Four Canadian documentaries in their final production stages have been selected to participate in Showcase Canada at Cannes Marché du Film, as part of the market’s Docs-in-Progress initiative! And for the third consecutive year, Telefilm Canada, in partnership with the Forum RIDM and in collaboration with the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, will present the showcase.
Docs-in-Progress will be a hybrid event, including both an online and an in-person component. To participate virtually and see the showcases, Marché du film’s online platform is the place to be from July 6 to 9, 2021, followed by physical screenings at Marché du film July 9 through 12.
What Docs-in-Progress is all about?
As part of Showcase Canada at Docs-in-Progress, four homegrown doc filmmakers will pitch their projects and share a 10-minute clip with an eager audience of decision-makers seeking great content. With projects almost ready for the silver screen, it’s a great opportunity for our diverse group of talent to catch the attention of international business partners, including funders, co-producers, distributors, sales agents, and festival programmers.
Showcase Canada’s Docs-in-Progress selection:
Miryam Charles’s This House (Cette maison)
This Telefilm Talent to Watch-supported project revisits the 2008 death of a teenager who was found hanged in her bedroom, and an autopsy revealing that perhaps this was not a case of suicide after all. P.S.: With a variety of shorts under her directorial belt, this filmmaker (who has directed and produced both fiction and docs) was recently named co-chair of Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) and Forum RIDM’s board of directors.
Heather Hatch’s Wochiigii lo, End of the Peace
This first feature doc follows the filmmaker’s short Jaat Sdiihltl’lxa: Woman Who Returns, which explored her return to her Haida clan. Her new project explores the fight between West Moberly First Nation and the B.C. government, in which Diane Abel and Chief Roland Wilson battle to preserve their treaty and prevent a multi-billion-dollar mega-dam project on the Peace River.
Fazila Amiri’s Songs She Sings in Shadows
A directorial feature debut by this Afghan-Canadian filmmaker that sweeps us into the heart of the hit singing competition TV series Afghan Star, where pop star and activist Aryana Sayeed leads and inspires the hopeful contestants —all amidst the US–Taliban peace negotiations. Supported by the Telefilm Talent to Watch program!
Jacquelyn Mills’s Geographies of Solitude
This award-winning filmmaker’s 2017 doc In the Waves scooped up top prizes at the RIDM, Atlantic Film Festival, and New Hampshire Film Festival, and her work often focuses on “the natural world.” This new 16mm film, supported by the Sundance Documentary Fund, gently invites us into the landscape and world of environmentalist Zoe Lucas, who for more than 40 years has made her home on isolated Sable Island (in the Northern Atlantic Ocean, about 300 kilometres away from Halifax, Nova Scotia).
