Hot Docs

Hot Docs presents Critical Mass, a new speaker series featuring international critics and media personalities that will take place during this year’s Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. Critical Mass will pair high-profile critics with Canadian media personalities for intimate conversations about the latest trends and ideas fuelling their fields .

Sasha Frere-Jones debuted as The New Yorker’s pop critic in 2004 with “Let’s Go Swimming” an essay on Arthur Russell. His omnivorous taste is responsible for the mainstream coverage of acts like Arcade Fire, Joanna Newsom, Grizzly Bear, Manu Chao, and Bon Iver, as well as established successes like Neil Diamond, Mariah Carey, Beyoncé, Wu-Tang Clan, Lil Wayne, and Prince. In 2007, The New Yorker published “A Paler Shade of White”, an essay in which Frere-Jones examined the changing role of race in pop, specifically indie rock and hip-hop of the last two decades. The piece proved to be controversial, eliciting responses from Playboy, The Village Voice, Slate, and Simon Reynolds, among dozens of other news outlets and blogs. The New Yorker received more mail about “A Paler Shade of White” than it did for any other essay in the previous ten years. In 2008, Frere-Jones was named one of the top 30 critics in the world by Intelligent Life, the lifestyle publication from The Economist.

Sasha Frere-Jones will appear in conversation with veteran broadcaster and writer Eric Friesen.

Critical Mass is programmed by Bob Ramsay, Ramsay Inc.

Support provided by the Government of Ontario.