Toronto is home to North America's biggest film festival each autumn, but the city on Lake Ontario is also a major venue for international documentaries.
The 25th edition of Hot Docs, one of the world's leading documentary film festivals, will be held there from 26 April to 6 May 2018. And this year will see a large turnout from Germany, with films garnering prominent slots in the Special Presentations and World Showcase sections.
Together. For a lifetime. Who can manage that? And who still wants to do this? What seems to be strange to us nowadays was the norm for our grandparents' generation. Directors Yasemin and Nesrin Şamdereli – who are known for their internationally awarded feature film ALMANYA - Welcome to Germany – portray five couples from Japan, the USA, India and Germany who have all celebrated their 60th anniversary, in their new documentary. THE NIGHT OF ALL NIGHTS will have its international premiere in Special Presentations and is lighthearted and humorous in the way it reveals the secrets of long-standing partnerships and love.
This year will see European Film Promotion (EFP) joining forces with Hot Docs to present the first edition of the new sidebar
The Changing Face of Europe.
Ten European documentaries are looking for answers to such questions as: What moves people in Europe? What triggers and lies beneath the manifold changes in the political, social and economic landscape?
Germany will be represented by GLOBAL FAMILY by Melanie Andernach and Andreas Köhler (a co-presentation with the Goethe-Institut Toronto(, which follows a Somali family in exile, with its international premiere. Philip Scheffner’s refugee documentary film HAVARIE, installed at the Goethe Media Space, is also part of the official Hot Docs 2018 selection. The film, which premiered at Berlinale Forum in 2016 and has won the German Film Critics Award 2017, is shown as a Toronto premiere.
There will also be North American premieres in World Showcase for FAITH HOPE LOVE by Katja Fedulova, KOLYMA – ROAD OF BONES by Stanisław Mucha and VICTORY DAY von Sergei Loznitsa that are dedicated to various issues concerning Russia. FAITH HOPE LOVE sees the director posing the question: are there still heroines in Russia like her grandmother once was? She meets three Russian women who are fighting for their country. KOLYMA – ROAD OF BONES is a 2,000 kilometre-long Russian highway connecting hundreds of labour camps constructed under Stalin. Stanisław Mucha draws on numerous personal encounters to create an impression of Kolyma today. VICTORY DAY documents the events at the Soviet Memorial in Berlin's Treptow Park on the day of the Red Army's victory over the Nazi regime when the memorial becomes the setting for a vast gathering.
The Special Presentations and World Showcase will see THE CLEANERS by Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck (DE/BR) and OF FATHERS AND SONS von Talal Derki (DE/SY) continuing their very successful international festival careers which had already seen them being presented at such festivals as Sundance. QUEERCORE: HOW TO PUNK A REVOLUTION by Yony Leyser with Toronto's Bruce LaBruce will be shown in Nightvision, THE ARTIST AND THE PERVERT by Beatrice Behn and René Gebhardt (DE/US) will screen in Artscapes.
source:
German Films
