into due to his neurological condition. Marie’s husband, Franco, a former professional musician and all-around dilettante, expounds particle theory while playing Mozart and posits the possibility that restructuring their fractured memories could alter the future from that point forward. What follows is a rapid-fire ride through past and present that illuminates the unreliable nature of memory and how the stories we hang onto define us until the moment we let them go. Inspired by King Lear, memory loss in an aging father, the cost of speaking one’s truth, the devastation addiction can wreak on a family, Ikebana flower arranging, piano prodigies and the multiverse theory known as Daughter Universes, the play explores the possibility that rewriting our memories can alter the past and ergo change the future. It is a playful, poignant and piercing look into the nature of memory.

Keywords: Addiction | Alcoholism | Depression | Family | Trauma

There will be a 15 minute Q&A with the cast following each performance.

Filmed over the course of three years, this documentary begins at the Maine Correctional Center where Jacinta, 26, and her mother Rosemary, 46, are incarcerated together, both recovering from drug addictions. As a child, Jacinta became entangled in her mother’s world of drugs and crime and has followed her in and out of the system since she was a teenager. This time, as Jacinta is released from prison, she hopes to maintain her sobriety and reconnect with her own daughter, Caylynn, 10, who lives with her paternal grandparents. Despite her desire to rebuild her life for her daughter, Jacinta continually struggles against the forces that first led to her addiction. With unparalleled access and a gripping vérité approach, director Jessica Earnshaw paints a deeply intimate portrait of mothers and daughters and the effects of trauma over generations.

SCREENING WITH VERY PRESENT
Conor McNally | 2020 | Canada | 5 min | English
How does prolonged confinement shape our experience of time? Filmmaker Conor McNally explores the question in the company of his brother Riley, a young man who’s learning to cope with a new—yet strangely familiar—reality.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: Q&A with Jessica Earnshaw

Keywords: Addiction | Family | Generational Trauma | Prison Industrial Complex

Winner of the Cinema Fan Award at the 2020 PIA Film Festival at the National Film Archive of Japan, Luginsky is an incredibly unique animated film replete with early and modern computer graphics, still photography and a collage of cut-outs, which are dizzyingly utilized to maximum effect to tell a story which seems as delirious as the protagonist. The main character of the film is named Deerman, whose head is a deer and who recently endured an accident resulting in chronic hallucinations. Deerman has recently lost his job, and in a series of events that led him to become reliant on alcohol, frequently is beaten up as a result of his drunken behaviours. His addiction takes an even worse turn when he stumbles upon a panther-barmanpriest who creates a forbidden cocktail for Deerman designed by an ex-boxer named Luginsky that alters his life even further with so-called reality and fantasy dancing in unprecedented ways. A most unique film of fantastical visions you won’t soon forget.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: Q&A WITH DIRECTOR HAIENA
Please join film artist Haiena for a virtual Q&A to discuss his experience creating the unique
animated reality of Luginsky. The discussion will be moderated by animator animator Jeff Chiba
Stearns with Japanese to English interpretation, ASL interpretation and captioning.

Keywords: Addictions | Alcoholism | Animation | Class | Surrealism

After the inconclusive death of his young niece, filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax returns to his rural Michigan hometown to make a film about a broken criminal justice system. Instead, he pivots to excavate the depths of generational addiction, Christian fervor and trans embodiment. Lyrically assembled images, decades of home movies and ethereal narration form an idiosyncratic and poetic undertow that guide a viewer through lifetimes and relationships. Like the relentless Michigan seasons, the meaning of family shifts, as Madsen Minax, his sister and his parents strive tirelessly to accept each other. Poised to incite more internal searching than provide clear statements or easy answers, North By Current dives head-first into the challenges of creating identity, the agony of growing up and the ever-fickle nuances of family.

“For me, a personal, first-person approach to storytelling was the only way to make North By Current. My own voice is the only one I feel capable of representing. This merger of personal and political storytelling became an opportunity for my family members and myself to converse, collaborate, and create together — our own version of transformative justice.” — Angelo Madsen Minax

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: Q&A WITH ANGELO MADSEN MINAX
Watch a pre-recorded Q&A with the filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax about his experience creating the deeply intimate personal documentary North By Current. The discussion is moderated by Mike Hoolboom, a filmmaker and writer who lives in Toronto and director of Rendezvous 2020 opening film Judy Versus Capitalism.

Keywords: Addictions | Family | Gender | Religion | Trauma

Every now and then, a film comes along that rips out your heart and shreds it to pieces. Director Jessica Nilsson’s staggering documentary The Testament of Oliver chronicles her friendship with Oliver Juvonen-Peel. Oliver has schizophrenia and struggles with alcohol use disorder. He drinks to cope with his psychiatric issues, but his dual diagnosis makes it challenging to find effective treatment. He reveals
to the camera that mental health facilities reject him due to his alcohol abuse, and he’s involuntarily discharged from outpatient clinics because he’s mentally ill.

The Testament of Oliver reveals what happens to the people who fall through the cracks of the healthcare system. Nilsson’s documentary offers a raw and hardhitting account of a man in dire need
of specialized treatment and support systems. Nilsson captures her dear friend’s struggles with an unflinching eye, sharing Oliver’s soaring highs and crushing lows on his arduous road to recovery.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: Q&A WITH JESSICA NILSSIN & OLIVER JUVONEN-PEEL
Join us for a virtual conversation with the director and subject of the film The Testament Of Oliver. Discussion moderated by Victor Stiff member of the Toronto Film Critics Association and Rendezvous’ film programming committee.

Keywords: Addiction | Schizophrenia | Recovery

We are excited to co-present the program His Name is Ray with Hot Docs Ted Hot Rogers Cinema.

In his anticipated follow-up to Transformer, which took home the Rogers Audience Award for Best Canadian Documentary at Hot Docs 2018, acclaimed director Michael Del Monte gives a human face to our growing homelessness and opioid crises. Ray once had everything. A job that he loved with the Canadian Coast Guard. The husband to a wife. The father to a family. But his heroin addiction took it all away. Now, the former sailor lives on the streets of Toronto with an entire population that seems to have just fallen through the cracks. Who was he? How did he end up there? With a remarkably compassionate and intimate lens, Del Monte follows Ray on his precarious journey to get off the streets and back on the water, where — in the ultimate achievement of the oblivion he craves — he could just sail away from it all.

+ Screening also includes a special recorded epilogue featuring Ray and Q&A with Michael Del Monte (Director), Scott Montgomery (Writer/Producer) and Hanan Townshend (Composer), moderated by Hot Docs programmer, Aisha Jamal.

On Wednesday, May 26 at 7:30 PM (EST), we hosted a free live panel Homelessness in the Time of COVID in conjunction with the screening of His Name is Ray. The talk wae moderated by Dr. Naheed Dosani, a palliative care physician who cares for homeless and vulnerably housed individuals with dignity and compassion. The recording of the talk is not available for streaming. Click here for more info or to view the panel discussion.

Panelists

Dr. Naheed Dosani (Moderator) is a palliative care physician who cares for homeless and vulnerably housed individuals. He’s a Lecturer at the University of Toronto & lead physician of Palliative Education And Care for the Homeless (PEACH). During COVID19, he has served as Medical Director for the Region of Peel’s COVID19 Isolation/Housing Program.

Michael Del Monte (Panelist) is a documentary filmmaker and the Director of His Name Is Ray. His film Transformer won both the Audience Award and the Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award at the 2018 Hot Docs Festival.

Akia Munga (they/them) (Panelist) is a harm reduction worker, activist and consultant.

Jesse Upton Crowe (they/them) (Panelist) is an affordable housing advocate, musician and hairstylist who works with the Encampment Support Network (ESN) in Toronto’s Parkdale.

Jennifer (she/her) (Panelist) is a 50-year-old disabled, queer woman & artist currently trying to survive the shelter system. Happiest when living amongst the bees & trees.

In the lead-up to the annual Bell Let’s Talk Day on January 28, we’re showcasing free docs-and-conversations about mental health and mental illness in partnership with Bell Let’s Talk and Hot Docs.

Films will be available to stream from January 4-28 and culminate in a live virtual panel discussion with special guests on January 28. Tickets for all films and the panel discussion are free, and can be booked through the Hot Docs Box Office.

In 1978, Canadian psychologist Bruce K. Alexander conducted a radical psychological experiment involving rats and heroin that would revolutionize the way we understand addictions. Thirty years later, this timely and conversation-worthy VICE doc connects the long-forgotten “Rat Park” findings with three stories taking place 10,000 miles apart—revealing why addiction is not really about the drug themselves, it’s about the environments we live in.