Following on the renewal of their partnership agreement in August 2013, Telefilm Canada and the Rogers Group of Funds are pleased to announce the five English-language and French-language feature-length documentaries that have benefited from funding support under the Theatrical Documentary Program. The selected projects obtained a total of more than $1.1 million in support for their production or post-production phases.
“In the last 10 years alone, we’ve invested almost $18 million to support more than 150 documentaries,” said Carolle Brabant, Telefilm’s Executive Director. “Most of this funding was granted through the Theatrical Documentary Program, which we launched a few years ago with our partner, the Rogers Group of Funds. This time round, we’re proud to support seasoned documentary filmmakers Garry Beitel (Chez Schwartz), Nicholas de Pencier (Payback), Larry Weinstein (Inside Hana’s Suitcase), Michèle Hozer (Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould), and Mathieu Roy (Surviving Progress), engaged creative talents all who enjoy an international reputation.”
Robin Mirsky, Executive Director of the Rogers Group of Funds, added: “Again this year, Rogers has selected a diverse group of documentary filmmakers, each of whom tells a remarkable story in a unique and persuasive manner. Congratulations to a group of outstanding filmmakers.”
English-language Projects Selected
Black Code (Ontario and Nunavut Region)
Writer-director: Nicholas de Pencier
Production: Black Code Media
Distributor: Mongrel Media
Cyberspace is all around us. We have re-engineered our business, governance and social relations around a planetary network unlike any before it. But there are dangers looming and malign forces are threatening to transform this extraordinary domain. Black Code is a daring new feature-documentary that exposes perils of digital technology, security, and human rights in cyberspace, and shows what’s at stake for Internet users and citizens.
The Devil’s Horn (Ontario and Nunavut Region)
Director: Larry Weinstein
Production: Rhombus Media
Distributor: Films we Like
The Devil’s Horn, an exciting new film based on Michael Segell’s best-selling book of the same name, will both illuminate and mythologize the 170-year history of the most dangerously seductive (and feared) of all musical instruments—the saxophone. The film will also insinuate with powerful evidence that those who play the sax will eventually fall prey to the instrument’s longstanding curse and that the saxophone itself has often met near-demise as the victim of persecution and censorship.
One Sweet Film
Director: Michèle Hozer
Writers: Nathalie Bibeau and Roxana Spicer
Production: One Sweet Film
Distribution: White Pine Pictures
This is a riveting exploration of the controversial claim that “sugar is poison” and that it is slowly killing us. Through a cast of courageous and outspoken characters in the USA, Canada and abroad, the film reveals a deliberate 40-year cover-up that could be the smoking gun to our unprecedented obesity and type 2 diabetes pandemic.
French-language Projects Selected
Entre la paix et la guerre (Quebec Region)
Writer-director: Garry Beitel
Production: reFrame Films
Distribution: Diffusion Multi-Monde
This documentary tells the stories of Canadians who are working to reduce armed conflict around the world. The film explores their vision, their motivation, their successes and failures as it travels with them to fragile states. Employing mediation, negotiation as well as innovative community initiatives, they are part of a new generation of front-line civilian peace workers. While following the work of the Canadian protagonists in each conflict zone, the film also takes us inside opposing factions in order to help us understand their respective views of the issues at stake.
Le Paradoxe de la faim (Quebec Region)
Director: Mathieu Roy
Writers: Benoit Aquin and Richard Brouillette
Production: Lowik Média
Distribution: Fun Film
This film brings to the fore a terrible paradox: the fact that a large majority of the world’s small farmers—that is, a little less than half the world’s population—suffers from hunger because, while the world’s agricultural output is sufficient to feed humanity, small farmers are poor and cannot obtain the foodstuffs they need for their survival. According to the filmmakers, this endemic poverty is the cause of the world’s present-day food crisis.
Theatrical Documentary Program Highlights
Over the years, the Program has supported such high-profile projects as:
Waterlife (Kevin McMahon)
Manufactured Landscapes (Edward Burtynsky)
Sharkwater (Rob Stewart)
Reel Injun (Neil Diamond)
Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel (Brigitte Berman)
Last Train Home (Lixin Fan)
Fight Like Soldiers, Die Like Children (Patrick Reed)
Saving Luna (Michael Parfit and Suzanne Chisholm)
China Heavyweight (Yung Chang)
La nuit, elles dansent (Isabelle Lavigne, Stéphane Thibault)
Prom Night in Mississippi (Paul Saltzman)
Bestiaire (Denis Côté)
Les Équilibristes (Violette Daneau)
Pierre Falardeau (Carmen Garcia and German Gutierrez)
The Bodybuilder and I (Bryan Friedman)