The Wolfpack

The Wolfpack Hot Docs 2015 Canadian Premiere GAT PR Press Summary

Interviews Completed

April 22

April 24

April 25

April 26

April 27

National Post Interviewer: David Berry Interviewed: Crystal Moselle

Hot Docs Videographer Interviewed: Crystal Moselle and Izabella Tzenkova

Metro News/Strictly Docs Interviewer: Steve Gow Interviewed: Crystal Moselle

Next Projection Interviewer: Jacqueline Valencia Interviewed: Crystal Moselle

Toronto Film Scene Interviewer: Will Brownridge

NOW Interviewer: Norm Wilner

In the Seats Interviewer: Dave Voigt

CItyTV Interviewer: Melissa Duggan

CHCH’s The Watchlist Interviewer: Brigitte Truong

Torontoist Interviewer: Carly Maga

Grolsch Film Works Interviewer: Yohann Koshy

Truth be told: Behind the documentary shell game By: David Berry | May 2, 2015

http://news.nationalpost.com/arts/movies/truth-­‐be-­‐told-­‐behind-­‐the-­‐documentary-­‐shell-­‐game

I promise that everything you read in this article is true.

I write that to put you at ease, to assure you that you don’t need to engage your hair-­‐trigger capacity for skepticism, to emphasize that the text below is trustworthy.

But maybe now all I’ve done is arouse your suspicion: this is a newspaper, after all, so perhaps you assume that everything we write is the truth. You come here because you think our writers have a professional, ethical, moral and maybe even market imperative to tell the truth, and have editors that will check that work, and have corporate structures that will eliminate anyone who gets in the habit of failing to tell the truth. We are trustworthy, in other words, and perhaps emphasizing that fact makes it seem like I’m trying to hide something.

Actually, if we’re going to be honest here, I should say that I didn’t make that promise to reassure you, or not just to reassure you. I made it because it seemed like a good way to get you thinking about what it is about the things you read that makes you so sure that they are truthful. Not just truthful, but truthful in a meaningful way: that they come across as authentic, as a story that is not just factually accurate but that reflects what you understand the world to be. I wanted to prime you to consider how a person like me uses phrases and structures and styles to convince you that I can be trusted to convey the way the world is — so I can show you how a documentary filmmaker does the same thing.

Non-­‐fiction of any kind can be a shell game: truth isn’t the issue here, and not, strictly, even possible. More important than conveying a part of the world accurately is convincing you that that is what’s happening: hooking you with certain strategies and tactics that let you verify the world that’s being created, so you can feel confident it’s real enough to be believed. Documentaries are interpretations first, and then persuasions. With that off my chest, I can say with confidence: starting now, everything in this article is true.

Prior to screening at Toronto’s Hot Docs Film Festival, The Wolfpack won the Grand Jury Prize for a documentary at Sundance. That doesn’t affect any of its techniques or qualities, but suggests that authorities beyond my own think it’s worthwhile, and that I’m not off in the wilderness with my subsequent analysis.

The film is about the Angulos, a unique family by any definition. The seven children (six boys, one girl) of the family have spent 17 years (less, if they’re younger) in a four-­‐bedroom New York City apartment that they hardly ever leave.

They’re home-­‐schooled, and their father — a Hare Krishna who’s philosophically opposed to working — keeps the only key to the door. Baghavan, the eldest, tells us they’d be let out of the apartment a handful of times; some years, he says, once, or not at all.

Their reality is not one that you or I would recognize; real as it is to them, for us it’s as beyond understanding as any fantasy world. This isn’t helped by the fact that the Angulos’ lone window into the world is the movies their father brings home for them: and not even documentaries, but blockbuster fare, from the paranoid conspiracies of Oliver Stone’s JFK to the crime drama of The Godfather to the stylized (thoughappropriately film-­‐referential) violence of Quentin Tarantino (black suits straight out ofReservoir Dogs are the children’s favourite outfit). Their world is entirely shaped by these movies: Halloween is a rumpus in the style of Nightmare on Elm Street, but with horror movie characters singing along; their only creative outlet is careful recreations of these films, transcribed thanks to heavy use of the pause button and styled by the repurposed yoga mats and cereal boxes the Angulos turn into guns, masks and set dressing.

Windows, though, go both ways. These movies give the boys a chance to live something like a “real” life. Crystal Moselle, director of The Wolfpack, describes it as an escape: under the guise of pirates and gangsters, the children found a way to live out the autonomy and independence we take for granted, but that they had no connection to.

“They liked to do things that brought them out of their world; they did a lot of characters where they could feel empowered … when you don’t have a lot of power in your normal life, you want to live out these characters that have some,” says Moselle.

It’s fair to say most of us cannot relate to the experience of growing up sequestered in a small New York apartment like the Angulos of The Wolfpack But the clan’s film collection also gives us insight into their life — it makes them real to us. If it’s fair to say most of us cannot relate to the experience of growing up sequestered in a small New York apartment — but we have at least seen the clan’s movies, and can relate to the thrill they gave us when we first watched them, maybe even the feeling of power or escape. It’s the first tendrils of a sympathetic connection, a direct understanding that can be built out and bonded to more esoteric ones. With a baseline established, we can relate as the children cycle through the intimate bond they have with their parents, but also the thrill as they make furtive steps into the world. That one universal experience between the audience and the boys is a building block, and from it a whole world can be shaped.

There’s another film at Hot Docs that does this exact same thing. Raiders! is about a group of men trying to finish the shot-­‐for-­‐shot remake of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark that they began as film-­‐obsessed teenagers. You probably don’t know what it’s like to actually fulfil a childhood dream — even one as low-­‐stakes as making a home video version of a favourite movie — but you probably do remember the experience of sitting in a theatre and wishing you could be that character. And if you remember that, you can also understand why someone might be willing to lose their job and put their family’s welfare at risk to get a shot of their friend running away from an exploding plane.

Tugging at our sympathies is a natural strategy to make something real for a person. It is, after all, what fictional films do to earn our attention — to be “believable” — too: we need a character who responds in recognizable ways to latch on. But documentaries also aspire to a higher level of authenticity; the whole point is they’re not just a series of imaginary tricks, but an accurate portrayal of a real thing. It doesn’t matter that the process of interpretation and construction makes them another narrative with its own blind spots: it has to make us believe in it anyway.

This is where people speaking in their own words comes in handy: for instance, Baghavan explaining his situation in The Wolfpack. In the documentary, Moselle’s voice is hardly ever heard; her presence is only implied by the camera — and even there, she gives the pack plenty of opportunity to film themselves, either through the cinematic

recreations or through documenting moments when she wasn’t around, like a phone call between their mother and grandmother. Unmediated by another voice, someone’s own words are the closest we get to seeing the world through their eyes.

The children of The Wolfpack might be better suited to explaining themselves on camera than others — their view of the world, after all, is through a lens – but you don’t have to watch many documentaries to witness the confessional power of training a camera on someone. It can get people talking even when they shouldn’t.

Dan Ariely, a psychologist who has done extensive research into dishonesty and people’s justifications for it, might have an explanation for that. His work is the subject of the Hot Docs film Dishonesty: The Truth About Lies, which explores how and why people lie, cheat and steal, both with data and by talking to people who have been caught in everything from affairs to multimillion-­‐dollar frauds. It turns out, according to Ariely, that one of the biggest factors in keeping people more honest, more forthright, more moral, is simply being aware: both of society’s standards, but also of yourself — that it’s you who is going to be committing this dishonest act. Simply having people look into a mirror makes them behave more honestly. “Put people in front of a camera, and they take a more objective view of themselves,” Ariely says during our phone conversation. “They become more honest about everything.” Make them focus on the fact that they’re talking, in other words, and they’ll offer a more authentic reflection of their personality.

This effect is heightened in Dishonesty by the use of the Interrotron, documentarian Errol Morris’s tool for conducting on-­‐camera interviews, which features a set-­‐up that allows interviewees to look directly into the camera and still see their interviewer.Admitted liars open up directly to the audience, a filmed confession of their sins; they bare their souls, conveniently illustrating Ariely’s points as they do. They convince us both of his research and their deep regret at the same time.\ Simply having people look into a mirror makes them behave more honestly

The neat thing is that this access to the authentic human can work even when they’re lying through their teeth. Look no further than two of Morris’s most famous uses of the Interrotron: his interviews with U.S. Defense secretaries Robert McNamara and Donald Rumsfeld, respectively in The Fog of War and The Unknown Known. The former is a soul-­‐searching interview in which the architect of the Vietnam War admits to behaving as a war criminal, and attempts to reconcile with that fact; the latter is a snow job of legendary proportions, in which it seems the politician would refuse to admit water was wet if it contradicted his preferred narrative. But the true characters of both men emerge: the camera, looking them dead in the eyes, shows their souls — one tortured, one from which no light will ever escape.

If there is a drawback to any form of direct address, though, it can be that it’s an explicit reminder that we are watching something that’s constructed, that’s beholden to artifice and craft. Even if we’re seemingly being spoken to, somewhere we know it’s not to us they’re answering; even if it’s their own words, we know those words have been chosen from dozens or hundreds of exchanges. These reminders can get our guards up again – and can force us to confront the fact that everything is just an interpretation.

Sometimes, the best way around this inherent artifice is to lean in, to explicitly remind people that “true” just means “as true as I can make it, under the circumstances.”

The Visit, for instance, is a Hot Docs documentary about an alien who comes to Earth, albeit handicapped by the fact that the event hasn’t happened yet. Instead, the film tracks all the first-­‐contact scenarios of organizations from the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence institute to the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, taking us through a simulation of an alien’s landing, placing the viewer explicitly in the role of alien: being contacted, quarantined, questioned. It never lets us stop being aware of its constructs, and makes the artificiality of the encounter its subject.

The Wolfpack is not interested in this kind of distance, and instead responds to the challenge by trying to get as close as possible to its subjects, to live in and among them like a voyeur. The story of the documentary becomes the story of making the documentary, of discovering the depths and dreams of the family in the same way Moselle did, as though we, like the camera, were sitting on her shoulder the entire time. We follow them from a remake of Reservoir Dogs to running across the beach in those same black suits, feeling their hurt and tentative steps into the world the same way the director found them.

Moselle claims to have just happened to run into one of the Angulos on the streets of New York, and followed them home. It was one of their first excursions outside their apartment, and her way in to this otherwise hidden family. “I didn’t shoot anything for four months. I often didn’t shoot anything. It was just us getting to know each other,” she tells me. “We really bonded over film.

Moselle claims to have just happened to run into one of the Angulos on the streets of New York and followed them home

“Between me and this family, there became a point where we really felt comfortable with each other, and there was a really, really beautiful thing happening between us,” she continues. “It was like the arch of the film: we came through this experience of them going out into the world together, and got through the other side.”

If audiences want to feel like this is something that simply unfurled in front of us, that we are being pointed toward a corner of the world we weren’t looking at before, it’s best to just let that happen. That is, after all, how the creator of the story experienced it; what better way to make it seem real to an audience than let them discover it the same way you did?

I promised at the beginning that everything here would be true, and while there’s an argument to be made for omission not being a lie, there are certain exclusions that do hurt that sense of authenticity I also mentioned. In this case, it would seem damning toignore that, when you’re talking about a genre as loaded as “non-­‐fiction,” there are going to be many ways to convince you that what’s taken place on the screen, or on the page, is true.

It needs to be said that, in the best of these cases, the non-­‐fiction in question will never give you any reason to doubt its truth, and will have mastered its tactics so thoroughly that it can slip right by your skeptical defences, never triggering a thought that it might be anything other than a real account. The Wolfpack, for instance, builds its story from the children’s isolation to their freedom, culminating with a big, cathartic trip out into the world, the boys’ dreams come true. It feels like a new beginning at the end of the film, but Moselle herself only met them because they had begun sneaking out months before she started shooting, and years before she decided how to frame their story. The event is real, their emotions are real, they’re just not actually perfect analogs for the journey the audience has just taken.

That is all the more reason, though, to be mindful of these kinds of things. Surely none of us are so foolish as to believe that something is true just because it claims to be.

The Wolfpack

By: Adam Wylde | April 27, 2015 http://www.citynews.ca/2015/04/27/entertainment-­‐city-­‐kim-­‐kardashian-­‐supports-­‐bruce-­‐jenner-­‐the-­‐wolfpack/

Reposted: http://www.680news.com/2015/04/27/entertainment-­‐city-­‐kim-­‐kardashian-­‐supports-­‐bruce-­‐jenner-­‐the-­‐wolfpack/

Hot Docs // Staff Picks Jeff By: Jeffrey Malloch | April 10, 2015

http://www.chch.com/hot-­‐docs-­‐staff-­‐picks-­‐jeff/

SCREEN ON SCREEN: Six bright teenage brothers have spent their entire lives locked away from society in a Manhattan housing project. All they know of the outisde is gleaned from the movies they watch obsessively (and recreate meticulously). Yet as adolescence looms, they dream of escape, ever more urgently, into the beckoning world. Directed by Crystal Moselle.

The Wolfpack seems like the true story version of Netflix’s The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. It focuses on a group of young brothers who are locked away in a Manhattan apartment and rely on movies to form their understanding of what the outside world is like. I’m excited to see how their years of imagination fair against the real world when they walk out the front door for a Coney Island excursion in the do

Running with The Wolfpack By: Carly Maga | April 29, 2015

http://torontoist.com/2015/04/running-­‐with-­‐the-­‐wolfpack/

Director Crystal Moselle stumbled upon a unique group of six brothers by accident, and the result is one of the most fascinating looks at family, film, and passion at Hot Docs.

When The Wolfpack premiered at the 2015 Sundance Festival, the Guardian compared it to the iconic Maysles Brothers film Grey Gardens, thanks to its immersive access into one very strange household. Generations of fans of that movie can only imagine the shock, intrigue, and impulse to pick up the camera that the Maysles experienced the first time they met Big and Little Edie Bouvier. But first-­‐time feature director Crystal Moselle might have a more first-­‐hand knowledge of that situation, after her serendipitous discovery of the Angulo family led to a close friendship with the six brothers, several years of documenting them in their home, and one of the most fascinating documentaries to hit Sundance, the Tribeca Film Festival, and now Hot Docs.

The Wolfpack is the self-­‐appointed moniker for the Angulo brothers, who grow up spending between 360 and 365 days a year inside their Lower East Side apartment in New York City, with their older sister, mother Susanne, and father Oscar. When not being homeschooled by Susanne, the brothers’ only outlet is movies: horror, action, and comedies, but especially Tarantino-­‐esque thrillers, which they painstakingly recreate with incredibly detailed homemade costumes and props (so lifelike that their cardboard guns even alerted police attention). Moselle’s documentary begins as the brothers start pushing back against their father’s strict house arrest and follows their frightening and emboldening discoveries, Susanne’s conflicted but pure adoration of her children, and Oscar’s peculiar and paranoid world view.

Torontoist spoke to Moselle following The Wolfpack‘s screenings at Hot Docs, before it begins a wider release in Canada this summer starting in Toronto on June 12 (with more cities to be announced soon).

Torontoist: How did you find out about the Angulo family?

Crystal Moselle: I met them on the street. I was walking down Fifth Avenue and these boys ran past me, and they were just very fascinating and I instinctually ran after them. We started talking and I asked them where they were from, and they said Delancey Street. Then Govinda asked me what I did for a living and I told them I was a filmmaker, and they said, “Oh, we’re interested in getting into the business of filmmaking.” So I started showing them cameras, and I just wanted to help them, it was something I knew about. And we became friends. And that continued for quite a few months, and eventually they asked me to come over to their house. And we hung out; they were getting ready for their Halloween celebrations and they were creating these crazy props and all this really cool stuff. And I was very intrigued by the whole thing.

And when I first came to this story, I had no idea what the backstory was. So it took me a while, like a year and a half, to really get details of what was happening with the seclusion. But yeah, it started as a friendship.

How long ago was that?

I met them about five years ago, and I filmed for about four and a half years.

What were they like when you approached them on the street? Were they open to talking to you?

They were definitely shy. You could tell they didn’t really want to talk to me, or were scared to talk to me. But the minute they found out I was a filmmaker, everything dropped and they started being very open immediately. That was their passion, they wanted to meet people who were filmmakers.

After seeing the documentary, you can imagine how that one fact can completely flip the switch for them. There’s a scene where they go see their first movie in a movie theatre, and they’re just owning the streets all dressed in black coats, white shirts, and black sunglasses—very Reservoir Dogs. You can tell that the bravery they have to go out into the city is what they find in these movies they love. As a filmmaker, could you relate to that?

Oh yeah, absolutely. Relating to film is a way that we can connect with each other. They had told me when I first met them, “We never know what to say when we’re out and meeting new people, we never know what to talk about or say.” And I told them, “Why don’t you just ask them what their favourite movie is. Just start talking about that.” That was always their way of breaking the ice with people. That was something that bound us all together. And I can personally relate as well, because that’s what I’m interested in as well.

In some reviews we’ve read, some people wish that the father’s reasoning for keeping the family so isolated was a bigger presence in the movie. Is there a reason why Susanne and the kids are placed front and centre here? And what do you think drives his choices?

The story that we told is the story that we told. I feel like the amount we put the father in was the amount that he needed to be in … I think that, for the father, it’s a lot of fear, which comes through in the film. And it’s wanting to control the family. And I think we touch upon both of those points in the film.

Do you keep in touch with the wolfpack?

Yes, I keep in touch with them every day. And they’re having a great experience. They were at Tribeca [Film Festival], and they’re still making films and starting a production company called Wolfpack Pictures that we’re helping them with. And, you know, moving forward. There’s more to look forward to with the wolfpack.

Oh yeah? What kind of things are they working on?

They’re mainly focused on short form projects right now. But people are wanting to work with them, they’re getting funded—it’s going to be awesome.

The Wolfpack is a very complicated, very personal story of this family. What do you want audiences to take away from the movie?

With this question, I feel like everyone’s going to take away something different because there are so many things to relate to, whether it be something that relates to your own family or if it’s only something to get you inspired.

Because these kids really … they’re resilient. And they use the power of imagination to get through a really tough time. And so I think it can be inspiring for people—if you have a creative side, you have to tap into that. It can be therapeutic, it can inspire people to make things, so as far as the audience taking away something, it’s different for everybody. I don’t have this one thing I want them to learn.

Was there anything in Angulo family or anywhere in the Angulo family residence that was off-­‐limits?

Everything was very open in the process. I think that in the film itself there’s enough for an audience to see their situation and come to their own conclusions. And everyone feels good about what came together. So we’re happy.

The Angulos are happy with the film?

Everyone has seen it except for Govinda and Narayana, who are the twins, because they don’t feel comfortable with watching themselves on camera. But everyone else feels like it was a very honest portrayal, they were happy with it.

Even the father felt like it was educational to see his kids’ point of view.

You said you’re in close contact with the kids, but are you still with the parents?

I talk to the mother quite often, but the father, I’ve never spoken to him on the phone. But I see him at their house.

The Wolfpack

By: Norman Wilner | April 22, 2015 https://nowtoronto.com/movies/hot-­‐docs-­‐2015/the-­‐wolfpack/

THE WOLFPACK (Crystal Moselle, U.S.). 86 minutes. Rating: NNN

Raiders! isn't the only Hot Docs entry in which rambunctious kids recreate a beloved movie. The six Angulo brothers (aided occasionally by their sister) spent a great deal of their adolescence in their New York apartment making charmingly threadbare camcorder versions of their favourite features, including Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. The rest of the time was spent watching movies their father, Oscar, would bring home for them -­‐ because he almost never allowed his children to venture outside.

The reasons for Oscar's hermetic attitude, and the issues that generated it, are introduced fairly late in The Wolfpack, radically changing the documentary's tone as director Crystal Moselle struggles with the larger ramifications of the Angulos' living situation.

It's a fascinating story however you present it, but a tighter structure and a little more context wouldn't have hurt.

Apr 24, 6:30 pm, TIFF 2; Apr 26, 4 pm, Scotiabank 4

Watch List By: Adam Nayman | April 22, 2015 http://thewalrus.ca/watch-­‐list/

Five films to see at this year’s Hot Docs festival NORTH AMERICA’S largest documentary festival is about to begin, and the 2015 slate at Hot Docs is typically diverse— so much so that picking through the programme guide can be rather time-­‐consuming. Here are five films worth watching at this year’s festival, which launches at Toronto theatres tomorrow, and runs through May 3.

THE WOLFPACK Families don’t come more sheltered than the seven siblings who star in Crystal Moselle’s beguiling debut feature The Wolfpack—a documentary that goes beyond the old stranger-­‐than-­‐fiction cliché into the realm of the genuinely perplexing. After initially planning to use the United States as a stepping stone to the socialist paradises of Scandinavia, Peruvian patriarch Oscar Angulo decided instead to raise his family in New York—which meant entrapping his wife and children in a Lower East Side apartment and letting the kids (six look-­‐alike brothers and one sister) raise themselves on countless hours of Hollywood films. The result: dress-­‐up games ranging from the sweetly benign (a line of kids in black-­‐on-­‐black Reservoir Dogs drag) to the freaky (the eldest brother leaves the house in a Michael Myers mask). The results of this unfathomable familial experiment play out in a film that’s part urban ethnography, part tribute to self-­‐styled cinephilia, and wholly unsettling—not least of all in its suggestion that the Pulp Fiction–worshipping Angulos are merely extreme outliers in a culture that increasingly takes its social and moral cues from the movies.

What To See at Hot Docs 2015 By: Peter Howell and Linda Barnard

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/2015/04/22/what-­‐to-­‐see-­‐at-­‐hot-­‐docs-­‐2015.html

The Star’s film writers pick the best bets from 210 documentaries screening at Hot Docs, which runs April 23 to May 3.

The Wolfpack: Crystal Moselle introduces us to the Angulo brothers, who had been locked up by their father since birth to their family apartment on New York City’s Lower East Side. Now teenagers, they connect to the outside world via films they watch on TV, violent classics like The Godfather and Pulp Fiction that the boys obsessively re-­‐enact using homemade costumes and props. For The Dark Knight, they made a surprisingly good Batman costume out of yoga mats and cereal boxes. It’s a bizarre but apparently happy existence, but something happens that put family dynamics to the test.

(April 24, 6:30 p.m., Lightbox; April 26, 4 p.m., Scotiabank.) P.H.

The top 20 films to see at Hot Docs 2015 By: Sima Sahar Zerehi | April 13, 2015

http://www.blogto.com/film/2015/04/the_top_20_films_to_see_at_hot_docs_2015/ FILMS ABOUT FAMILIES The Wolfpack Crystal Moselle's acclaimed documentary is about six inseparable brothers isolated from the world in their family's Lower East Side Manhattan apartment. Locked in by their father for years, the brothers are homeschooled and only have movies to feed their imaginations.

Hot Docs 2015: What films you should see at this year's festival By: Jim Slotek | April 18, 2015

http://www.torontosun.com/2015/04/18/hot-­‐docs-­‐2015-­‐what-­‐films-­‐you-­‐should-­‐see-­‐at-­‐this-­‐years-­‐festival

We look at 13 films ahead of Canada's premiere documentary film festival Okay, so the red carpet scene isn’t as much of a “thing.” But Toronto’s annual Hot Docs Film Festival carries arguably as much impact in the documentary world as TIFF does on the wider cinema scene.

Hot Docs is a leading-­‐edge intro into the non-­‐fiction films people will be talking about through 2015, and is a pretty good predictor of the docs that will be getting Oscar attention. Examples: this year’s nom Virunga and recent-­‐vintage Oscar winners like The Cove and Man on Wire.

Some 210 documentaries from 44 countries are programmed at 12 different venues, starting with the April 23 opening night premiere of TIG, a profile of the Grammy-­‐winning comedian Tig Notaro, whose battle with cancer informed the most inspired comedy of her career.

Also heavily anticipated: Documentaries on Mavis Staples (Mavis!) and Nina Simone (What Happened Miss Simone?)

Herewith: a sampling of 13 Hot Docs films we previewed.

THE WOLFPACK: This movie – about six brothers who grew up cooped up in their New York apartment and created a fanciful world based on movies they see on video – won a Grand Jury prize at Sundance. Yet it has so many unanswered questions and lack of verification (no public health officials are interviewed, not even any neighbours), it might as well be drama. I found it fishy, but I also found it very entertaining.

Hot Docs runs from April 23 until May 3. For tickets and info visit hotdocs.ca.

WHAT TO SEE AT HOT DOCS 2015 TODAY By: NOW Staff | April 24, 2015

https://nowtoronto.com/movies/hot-­‐docs-­‐2015/hot-­‐docs-­‐2015-­‐april-­‐24-­‐2015/

THE WOLFPACK Raiders! Isn’t the only Hot Docs entry in which rambunctious kids recreate a beloved movie. The six Angulo brothers (aided occasionally by their sister) spent a great deal of their adolescence in their New York apartment making charmingly threadbare camcorder versions of their favourite features, including Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. See full review.

Hot Docs 2015 Review: The Wolfpack By: William Brownridge | April 23, 2015 http://thetfs.ca/2015/04/23/hot-­‐docs-­‐2015-­‐review-­‐the-­‐wolfpack/

In a Lower East Side Manhattan apartment, six brothers have spent almost their entire lives behind the closed door.

Homeschooled by their mother and locked inside by their father, they had never really explored the outside world.

Instead, they existed in a world of film, the one thing that they do have inside their house. The brothers recreate scenes from famous movies using homemade props, and copying the lines from the film. The Wolfpack explores the lives of the brothers and what happened when they finally got out of the house.

The story told in The Wolfpack is one that is incredibly hard to believe, once again proving that truth is stranger than fiction. How this family survived all these years is shocking, and it’s a fascinating film to watch. The brothers have grown up immersed in film, as it’s the only real outlet they have being trapped in their home. Over the years their skills in the art have become amazing. The costumes they create from tape and boxes are impressive representations of their film counterparts, and their skills in filming show real talent.

What makes the film so great is also what brings it down. Allowing the brothers to tell their story is a smart way of doing things, but it doesn’t allow for a real examination of what has happened. The questions the film raises about the effects of this life, and how it continued, are never answered.

IS THE WOLFPACK ESSENTIAL FESTIVAL VIEWING?

This is the kind of film that you have to see to believe, so do everything you can to watch.

THE WOLFPACK SCREENING TIMES § Friday, April 24, 2015 – 6:30 pm – TIFF Bell Lightbox § Sunday, April 26, 2015 – 4:00 pm – Scotiabank Theatre

Hot Docs 2015 Review: The Wolfpack By: Rob Trench | April 20, 2015 http://scenecreek.com/hot-­‐docs/hot-­‐docs-­‐the-­‐wolfpack/

Crystal Moselle’s The Wolfpack contains one of the most fascinating subjects seen in a North American documentary this year, and provides an compelling reflection on the influence that cinema can have on our lives.

The story concerns the six Angulo brothers (Bhagavan, Govinda, Jagadisa, Krsna, Mukunda, and Narayana), who have been confined inside their parents Lower East Manhattan apartment for most of their lives, only leaving a seldom amount of times per year. The way in which the siblings interact and understand the outside world is through their DVD collection, which they watch obsessively to the point of filming their own pitch-­‐perfect recreations (such films include Reservoir Dogs, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and The Dark Knight). These scenes factor into the documentary numerous times, and audiences will be amazed by the level of detail and authenticity seen in their absorption of the cinematic language.

Moselle’s position in the story enables the brothers to step out into the world with a fresh perspective, and engage in daily activities many of us take for granted. While such sequences are depicted with wonder and awe, they lack the same sense of intrigue apparent in the Angulos’ state of isolation, and it is clear that there is far greater potential to be explored beyond what is featured.

Despite this, The Wolfpack is a must-­‐see for fans of popular film, as it is a remarkable testament to how the medium can resonate with spectators as both a learning tool and a mode of inspiration.

Hot Docs: How To Change The World, Best of Enemies, The Wolfpack Reviews By: Jacqueline Valencia | April 19, 2015

http://nextprojection.com/2015/04/19/hot-­‐docs-­‐change-­‐world-­‐best-­‐enemies-­‐wolfpack-­‐reviews/

The Wolfpack (2014) | Dir. Crystal Moselle In the spring of 2010, director Crystal Moselle ran into the Angulo brothers while on a walk on First Avenue in Manhattan. Something about their waist length hair and awkward appearance intrigued her, so she engaged them in conversation. What she uncovered was a story of isolation and survival through cinema in heartbreaking circumstances.

The six brothers between the ages of eleven to eighteen, had lived indoors their whole lives confined to a four bedroom apartment with their sister and their parents. Their father is a controlling man who thinks himself omniscient had imposed rules on them while keeping them inside. Despite their circumstances, the brothers subsisted on films. In the film they recreate entire movies, building intricately detailed cardboard costumes and sets.

Their ease with the movie scripts and the memory they perform them with is disturbingly impressive.

Moselle and her film crew are never seen, and are rarely heard speaking onscreen. The camera stays back observing as little by little the brothers open up about their secluded lives. It is revealed that some years they’d go out nine times until one year they weren’t allowed to leave at all. One day the brave eldest brother defies the rules and walks out without permission. A poignant scene is when the brothers go out to see a film in a theatre for the first time. One them exclaims, “My money is going to Christian Bale! That’s awesome!” His delight reveals the intimate connection the boys have with film and in turn, the true magic of film watching.

You’ll scream for the brothers. Between tears of sorrow and joy, you’ll want to know more about them.

Here Are the Films We'll Be Catching At HotDocs 2015 By: GFW Staff | March 18, 2015

http://canvas.grolsch.com/film-­‐works/a-­‐hotdocs-­‐2015-­‐preview

The Wolfpack Crystal Moselle’s observational account of a peculiar family has been striking interest since its premiere at Sundance, where it picked up the Grand Jury Prize. She spent five years with Angulo family – six boys and one girl whose childhood and adolescence has been limited to the confines of their Manhattan apartment. With DVDs and plenty of time at their disposal, they’ve learnt about the outside world by religiously watching blockbusters and faithfully re-­‐enacting scenes from The Dark Knight. Inevitably and thankfully, the desire to escape the confines of their hermetic existence throws the family into conflict.

Finding Salvation in Family and Films: THE WOLFPACK (Hot Docs Review) By: Mark Cira | April 24, 2015

http://www.theseventhart.org/dailies/2015/04/24/finding-­‐salvation-­‐in-­‐family-­‐and-­‐films-­‐the-­‐wolfpack-­‐ hot-­‐docs-­‐review/

Among family profiles in the documentary genre, THE WOLFPACK is surely one of the most bizarre. Locked away in a cramped apartment in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Crystal Moselle finds room to explore the Angulo’s – a clan of seven children – upbringing at the hands of a repressive, merciless father. Despite their confinement, the children somehow find meaning in the far reaches of their bleak reality.

Film, specifically, is their nurturing bondage and also their salvation. In adoration of their favourite American films (THE DARK KNIGHT, RESERVOIR DOGS, and HALLOWEEN just to name a few), the group of children re-­‐enact scenes, going to such great lengths as typing the scripts manually by typewriter…all 118 pages of them.

Working primarily with confessional interviews, Moselle crafts a gripping, claustrophobic narrative that’s one part social experiment and one part human tragedy. These brothers have an undeniable energy and passion, which makes bearing witness to their imprisonment heartbreaking. Given the severity of the Father’s rule, it’d have been enlightening to understand more about him as a subject. From the sparse material, we only discover so much and it begs deeper questions.

There’s a moment in the film when the eldest son says, “There are some things you don’t get over and you don’t forgive.” It’s hard to imagine these children ever could.

Yet they do. Or at least seemingly. Their process of socializing back into the “real world” is both magnificent and inspiring. In that regard, THE WOLFPACK serves as a testament to freedom beyond the most oppressive means.

Whether it’s found in the love of your brother or in the escape of cinema.

– Mark Cira

Hot Docs 2015: The Wolfpack By: Courtney Small | April 23, 2015

http://cinemaaxis.com/2015/04/23/hot-­‐docs-­‐2015-­‐the-­‐wolfpack/

The Angulo brothers love cinema in a way that would make even the staunchest cinephile feel inadequate. Devouring every last morsel in their home collection, which spans 5000+ films, they are constantly striving to feed their seemingly insatiable appetite. The six brothers, assisted occasionally by their lone sister, invest hours writing scripts by hand and making homemade costumes and props in order to re-­‐enact their favourite cinematic moments verbatim. By all accounts their passion, while more than a little obsessive, is nothing that out of the ordinary on the surface.

It is no different than those who routinely discuss film online or attend fan conventions in cosplay. However, when one of the brothers exclaims in The Wolfpack that movies “make me feel like I am living” it is clear that this is no hyperbole.

Trapped like prisoners in their own home, only the patriarch holds a key to the front door, the Angulo clan live the life of a recluse. Raised to fear the outside, the siblings go out between once and nine times a year, if they venture out at all. Homeschooling and films are their only insight into the world beyond their lower eastside Manhattan apartment.

One brother recounts a story about the time he “escaped” this way of life. The fact that he wore a Mike Myers mask during his journey, not the most concealing of disguises, only further emphasizes the family’s situation.

Similar to the characters in some of the horror films they watch, the brothers live in fear of a monster. The major difference is that this monster has been with them since birth. Although director Crystal Moselle is only able to capture a few moments with the boys’ father, it is clear that he is the one who has set the group on its unique path. A walking contradiction at times, their father is paranoid that the corruptible nature of modern society will influence his children. The fascinating thing is that he is the one who introduced movies – one of the many art forms of this

supposed evil culture – into his family’s life. Proud of his ability to influence those around him, often through fear and abuse, Mr. Angulo is an enigma that neither the film nor the rest of the family can seem to crack.

Rather than exploiting the palatable tension between the brothers and their father, Moselle’s camera often lets those sections breath. She does not attempt to offer solutions to the brother’s predicament, but merely observes events as they play out. The Wolfpackuses the siblings’ cinematic obsession to convey the strength and hope that film can infuse into audiences. One of the most remarkable moments in the film arrives when the brothers, while on a rare day long outing, experience a movie in a theatre for the very first time. It is a scene that finds the boys fears and paranoia subdued, though only for a few short hour, by the power of cinema.

Treating her subjects with the utmost care and respect, Crystal Moselle’s The Wolfpack is both an fascinating exploration of a dysfunctional family and a love letter to the magic of cinema. While the audience is left to wonder about where the Angulo family will go from here? It is clear that their love of film will be with them every step of the way.

Screens Friday, April 24, 6:30 PM, TIFF Bell Lightbox Sunday, April 26, 4:00 PM Scotiabank Theatre Tickets can be purchased at the Hot Docs website.

HotDocs ’15 – Day 1: Drone/The Wolfpack By: Jorge Ignacio Castillo | April 24, 2015

http://www.prairiedogmag.com/hotdocs-­‐15-­‐day-­‐1-­‐dronethe-­‐wolfpack/

The Wolfpack (USA, 2015): The winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize has nothing to do with The Hangover movies (thank gawd). It’s actually the story of the Angulos, seven siblings holed up in a Lower East Side apartment in Manhattan. Their dad prevented them from leaving their home growing up, so their only experience of society was through movies, thousands of them.

Slowly, a cute setup (the brothers recreating their favourite Tarantino films) gives way to a much darker reality. While the teens are pleasant, home-­‐schooled and oddly well adjusted, their perception of life outside is warped, perhaps irremediably. Director Crystal Moselle shot the Angulo family for over four years. During this period, the siblings -­‐ tentatively first but with growing resolve-­‐ conquered the fear that clouded their development.

At no point The Wolfpack comes across as patronizing. For the most part, the filmmaker treats the kids as peers and, in turn, the Angulos reward Moselle with endearing openness. Here is a director fully aware of documentary filmmaking golden rule: If you have good subjects, let them do the talking. Four prairie dogs.

Hot Docs 2015: ‘Shoulder the Lion’ and ‘The Wolfpack’By: Addison Wylie By: Trevor Jeffrey | April 13, 2015

http://wyliewrites.com/hot-­‐docs-­‐2015-­‐1/

The Wolfpack focuses on a family of eight living in Manhattan whom have had very little contact with the outside world, because modern society strikes fear within the clan. This establishes and encourages extreme isolation with one sibling remembers a year where the children never stepped outside their home.

Crystal Moselle’s doc sent me into a bothersome case of cabin fever very quickly.

It’s justified, but the filmmaking makes the atmosphere intentionally tight and thin.

The six Angulo boys receive comfort from movies. They watch multiple films, reenact their favourite scenes, create replica costumes and props, and even create word-­‐for-­‐word screenplays by re-­‐watching their collection. When they’re not hopelessly peering out windows at the busy New York lifestyle. Movies provide a glimpse to what the outside world may be like. Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight is considered a strong reference for the film buffs.

The Wolfpack reminded me of reality television shows that exploit a premise like this. However, The Wolfpack is an unsettling and strangely uplifting portrait of societal withdrawal and overcoming it. While the film may be uncomfortable, we witness remarkable scenes where the Angulos expand their horizons. The jury’s still out on whether the Angulo’s felt pressured by the production, but you will get goosebumps nonetheless.

Catch The Wolfpack at Toronto’s Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival on: Friday, April 24 at 6:30 p.m. @ TIFF Bell Lightbox Sunday, April 26 at 4:00 p.m. @ Scotiabank Theatre

THE WOLFPACK plays Hot Docs 2015 By: Kate Bradford | April 26, 2015

http://www.thematinee.ca/hotdocs2015wolfpack/

No one appreciates the influence that film has on society more than a film writer like myself. Movies are a mirror that reflects a distorted but important image of society back to us. They help us make sense of our world. But what if that was all we had?

What if film was our only window into the world? For the Angulo Brothers, that has been their reality their entire lives.

THE WOLFPACK, from director Crystal Moselle, documents these fascinating brothers and their strange upbringing as they attempt to break free of the physical and psychological locks placed on them since birth by their oddball father.

He imposed a life of solitude on his family, claiming that society and its ills would corrupt his family. He is a misguided, selfish, and controlling zealot. His frustrating ideology was largely unquestioned by his children or his fearful wife for most of the time that he kept them inside their Lower East Side apartment complex, but most viewers will be frustrated by how easily his logic can be torn apart. He judges society harshly, but has not participated in it for decades. He hates the government, but has no problem taking a check from them each month. He wants his children to develop their own identities without the input or corruption of the outside world, but he robs them of the chance to do that by forcing them to live under his thumb and away from normal human experiences that we all must face in order to be well-­‐rounded people.

The boys’ mother is a far more tragic story. Her husband is controlling and abusive towards her, and her deep psychological shackles make her fearful of breaking free. While she too fears what the “real world” will do for her children, it is clear that her love for them permits her to entertain the idea that what she believed was best for them 20 years ago cannot continue.

The entire thing is immensely creepy, as you can imagine, but despite their grim surroundings these boys develop a close bond and a love for all things pop culture. They do not just watch movies, they memorize them, transcribe them by hand, and then re-­‐enact them perfectly in full costumes they have made themselves out of household objects like cereal boxes. As they become men, they rebel against their fathers controlling ways and begin to venture outside.

Understandably, this presents a whole new set of challenges.

They begin by appearing to take on alternative personas, falling into the comfort of the films and characters they know and love to put a buffer between them and the rest of society. One boy is arrested after leaving the house in a Michael Myers mask he made himself. When all 6 go on a trip to the beach, they all swap between accents from British to Brooklyn. They compare everything they see to movies, even the sand at the beach (“It’s like Lawrence of Arabia!”) The true triumph of this film, however, comes when we begin to see each boy take ownership of their own identity, and when that independence begins to rub off on their mother.

THE WOLFPACK plays at Hot Docs 2015 today, Sunday April 26th – 4pm at The Scotiabank Theatre (official website)

Thirty Four Flavours

Hot Docs Day 1: The Wolfpack April 24, 2015

https://thirtyfourflavours.wordpress.com/2015/04/24/hot-­‐docs-­‐day-­‐1-­‐planetary-­‐and-­‐the-­‐wolfpack/

‘The Wolfpack’ Six inseparable brothers shared a unique life together in the isolated world of their family’s Lower East Side Manhattan apartment. Locked in by their father for years, the brothers, homeschooled by their mother, only had movies to feed their imaginations. Crafting elaborate costumes and props, “The Wolfpack,” as they were nicknamed, recreated and videotaped scenes from their favourite films for years before they were allowed the freedom to go out.

When the charismatic and handsome brothers finally do venture out into the streets of New York, they cause quite a stir. Dressed as characters inspired from Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and The Godfather, they travel to Coney Island and much of New York for the first time. With uncanny access, director Crystal Moselle—who won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance for the film—goes deep inside the family’s life, interviewing the parents and brothers while inserting haunting images of archival home movies. Moselle captures the siblings’ real and imaginary world both inside and outside their apartment walls as they dream of dating for the first time and making their own movies in an unchartered urban landscape. Kathleen Mullen Review: There’s a reason ‘The Wolfpack’ won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. It is one epic and gut wrenching docu.

Throughout the film I kept on thinking this is what docu’s are made off. Raw. Emphatic. Unbelievable. Like a true wolf pack the six brothers have formed a bond that if impenetrable. There love and respect between one another is seen through their creativity, supportive moments and inside jokes. Party scenes, trips to the beach and cooking sessions seem very Leave it to Beaver with a grizzly edge. You will find moments to laugh so hard you may think you are being disrespectful and then immediately find a quiet moment to reflect on the true resiliency of these beautiful brothers in ‘crime’.

Hot Docs 2015: The Wolfpack By: Danielhreed | April 23, 2015

http://biffbampop.com/2015/04/23/hot-­‐docs-­‐2015-­‐the-­‐wolfpack/

The Wolfpack, the 2015 Sundance documentary winner, is about the six Angulo brothers who have been locked away in an apartment for their whole lives and still love each other’s company. They make home movies together with fancy handmade props. They reenact classic film dialogue and draw the poster art. They also play music with showmanship and cook meals together. With their long black ponytails and wiry bodies, they look like distinct characters made for the cinema. Though they range in age across their adolescent and teenage years, it is difficult to tell some of the older siblings apart.

Aside from the brothers, who are obviously the stars here, the story has all the ingredients for tightly wound drama: an abusive paranoid father of ambiguous descent, a sweet mother trapped by her love, and a younger sister who doesn’t fit in and is often overlooked. Instead of mourning the suffocating situation they find themselves in, the brothers embrace it – their imaginations more immense than the Manhattan that surrounds them.

First-­‐time director, Crystal Moselle, has found an incredible story. This is the type of subject that transcends what we know about the modern North American family, the contrast between the reclusive Angulos and the omnipresent city. What was supposed to be a pit stop en route to a greater destiny is now a resting place for welfare checks and detachment. They turn inward for exploration. Over-­‐protectiveness clouds their view of an already hazy skyline.

This reversion from the outside world was not the brothers’ doing. Their father, Oscar, has withheld them from public life. Although Oscar is never on camera long enough for the audience to see a complete view of his personality, his presence as an authority figure looms over the whole picture. His wife looks shell-­‐shocked. She follows her kids around the house timidly. It is clear that she is the source of love and compassion in the household, home-­‐schooling them to the best of her ability, but has never been able to pose a formidable enough stance to challenge her husband and soften his grip.

At this point in the story, Oscar is not who he used to be. Rather than patrolling the house and keeping his family in line, he’s shut himself off in his own room where he drinks alcohol and watches TV. He rebels against society by not working, but he resembles more of a broken man than one of principle. The boys have learned how to stay out of his way. At night they huddle around their mother in the living room for protection, resting on one another like cubs in a cave. In one particularly haunting segment of edited-­‐in home video, the Angulo patriarch is blessing his kin in a single-­‐ file line. He meets them all one-­‐by-­‐one by kissing their faces and muttering at them in a voice of purpose. You want them all to run away.

As a film, The Wolfpack is not as interesting as the subject matter itself. Structurally, it’s caught between a few styles.

At times Moselle takes a fly-­‐on-­‐the-­‐wall approach where she lets the camera roll and the boys do the rest. On other occasions she sits them down for interviews to reflect on their lives. The cuts are quick. Unlike the great observational documentaries, there isn’t enough time devoted to the unfolding of events to capture the nuances of the lives portrayed.

You can’t help but wish for longer takes and more off-­‐the-­‐cuff interaction between the family members. Sometimes the viewer is left trying to figure out how exactly the Angulos’ situation came to be. While, at other times, you’re looking to get a sense of who’s who in the family and how each personality fits together. The asides are distracting. It appears that the director is using all of her subjects individually to create a balanced perspective of their shared experience. The interviews seek to provide unique commentary from multiple angles. However, the sound-­‐bytes are too vague. Not enough is revealed specifically in their answers to show how they all feel. In this situation, no amount of interview footage can capture the family dynamic. While you may get an interpretation of an event from one of the Angulos, you don’t get a chance to see the depth of a reaction. There are times where the omniscient perspective surfaces, but never enough to deliver a prolonged emotional response. That spectrum of feeling so crucial to building a complete character study is oddly lacking here.

Moselle, while skilled enough to identify and take up with the Angulos, seems more concerned with delivering a fact-­‐ based narrative in objective fashion. And while sympathetic to her subjects, this approach comes across as a wasted opportunity. Instead of creating an immersive and vibrant experience, she presents a film in black and white. There are too many moments of cursory recollection. Past events are mentioned in passing but never explained in detail and the themes jump around in manic order. It’s exhausting trying to piece these fragments together.

To offset the retrospection, there are a couple of poetically filmed scenes. In one, the brothers are seen running back-­‐ and-­‐forth through their apartment hallway laughing and tagging each other. Instrumental music is plopped into the soundtrack and all the action seems slowed down to Mallickian effect. This is interruptive and out of place with what’s been presented up until that moment. Without being granted enough of a chance for emotional observation in past scenes, such a lyrical foray goes without meaning. The fabric of the film buckles when trying to straddle the artistic and the realistic, the investigative and the contemplative.

In a similarly filmed scene when the boys set off to the beach, Moselle is trying to portray wonder and discovery. They walk out into the sunlight in admiration of the natural. They smile and contemplate the beauty of the trees and water.

This moment of adventure is filmed like it’s supposed to be a breakthrough in the story, but the implications are lost on the viewer. We don’t know or see enough of the struggle it takes for the boys to venture outside in the first place.

Rather than this event manifesting as a momentous victory, it comes across as a recreation of something that’s happened before.

The Wolfpack Screens as part of the 2015 edition of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival on April 24th and April 26th. To purchase tickets, visit the website here.

Film Junk Podcast Episode #512: Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck and Hot Docs 2015 By: Sean | April 29, 2015

http://filmjunk.com/2015/04/29/film-­‐junk-­‐podcast-­‐episode-­‐512-­‐kurt-­‐cobain-­‐montage-­‐of-­‐heck-­‐and-­‐hot-­‐ docs-­‐2015/

0:00 – Intro 3:30 – Headlines: First Photo of Jared Leto as The Joker, The Visit Trailer 32:35 – Review: Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck 1:00:20 – Review: Raiders!

1:20:35 – Review: The Wolfpack 1:31:05 – Review: The Nightmare 1:43:50 – Review: Western 1:53:50 – Review: Hot Sugar’s Cold World 2:02:15 – Review: Live From New York 2:13:05 – Review: (T)error 2:22:00 – Review: The Visit 2:32:10 – Other Stuff We Watched: Thank You for Playing, Beaver Trilogy Part IV, Chuck Norris vs. Communism, Above and Below, Welcome to Leith, Listen to Me Marlon, Breaking a Monster 3:13:20 – This Week on DVD and Blu-­‐ray 3:14:40 – Outro

Hot Docs 2015 By: Peter French | April 23, 2015

http://www.peterfenech.ca/peters-­‐lighter-­‐side/2015/4/23/hot-­‐docs-­‐2015

Each year for the past several years I have appreciated one of the best film festivals in Toronto. The Hot Docs Film Festival has become a staple in my life that opens up the world and narratives I may have missed. I have planned a week of vacation to correspond with the festival and utilize the time to saturate myself with as many docs as possible.

Last year I took the opportunity to purchase a "premium pass" which allows access to all documentaries (within reason and regulations). I saw only a smaller amount of documentaries (24) compared to my original plan at 30. This year I have scheduled a bit more effectively and hope to see 35-­‐40 documentaries while still enjoying the restaurants and sites of Toronto.

WHY? I often get asked why I go and why I see so many documentaries in such a short period of time? I get told that I don't get to appreciate some of the documentaries because once one is complete I am jumping on transit to get to the next screening.

Why do I see so many documentaries -­‐ because there is so much of the world that is never understood or experienced as we rush through our daily lives. This saturation of films is because of the forced limited availability to so many documentaries that may get lost in the ether.

Example: one of my favourite documentaries a few years ago was FINDING TRUELOVE that was about a couple of guys finding a yearbook and eventually going to attend that school's reunion to find the coolest guy in there Timothy Truelove. It was fun, a breath of fresh air against the serious documentaries I had attended. I have not heard or seen it return to Toronto and sadly would have never experienced its general positivity.

I agree that some days I do feel I've missed out on really appreciating the documentaries because of the rushing around. I have attempted to leave larger gaps between screenings to absorb my experience and also to enjoy the post-­‐doc Question & Answer segments that often occur. The Q&A's are some of the best moments during the festival as I got to meet Caroll Spinney (Big Bird) and listen to Alice Cooper last year. Always great to get the context and reasoning of a documentary after watching it to really grasp some of the narratives.

TOP TEN +1 DOCS TO SEE Everyone seems to create lists as a way to organize their thoughts. I meticulously built a schedule around as many screenings as possible over the duration of the festival. Despite listing 35+ documentaries I hope to attend, there were at least fifteen other films I just couldn't fit. That being said, each year there are films I look forward to based on reviews, descriptions and content. Below is my top ten + 1 (in no particular order).

Clicking on the documentary will open a new window to the Hot Doc page with description, times and locations of the screenings.

1.

Kurt Cobain -­‐ Montage of Heck

2.

Speed Sisters

3.

For Grace

4.

Deep Web

5.

The Arms Drop

6.

The Wolfpack

7.

Danny

8.

The Bolivian Case

9.

(Dis)Honesty

10. Sugar Coated 11. Being Canadian for obvious reasons!

2015 HOT DOCS HIGHLIGHTS By: Shael Stolberg | April 26, 2015

http://filmbutton.com/mainpage/?p=17117

HOT DOCS 2015: ROUNDTABLE, PART 2 By: Mallory Andrews | May 4, 2015

http://moviemezzanine.com/hot-­‐docs-­‐2015-­‐roundtable-­‐part-­‐2/

Mallory: And the thing is, we still get that insider-­‐y Hollywood stuff. The film revisits the memorable moments—his deferral of his Academy Award in protest against the US government’s treatment of First Nation citizens perhaps being the most famous. But by overlaying it with Brando’s constant narration, it recasts these tentpole events in a new light. It was mesmerizing, and I can’t wait to revisit it. I was far less enthused by the recasting of filmic events in The Wolfpack, however.

Corey: We definitely disagree on this one. I thought The Wolfpack was near-­‐great. “Near,” only because I think the film loses steam at a certain point, and never finds quite the right note to land on. That said, the relationship to film in The Wolfpack is so interesting. It’s not about nostalgia, or even film as a capture medium for memories or events.

Instead, what’s explored is the way we relate to the world through movies. Here, you’ve got a set of brothers who have almost no real exposure to the world outside their New York City apartment—the result of the abusive, cult-­‐like philosophies of their father—and yet they’re able to understand and mimic normal human interaction primarily through what they’ve seen in films.

Mallory: I still very much enjoyed the film for what it was: a solid representation of a fascinating news story. But as a piece of craft, it just didn’t do it for me. As you say, it loses steam after a certain point. It starts at one level, and sort of stays there, with little forward momentum to sustain interest. I wasn’t satisfied with the parents’ explanation of why they kept their children sequestered, and it really felt like the filmmaker’s relationship with the family hinged on her very gentle treatment of them, so she didn’t push the matter. Which isn’t inherently a bad thing, of course. It just is what it is.

Corey: This was clearly a case where the filmmaker was risking access if she became antagonistic, but insofar as the film is about the kids’ experience and not the parents, I was satisfied. I loved the way their father is almost an evil presence who is barely seen in the first half, and then once he’s revealed, he’s kind of just a sick, drunk loser. Their mother was interesting in the way she seemed almost as abused as the kids were. And bringing it back to movies, the way that cinema—even the likes of The Dark Knight Rises—can be a mode of both escape and learning really got to me. And if we’re to compare it toRaiders!, here we have kids for whom the escape into recreating movies shot-­‐by-­‐ shot is a much more meaningful expression of creativity, at least to me.

Mallory: But I don’t think the film really digs into the significance of living your life through movies. It sort of stays on the same level as Raiders! in that respect, celebrating the creativity (that Batman costume was AMAZING), but not giving a full sense of the sociological and psychological ramifications. The Wolfpack may not be about the parents, but their decisions have directly impacted the lives of their children, so I don’t think it’s too much to expect a little more from them. The kids themselves are completely charming and disarming, and I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with them. But I was left with unanswered questions.

All pictures taken by GAT during the festival are available here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/97627695@N03/sets/72157652633637711

Publicity handled by GAT PR