_{Four Journeys by Louis Hothothot}

A Marble Travelogue by director Sean Wang and co-producer Muyi Film is selected for The Changing Face of Europe, a special Hotdocs programme that focuses on European docs and their filmmakers, organized in partnership with European Film Promotion. The documentary about the economic relationship between Greece and China world premiered at IDFA 2021, followed up with selections for Visions du Réel and Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival (both 2022). 

Selected for the Hidden Stories programme and making its international premiere is Four Journeys* by Louis Hothothot. Produced by Pieter van Huystee Film & TV, the documentary was the opening film of IDFA 2021. In Four Journeys, the director travels to China to revisit his family and illegal childhood.

Minority Dutch co-production Outside* by director Olha Zhurba and co-producer Tangerine Tree is selected for the international competition, also known as International Spectrum. The film had its international premiere at CPH:DOX 2022. In Outside we witness the 7-year journey of Roma, once a poster boy for the Ukrainian revolution, who is released from the orphanage at 18 into the adult world with nothing in his pocket but a knife and a lighter.

_{Lessons for Luca by Salvador Gieling}

5 Documentaries Selected for World Showcase Programme

Sexual Healing, Lessons for Luca, Myanmar Diaries*, Housewitz* and Shabu* are selected for the World Showcase programme. World premiered at Movies that Matter Film Festival 2022, Sexual Healing by Elsbeth Fraanje and Tangerine Tree is having its international premiere at Hotdocs. Sexual Healing is about our primordial longing for intimacy and how crucial this is for every human being’s self-esteem. How does it affect you if intimacy is lacking in your life?

Lessons for Luca by Salvador Gieling and Witfilm is also having its international premiere in Canada. It world premiered at IDFA 2021. A Cuban farmer gets a six-year sentence for selling his own cow. In this family saga a personal story is inseparably intertwined with the greater Cuban history.

The hybrid film Myanmar Diaries by the anonymous Myanmar Film Collective about life under Myanmar’s junta regime of terror, told via intimate and personal stories. Produced by ZINDOC, the film had its world premiere at the Berlinale 2022, where it won the Berlinale Documentary Award.

In Housewitz, daughter and filmmaker Oeke Hoogendijk tries to find out the reason behind her mother’s categorically refusal to leave her house. The documentary had its world premiere at IDFA 2021. It is produced by Discours Film.

Shabu by Shamira Raphaëla and Tangerine Tree continues its succesful festival run. World premiered at IDFA 2021, the documentary was selected for BUFF, aka Malmö International Children's and Young People's Film Festival 2022, CPH:DOX 2021, Barnefilmfestivalen 2022 and Berlinale 2022, where it received a special mention. In the documentary, when Shabu wrecks his grandmother’s car his whole family is angry with him and he has to make amends before his grandmother returns from a vacation in Suriname.

4 Shorts Selected for Shorts Programme

When the Shot, The Museum Visits a Therapist, In Flow of Words* and Our Ark screen in the shorts section of Hotdocs. Memory and landscape become one in the scars of violence that cross people’s existence and connection with the Earth in the documentary short When the Shot by Ana Bravo Pérez. It has its world premiere at the film festival.

The Museum Visits a Therapist has its international premiere at Hotdocs. Made by Mirjam Linschooten and Sameer Farooq, the short documentary navigates the imperial roots of the Tropenmuseum through a therapy session. 

In Flow of Words by Eliane Esther Bots and Near/by Film voices the contradictory position of three interpreters as human cogs in the judicial machine, working with dramatic testimonies from victims, suspects and those accused of war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. The succesful short documentary world premiered at Locarno Film Festival 2021, where it won the Best Direction Prize. Most recently, it won the Best Documentary Award at Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival 2022.

Our Ark by Deniz Tortum and Kathryn Hamilton is an essay film on our efforts to create a virtual replica of the real world. Produced by the Institute of Time, the short documentary had its world premiere at IDFA 2021.

Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival starts April 28th and continues until May 8th. For more information on the festival, click here.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*Film is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund