Hoc Docs today announced that three Australian films will premiere at the Canadian International Documentary Festival in Toronto next month. Gayby Baby, Sam Klemke’s Time Machine and The Bolivian Case will showcase at the festival along with 207 other documentaries from around the world.
The world premiere of Gayby Baby will screen in the World Showcase program. The film offers a moving portrait of same-sex families from the viewpoint of the children, and offers insight into the challenges they face – personally and from the outside world. The feature documentary is based on the short Growing Up Gayby – both films were supported by Screen Australia. The film is directed by Maya Newell and produced by Charlotte Mars.
Following acclaimed screenings at the Sundance Film Festival and Rotterdam International Film Festival, Sam Klemke’s Time Machine will have its Canadian premiere at Hot Docs. The film is about an obsessive filmmaker, Sam Klemke, who in 1977, aged 17, set out to record himself every year until his death. Sam filmed and narrated 50 years of his life, creating a strange and intimate portrait of what it means to be human. The film was written and directed by Matthew Bate (Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure) and produced by Rebecca Summerton and Sophie Hyde. Sam Klemke’s Time Machine was supported by Screen Australia.
The Bolivian Case will have its world premiere at the festival in the Special Presentations program. The documentary follows the story of the three Norwegian teenage girls that were arrested in Bolivia with cocaine in their luggage in 2008. After illegally escaping Bolivia, one of the girls has become a celebrity in Norway, the second has been acquitted in a Norwegian court, while the third remains behind bars in Bolivia. The film is written, directed and produced by Violeta Ayala and written and produced by Daniel Fallshaw.
Known as North America’s largest documentary festival, conference and market, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival will run 23 April – 3 May 2.
www.hotdocs.ca
FESTIVAL SCREENINGS
THE BOLIVIAN CASE
World premiere
United Notions Film
Writer/Director/Producer Violeta Ayala
Producer/Writer Daniel Fallshaw
Synopsis The stranger-than-fiction story of three Norwegian teenage girls caught with 22kg of cocaine in a Bolivian airport.
GAYBY BABY
World premiere
Marla House Pty Ltd
Producer Charlotte Mars
Director Maya Newell
Synopsis Gayby Baby follows the lives of four kids – Gus, Ebony, Matt and Graham – whose parents all happen to be gay. As they each wrestle with personal change, the outside world wrestles with the issue of marriage equality and whether or not kids of same-sex families are at risk.
SAM KLEMKE’S TIME MACHINE
Canadian premiere
Closer Productions
Producers Rebecca Summerton, Sophie Hyde
Writer/Director Matthew Bate
International Sales Visit Films
US Sales Visit Films
Australian Distributor Closer Screens
Synopsis In 1977, teenager Sam Klemke began a project to obsessively film and narrate every year of his life in an attempt to understand himself. Also in 1977, NASA sent into space the Golden Record: an audiovisual self-portrait of humanity that would allow extraterrestrials to understand who we are. Although travelling parallel through time, these two self-portraits tell very different sides of the human story. Sam Klemke’s Time Machine moves us from the infinity of space to the raw intimacy of the life of an extraordinary nobody to look at what it means to be human.