“That’s What Public Art is All About…Everyone is Invited”: Andrey M Paounov on his Christo doc Walking on Water

Andrey M Paounov’s Walking on Water centers on the legendary environmental artist Christo and the realization of his most recent project (his second since the 2009 death of his beloved partner in life and art Jeanne-Claude). 2016’s The Floating Piers was a two-mile-long walkway of monk-yellow fabric that allowed over a million visitors to “float” on foot across Italy’s Lake Iseo.

What Walking on Water is not, thankfully, is your standard celebratory portrait of an unconventional maestro (though Christo, who brings to mind a Bulgarian version of Bernie Sanders, is certainly that). Indeed, what makes Paounov’s Locarno-premiering film so refreshingly unique is the parallel artistry behind the lens. Employing stunning cinematography and a reverent score, while smartly eschewing any context or backstory, Paounov thrusts us right inside the fast-moving, tension-filled creative process itself — a drama in which a grand vision can be dashed by anything from mindless bureaucracy to a sudden downpour.

Filmmaker spoke with the acclaimed Bulgarian director (whose last film was the TIFF-debuting The Boy Who Was a King) prior to the doc’s May 17th opening at NYC’s Film Forum.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

“We’re Looking for Passionate People Who We Think Will Put in the Work and Deliver”: Dorota Lech on the 20-year-old Hot Docs Forum

As a film journo who usually prefers celebrating the fruits of cinematic labor over covering the messy business of making the product I’m often a bit squeamish when it comes to observing pitch sessions (in no small part due to the glaring abundance of older white faces dangling the purse strings). Fortunately, the folks behind the two-decade-old Hot Docs Forum, which utilizes the appropriately Harry Potter-esque, neo-Gothic Hart House student center at the University of Toronto, do an expert job of combining industry necessity with collegial fun.

This is perhaps best evidenced by the Forum’s Cuban Hat Award, a prize decided by audience ballot and funded by literally passing around a Cuban hat as collection plate during the proceedings. And this year’s eclectic take, which went to Bo McGuire and producer Tatiana Bears for their intriguingly titled Socks on Fire: Uncle John and the Copper Headed Water Rattlers, included over $2,000 in six currencies along with various production services. And that’s in addition to a homestay in Copenhagen to office space in Greece to two Toronto Raptors “We The North” t-shirts — they’d made the NBA playoffs after all — and a tin of ginger mints. (No ginger mints went to the projects Midwives, Colour of the Wind or Twice Colonized, though they did ultimately receive Canadian dollar prize winnings totaling $30,000, $20,000 and $30,000, respectively.)

So to get a better understanding of how this transformation of high-stakes shark tank into supportive team spirit came about, Filmmaker turned to the nomadic (Poland-born but Toronto and LA-based) head of the Forum, Dorota Lech, who also leads the Toronto International Film Festival’s Discovery section.

Doc Stars of the Month: Trinea Gonczar & Amanda Thomashow, 'At the Heart of Gold’

Erin Lee Carr (Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop; Mommy Dead and Dearest) has built an impressive career turning ripped-from-the-headlines stories (she is the daughter of late media icon David Carr, after all) featuring society’s “monsters” into sober reflections on society itself. So perhaps it was only a matter of time before the deft documentarian decided to tackle one of the most outrageous scandals in recent memory: the aiding and abetting of pedophile doctor Larry Nassar over decades by Michigan State University, USA Gymnastics and the organization’s Olympian-making affiliates (including superstar coaching couple Bela and Martha Karolyi).

For as horrific as Nassar’s behavior was — hundreds of girls and young women subject to sexual abuse in the guise of medical “treatments” for years on end — there was the equally appalling reaction of the adults surrounding him, who refused to believe those who did have the courage to speak up. Indeed, one of the most chilling aspects of this whole sordid mess was the systemic “gaslighting,” as one former gymnast described it, of the kids who chose to come forward. Adults who didn’t want to face the truth simply told the adolescent victims that the molestation that was happening wasn’t actually happening, which the girls then often accepted — only to find out years later, once Nassar was revealed as a serial predator, that what they were comfortingly assured was reality wasn’t actually reality. In other words, a matrix of crimes — physical, psychological and emotional — by a multitude of culprits ultimately occurred.

To untangle the thorny drama, Documentary turned to two heroic women — Trinea Gonczar, a longtime family friend of Nassar’s and one of his earliest victims, and Amanda Thomashow, who filed the first Title IX complaint against him — to discuss everything from the intense coverage surrounding the shocking case to the symbiotic impact of #MeToo.

To read my interview with the remarkable ladies visit Documentary magazine.