2010 Docs for Schools Selections
The following are the official selections for Docs for Schools 2010. Docs for Schools selections cross multiple curriculum areas, with viable content for grades 9 through 12. Not all titles are available for in-school screenings.
Need some help using documentaries as an educational tool? Download Looking at Documentaries teachers' educational package.
Education packages for these selections will be available on April 23.
Selections From Hot Docs 2010 Festival
The following Docs for Schools titles are selected from this year's Festival.
A SMALL ACT Download Educational Resource Package
D: Jennifer Arnold│USA│80 min│English, Kikuyu, Swedish w/English subtitles
For $15 per term, a Swedish stranger sponsors a young Kenyan’s education and transforms his life. Now a Harvard-educated lawyer, he founds a scholarship to pay it forward, but discovers a failing school system that’s leaving its children behind.
Bloor Screening: Tuesday, May 4, 10:00am – Filmmaker in attendance for Q&A
Available for in-school screenings.
CANDYMAN: THE DAVID KLEIN STORY Download Educational Resource Package
D: Costa Botes│New Zealand│76 min
Jelly Belly releases an official history of the candy, but the inventor’s name, David Klein, isn’t to be found. Featuring an eccentric millionaire, conniving corporations, lots of sugar, and Weird Al Yankovic, this is the unbelievable story explaining why.
Bloor Screening: Monday, May 3, 1:00pm – Filmmaker in attendance for Q&A
Not available for in-school screenings.
CONGO IN FOUR ACTS Download Educational Resource Package
D: Dieudo Hamadi, Divita Wa Lusala, Kiripi Katembo Siku│Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa│69 min│English and French w/ English subtitles
A quartet of powerful, hard-hitting short films, made by young Congolese filmmakers, lays bare the disturbing reality of everyday life in mineral-rich Democratic Republic of Congo.
Bloor Screening: Wednesday, May 5, 1:00pm – Filmmaker in attendance for Q&A.
Available for in-school screenings.
GASLAND Download Educational Resource Package
D: Josh Fox│USA│107 min
Flammable tap water, mysterious ailments, poisoned land and livestock: Sundance prize-winner Gasland exposes the shocking environmental calamities and cover-ups caused by natural gas drilling, shedding an absurd light on America’s new energy race.
Bloor Screening: Wednesday, May 5, 10:00 am
Not available for in-school screenings.
IN THE NAME OF THE FAMILY Download Educational Resource Package
D: Shelley Saywell│Canada│90 min
The tragic murder of Mississauga’s Aqsa Parvez is featured in this powerful and sensitive investigation into the killing of young girls in the name of family honour in North America. Heartbreaking stories expose the beliefs used to justify violence against women.
Bloor Screening: Tuesday, May 4 – 1:00pm – Filmmaker in attendance for Q&A
Available for in-school screenings.
LISTEN TO THIS Download Educational Resource Package
D: Juan Baquero│Canada│76 min (48 min version for in-school screenings)
Jasmine Jacobs is an artist - she just doesn’t know it yet. Three special kids blossom through a music program at an inner-city Toronto elementary school in this inspiring doc about what it means to be truly heard.
Bloor Screening: Thursday, May 6 – 1:00pm – Filmmaker in attendance for Q&A
Available for in-school screenings.
TEENAGE PAPARAZZO Download Educational Resource Package
D: Adrian Grenier│USA│101 min
Who better to expose the world of the paparazzi and star-worship than a celebrity? Actor Adrian Grenier turns the camera onto 13-year-old shooter Austin Visschedyk, and stalks famous friends Alec Baldwin, Matt Damon and Paris Hilton.
Screening fully booked! Bloor Screening: Friday, May 7 – 1:00pm
Not available for in-school screenings.
THE STORY OF FURIOUS PETE Download Educational Resource Package
D: George Tsioutsioulas│Canada│85 min (60 min version for in-school screening)
Pete was recovering from anorexia when a friend dared him to eat a super-sized breakfast. He rose to the challenge and ate four. Now, he's a YouTube sensation as a world champion competitive eater.
Bloor Screening: Thursday, May 6 – 10:00am – Filmmaker in attendance for Q&A
Available for in-school screenings.
THUNDER SOUL Download Educational Resource Package
D: Mark Landsman│USA│83 min
Big afros, funk arrangements , and a super tight stage show put the Kashmere High School Band on the map in the 1970’s. Thirty-five years later, the band reunites to honor their mentor, Conrad “Prof” Johnson.
Bloor Screening:Friday, May 7 – 10:00am – Filmmaker in attendance for Q&A
Not available for in-schools screenings.
WASTE LAND Download Educational Resource Package
D: Lucy Walker│UK, Brazil│99 min│English and Spanish w/ English subtitles
Already a multiple award winner on the fest circuit, Lucy Walker's transcendent doc follows artist Vik Muniz and his work with pickers of recyclable materials in Brazil’s Jardim Gramacho, the world's largest landfill site.
Screening fully booked! Bloor Screening: Monday, May 3 – 10:00am
Not available for in-schools screenings.
By Popular Demand
PROM NIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI, REPORTER and TAKING ROOT were popular 2009 Docs For Schools films, which we are pleased offer again this year. P STAR RISING was a 2009 Hot Docs Festival title which the filmmakers have generously agreed to include in this year's Docs for Schools line up.
P STAR RISING Download Educational Resource Package
D: Gabriel Noble│USA│83 min
What’s the word? P Star is the world’s youngest rap artist. An atypical tween, she rhymes what she knows: temporary housing, crack, single dad and bling. When the dough starts to flow, you wonder who’s really the adult.
Available for in-school screenings only.
PROM NIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI Download Educational Resource Package
D: Paul Saltzman | Canada | 90 min
When Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman offers to pay for his hometown high school's first-ever integrated senior prom, Charleston's long-standing traditions and racial tensions intensify as students prepare for the big day.
Available for in-school screenings only.
REPORTER Download Educational Resource Package
D: Eric Daniel Metzgar | USA | 92 min
Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof delves into the horrific humanitarian atrocities in the Congo, searching for the story that will galvanize an increasingly jaded and detached Western reader.
Available for in-school screenings only.
TAKING ROOT: THE VISION OF WANGARI MAATHAI Download Educational Resource Package
D: Lisa Merton & Alan Dater | USA | 81 min
The inspiring story of Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai, whose simple act of planting trees inspired Kenya's environmental movement, protected the human rights of its people, and defended the democracy of an entire nation.
Available for in-school screenings only.
Aboriginal Strand
New this year, the Docs for Schools Aboriginal Strand is curated and offered in partnership with Indigenous Culture & Media Innovations.
ATHLII GWAII: THE LINE AT LYELL, PTS 1 & 2 Download Educational Resource Package
D: Jeff Bear/Marianne Jones | Canada | 46:30 min
In the fall of 1985, a small but resolute troupe of Haida elders journeyed by helicopter to Athlii Gwaii (Lyell Island) to join their young counterparts in a stand against clearcutting. A total of 72 people were arrested, but their tactics garnered global attention and won change: in 1987, the government established the Gwaii Haanas Park Reserve/Haida Heritage Site.
Available for in-school screenings only.
LAND OF OIL AND WATER Download Educational Resource Package
D: Warren Cariou and Neil McArthur | Canada | 44 min
Underneath the woods and the muskeg of northern Canada lies roughly two trillion barrels of oil, fifteen percent of the world’s known reserves. The film follows the journey of Warren Cariou, a Métis writer from northern Saskatchewan, who learns that the oil companies from Alberta are expanding into his homeland. Cariou talks to people in the area about their hopes and fears about the development.
Available for in-school screenings only.
MOHAWK GIRLS Download Educational Resource Package
D: Tracey Deer | Canada | 62 min
With insight, humour and compassion, director Tracey Deer takes us inside the lives of three teenage girls on the Kahnawake Native reserve near Montreal as the girls tackle the same issues of identity, culture and family that she faced a decade earlier. Like Tracey, the girls are outspoken, honest and wise beyond their years. Presented in partnership with the NFB.
Available for in-school screenings only.
SPIRIT DOCTORS Download Educational Resource Package
D: Marie Burke | Canada | 40 min
Lyrical and honest, filmmaker Marie Burke journeys into the spiritual world of traditional Native medicine, the world of Mary and Ed Louie. With a lifetime of experience in the ways of Native spirituality, Mary and Ed are steadfastly committed to the practices that keep them accountable to the spirit world, their people and Mother Earth. Presented in partnership with the NFB.
Available for in-school screenings only.
THE EXPERIMENTAL ESKIMOS Download Educational Resource Package
D: Barry Greenwald | Canada | 42:30 min
Three Inuit boys are taken from their families and sent south, unaware that they will become guinea pigs in a dubious government experiment in this shocking tale about the human costs of assimilation.
Available for in-school screenings only.
Docs for Schools is generously supported by Lead Partner Dundee Wealth with additional support from The Ontario Trillium Foundation, The Hal Jackman Foundation, the Catherine and Maxwell Meighen Foundation, the Charles H. Ivey Foundation, and though contributions by individual donors.
