ezra winton: Hot Docs 2012 – The good, the bad, the incomprehensible
This article was originally published at Art Threat. The 19th edition of North America’s largest documentary showcase and one of the world’s largest film festivals begins this week, running from April...
View Articleezra winton: Scrap America – A conversation with Scrapper filmmaker Brian Ashby
This week’s Friday Film Pick is the beautifully shot and tenderly rendered Scrappers, a documentary that quietly follows two Chicago residents as they eke out a living from the salvaging of metallic...
View Articleezra winton: The Documentary Download Dilemma – A Conversation with...
Much ink has been spilled and pixels punctuated regarding the ongoing controversial topic around the copyright, downloading, streaming and file sharing of creative content — yet there has been little...
View Articleezra winton: Free International Women’s Day Films at NFB.ca
The beaten (by the Canadian Conservative budget cuts) but not down National Film Board of Canada is offering a treasure trove of titles for free streaming today, in celebration and recognition of...
View Articleezra winton: The animals on our screen – A review of The Ghosts in Our Machine
Over the last decade of programming political documentary for Cinema Politica I can say with confidence that there are two subjects that have always been decidedly divisive and caused the most...
View Articleezra winton: Representing addiction in documentary cinema
In just under a month on May 11th, I’ll be speaking in Vancouver at a conference about the intersection of documentary, addiction, madness and social health. I’ll be speaking about NFB and activist...
View Articleezra winton: Black Sea pirates at Hot Docs
Svetla and I are giddy with anticipation with the thought of attending the world premiere of a new doc by our Bulgarian friends Vanya and Svetlo, THE LAST OF THE BLACK SEA PIRATES at this year’s Hot...
View Articleezra winton: The fish farm conspiracy – BC salmon are diseased from farms but...
This is a great independent doc by a friend from British Columbia. It is absolutely shocking to see the lengths the provincial and federal governments are going to in order to not allow the...
View Articleezra winton: The costs of consumption
The next time someone asks me why I’m an anti-capitalist, I’m just going to tell them to watch GREEN: DEATH OF THE FORESTS by Patrick Rouxel. A stunning visual essay showing the reasons behind and...
View Articleezra winton: POV Magazine
When Marc Glassman, the editor of POV magazine, asked me to join the publication as the newest contributing editor last year I was honoured. As Canada’s only source of writing on documentary culture,...
View Articleezra winton: Strategies and Tactics – April Speaking Event
I’ll be speaking at this roundtable on April 9th in Montreal. Looking forward to it!
View Articleezra winton: CP book launch and John Greyson talk
This is the poster for the John Greyson talk and CP book launch in Montreal in a few days. Can’t wait!
View Articleezra winton: Launching the Cinema Politica Book
From left to right, at the Cinema Politica book launch: Svetla Turnin, John Greyson, Thomas Waugh and Ezra Winton. High up on the eleventh floor of Concordia’s EV (Engineering and Visual Arts)...
View Articleezra winton: My Programmers Rant – 2014
I’ve watched over 50 documentaries in the last two weeks (and many more over 14 years of programming), and here’s what I’m thinking: The first point is so important that I’d like to just put it up...
View Articleezra winton: Still Talking about Challenge for Change
Challenge for Change/Société nouvelle was a program launched by the National Film Board of Canada in the late sixties that facilitated the production of around 200 social documentaries known for their...
View Articleezra winton: Hot Docs 22: CanCon and BrandCon
North America’s largest and most sweeping doc-deluge, the Canadian International Hot Docs Festival, is once again in full swing, and the moment wouldn’t be complete, for me at least, without some form...
View Articleezra winton: Curating the North: Documentary Screening Ethics and Inuit...
This article was originally published at ArtThreat.net on December 17, 2015. Documentary festivals are certainly not immune to scandal and controversy, and this year’s RIDM, which took place in...
View Articleezra winton: Streaming Truth to Power: CPVOD Launches!
The last 48 hours have been quite the whirlwind of activity at Cinema Politica HQ here in Montreal. We’ve been planning a launch date for our newest expansion of the political cinema terrain: Cinema...
View Articleezra winton: Fighting Fascism by way of Understanding the Fascists
One of the common criticisms of advocacy films like Bully that I’ve heard and share is that the filmmakers narrowly focus on victims without ever exploring those who perpetrate. These films help along...
View Articleezra winton: Against empathy?
This short animation from The Atlantic highlights some of Professor Paul Bloom’s thoughts on why empathy—at least a kind of status quo mainstream empathy—isn’t really a good thing at all. The short...
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