Hot Docs 2012: Wrap-up

Thoughts and rankings from the 2012 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, Toronto, Canada.

Another year done, award winners announced, and time to take stock before my brain forgets what I saw. Reviews have run for everything I've seen this year (click on the Hot Docs tag below to find 'em), but I've done a top-to-bottom ranking of them all below. And meanwhile, a few thoughts on the festival, as well:

• Busier than ever? It's no surprise that the festival is bragging once again about record-breaking attendance — almost everything I went to (even weekday afternoons) saw full houses. Plus, I heard from a couple people who had tried to rush shows, arriving an hour in advance and not getting in, something which was generally unheard of in years past. It's going to be a welcome challenge for the festival to continue to deal with success — to grow while still keeping things accessible.
• Bye, bye Cumberland. As well, the festival will now need to find at least a couple more new screens for next year with the sudden (but not unexpected) closing of the Cumberland. I must admit I have no huge love for the venue as a movie-seeing place (to have to go to The Cumberland after seeing a movie in Lightbox 3 felt grim, indeed), but like anyone who loves movies in Toronto, I do have my share of warm memories of the place. Plus, no matter what happens, this will inevitably spread the festival's screens further apart, breaking to the easy-walking triangle of Bader/ROM/Cumberland.
• Retrospective love. I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it next year: the retrospective programs are often the most fascinating things going at Hot Docs, especially when they feature an engaging filmmaker who shows up with a willingness to share their memories. (John Kastner did a great job this year.) Yet these were also the least-attended screenings that I experienced at the festival. I don't know if these are inherently "niche", but it seems like there must be something more that the festival can do to get people to those screenings. I certainly hope that the festival continues to curate these on the basis of merit, and not try to program the retrospectives based just on celebrity appeal.
• A bra! Y'know, I got sick of these promos pretty quickly a year ago, so it was dispiriting to see them make a comeback before every screening. On the other hand, though, kudos to the festival for sparing us from an enforced automobile advertisement (or similar commercial) before every screening.
• Preliminary matters. Speaking of the pre-screening rituals, I know we all get sick of it pretty quickly, but I was mildly taken aback by how quickly and casually the programmers rushed through their introductory comments, with a couple bursting through them like they'd rather be anywhere else than reminding people to turn off their cellphones. This was more strongly felt in movies that were co-presentations with other local festivals — as the (second) biggest kid on the film festival block, there's a real chance here to turn people on to some of the city's other festivals, and something as simple as stopping to say a word about who the co-presenters are and when their festival is could really do something to implant a seed in people's minds. Of all the screenings I saw, only Lynne Fernie didn't just rush through mentioning the co-presenter, instead pausing to give an impromptu, heartfelt shout-out to imagineNATIVE.
• Search woes. I didn't think I'd still be complaining about this a year later, but the search engine on the Hot Docs website is truly useless. After several instances of typing the exact title of a film into the search box, and then finding the movie on page four or five of the search results, I gave up and just started tearing out my hair.

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And here is my ranked list of everything I managed to see. It kinda lumps towards the middle — outside of the retrospective, I didn't see any truly excellent documentaries this year, but at the same time, I saw fewer that I disliked as well.

Excellent

Les ordres

Pour la suite du monde

Fighting Back

Very Good

Meet the Fokkens

The Revisionaries

We Are Wisconsin

Michel Brault: Shorts

The Waiting Room

She Said Boom: The Story of Fifth Column

Oma & Bella

Aaron Burr, Part 2

Good

Rage Against the Darkness: Bunny and Leona

Pot Country

Price of Gold

The Ambassador

The Reluctant Revolutionary

The Young Man Was

The Man That Got Away

Canned Dreams

Hunting Bobby Oatway

Pushwagner

The Invisible War

Made In China

Decent

China Heavyweight

The Tundra Book. A Tale of Vukvukai, the Little Rock

Who Cares

Smoke Traders

Espoir Voyage

Grandmothers

We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists

Ask a Silly Question

Duds

Dragan Wende - West Berlin

Polish Illusions