Western Canadian Filmmakers, Industry Professionals Up Their Game at Hot Docs

variety.com:

Jennie Punter With Hot Docs’ marquee market event the Forum and its sidebar operations back to live action, and the festival’s 30th anniversary adding a layer of buzzy excitement, docmakers and industry pros from Western Canada are hauling out a bumper crop of adventurous docs for audiences and buyers, and chatting in the real world about new projects with potential Canadian and international partners and funders.

Nine Western Canada-made doc features span Hot Docs’ programs, with stories that go deeper into landscapes and beyond cultural stereotypes.

Kathleen Jayme’s and Asia Youngman’s “I’m Just Here for the Riot” (ESPN 30 for 30), about violence that erupted after the Vancouver Canucks’ loss of the Stanley Cup final in 2011, is one of three titles world-premiering in the Canadian Spectrum competition. “The riot was a story that no one had ever really talked about,” said Youngman, who’s currently working on a film about the first Indigenous woman to compete in Japan for professional wrestling. “We found out Vancouver was the only city in North America that rioted because of a loss of a game—it was like a black cloud and I think people were ashamed.” “It’s known as the ‘first smartphone riot’ and for a while it was the most documented riot in history,” added Jayme, whose “The Grizzlie Truth” had a theatrical run earlier this year. “So a really big part of the development phase was sourcing archival footage from people who were there, and then later we interviewed 24 people.” Also world-premiering in Canadian Spectrum, Jean-Philippe Marquis’ “Silvicola” frontlines the voices and cinematic surroundings of forestry workers in Canada’s Pacific Northwest, and Francois-Xavier De Ruydts’ “Subterraneans” follows hobbyist