My Playwright Sister, written and performed by James Diamond and Johanna Nutter, is a sequel of sorts to Nutter’s earlier work, My Pregnant Brother. My Pregnant Brother sets Nutter’s struggle…
The Secret Trial 5, director Amar Wala’s first feature, is an engaging and enraging look at five men labelled security risks by the Canadian government and detained without trial for…
On the outside, The Condemned is what you would expect of a documentary about a prison: bad food, unsympathetic guards, tearful family reunions, letters from Lonely Hearts, and a lot…
Private Violence, a heart-wrenching documentary about domestic abuse, follows one advocate and survivor’s journey to improve upon the resources and support systems for abused women, as well as hold accountable…
Come Worry With Us! is a film by Helene Klodawsky that follows Montreal-based band, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra on a North American tour. A collage-like documentary, the film…
We Are the Giant, a powerful portrait of five human rights activists in Syria, Libya, and Bahrain, personalizes the multiple, simultaneous, and in many ways ongoing struggles often monolithically referred…
“Children like me simply don’t exist for them.” With these ominous words, spoken over a crackling telephone connection, Children 404 draws to a close; its unsettling conclusion signaled by an…
Vessel (Diana Whitten, USA, 2014) is fast-paced, heart-thumping adventure into reproductive rights and activism on the high seas. This was one of my favourite films at Hot Docs 2014, and…
“… it’s a place I call home, although I blend in only as a familiar stranger.” Evaporating Borders, written and directed by Iva Radivojevic, is a five-act exploration of asylum-seekers…
It’s springtime in Toronto and that means Canada’s premiere documentary showcase is back for another jam-packed ten day event that will deliver the world of doc to eager local audiences…
Editor’s note: Christine Phang, the author of this article, has also responded to attacks on the film by BBC critic Nick Fraser. Indonesia’s history as an independent state has been…
In times of stress we turn to torn fragments of ourselves and worship them as if they were whole nations (From Mars at Sunrise). Mars at Sunrise (2014) is director…
The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, Anonymous, Christine Cynn, 2013) is a documentary about Indonesia’s anti-communist purges of 1965 that thankfully abandons the traditional interview format in favour of something…
From a purely organizational standpoint, there are plenty of reasons for the gender binary. The system delineates male and female characteristics as separate and static, ostensibly facilitating a natural and…
So University of California Press has just made 700 of its books available for online reading (to read on a tablet you have to copy paste into some other program…
Recently, I heard about Tundra Books doing a blog tour for Paula Weston’s “Shadows”. I have done a blog tour for Tundra Books before, and it was a great experience.…
How would you react if I told you it wasn’t your fault you’re fat? Not entirely, anyway. Not the way that the medical profession or society at large would have…
As part of the Amazing Stories Blog Team, I have completed a book review for a blog tour. The review was published today. I’d like to point out that the…
Whenever I shop for groceries, I’m reminded of our collective obsession with processed and packaged foods. As someone who makes an reasonable effort to make decisions that are good for…
The Act of Killing: My family lived through it
Editor’s note: Christine Phang has recently written a contextual analysis of the Oscar-nominated documentary, The Act of Killing. After we read her essay we asked her to give us her…