With it being the festival’s 25th anniversary, I thought that I would start my coverage this year by going back and reminiscing about the first screening I attended at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary festival. I’m a bit of a late bloomer attending the festival, with me not deciding to attend a Hot Docs screening until 2011. The one film I choose to see that year was Anthony Baxter’s You’ve Been Trumped, which turns out to be a documentary that is still quite timely seven years later.
To provide a little context, You’ve Been Trumped played at Hot Docs around the time Donald Trump was considering running for president the first time around. After years of being publicly known as the host of The Apprentice, it could be argued that You’ve Been Trumped was an early look at the type of man Donald Trump truly is.
For those who have no seen the documentary, You’ve Been Trumped brings Anthony Baxter to a small Scottish community, which is being threatened by Trump’s decision to build a golf course in the area. Trump wants the locals evicted from their homes and the community fights to maintain their way of life.
It can be argued that premiering at Hot Docs was a blessing to You’ve Been Trumped, which at the time was having a hard time finding distribution. Anthony Baxter would continue following the situation at this Scottish community and he would later release the follow-up films A Dangerous Game, which premiered at Hot Docs in 2014, and You’ve Been Trumped Too, which was released online on the eve of the 2016 election.
Donald Trump never ended up going through with his initial presidential campaign and I would like to thing that the less-than-positive depiction of him in You’ve Been Trumped had something to do with that. However, it is scary to think that the very first film I saw at Hot Docs was about a man who is now the President of the United States. I highly recommend seeking out You’ve Been Trumped and seeing that the warning signs were there all those years ago.
Sean Patrick Kelly is a Toronto-based freelance film critic and blogger with a Bachelor of Arts in Cinema and Media Studies from York University. Since founding his site in 2004, Sean has shared his passion for cinema through insightful reviews and commentary. His work has also been featured in prominent outlets, including Toronto Film Scene, HuffPost Canada, Screen Anarchy, ScreenRant, and Rue Morgue Magazine.
Yesterday was TIFF single ticket day. It is always a stressful day for festival goers, who opt to purchase their tickets separately, instead of getting mutli-film packages. Those coming to the box office in person have to deal with multi-hour waits in line, while those ordering on line have to contend with server issues and…
The “Cinema Appreciation Society of Toronto,” myself included, voted on their favourite films of the recently completed Toronto International Film Festival. Not surprisingly, the top film in the poll was 12 Years a Slave, which was the film that walked away with the People’s Choice Award at the festival. However, a surprise on the list…
“I like to think of Vanguard as Midnight Madness’s older, more mature sister with a darker, confrontational and transgressive core.” – Colin Geddes That quote gives you the idea of the films that make up the companion programme to Midnight Madness. The films in Vanguard tend to feature more arty genre fare, but there are still…
After the completion of the Toronto Film Festival last weekend, I left for a one week trip to Calgary. By pure coincidence, my trip coincided with the start of the Calgary International Film Festival, which begins tonight and runs until Oct 3. Not wanting to turn down an opportunity, I figured that I should try…
Another edition of Hot Docs has come to an end. This was a record-breaking year for the festival, with the estimated audience reaching 211,000. As always, this was an incredibly busy festival for me and I am happy to putting my coverage to rest until next year. Without further ado, here is my full wrap-up…
It hasn’t taken long for Vanguard to develop into the more mature companion of the Midnight Madness programme. While the late-night programme is often filled with crowd-pleasers, Vanguard is often filled with more challenging genre fare. It was last year that I wrote a lengthy editorial about the mass walkouts that I witnessed during a…
Yesterday was TIFF single ticket day. It is always a stressful day for festival goers, who opt to purchase their tickets separately, instead of getting mutli-film packages. Those coming to the box office in person have to deal with multi-hour waits in line, while those ordering on line have to contend with server issues and…
The “Cinema Appreciation Society of Toronto,” myself included, voted on their favourite films of the recently completed Toronto International Film Festival. Not surprisingly, the top film in the poll was 12 Years a Slave, which was the film that walked away with the People’s Choice Award at the festival. However, a surprise on the list…
“I like to think of Vanguard as Midnight Madness’s older, more mature sister with a darker, confrontational and transgressive core.” – Colin Geddes That quote gives you the idea of the films that make up the companion programme to Midnight Madness. The films in Vanguard tend to feature more arty genre fare, but there are still…
After the completion of the Toronto Film Festival last weekend, I left for a one week trip to Calgary. By pure coincidence, my trip coincided with the start of the Calgary International Film Festival, which begins tonight and runs until Oct 3. Not wanting to turn down an opportunity, I figured that I should try…
Another edition of Hot Docs has come to an end. This was a record-breaking year for the festival, with the estimated audience reaching 211,000. As always, this was an incredibly busy festival for me and I am happy to putting my coverage to rest until next year. Without further ado, here is my full wrap-up…
It hasn’t taken long for Vanguard to develop into the more mature companion of the Midnight Madness programme. While the late-night programme is often filled with crowd-pleasers, Vanguard is often filled with more challenging genre fare. It was last year that I wrote a lengthy editorial about the mass walkouts that I witnessed during a…
Yesterday was TIFF single ticket day. It is always a stressful day for festival goers, who opt to purchase their tickets separately, instead of getting mutli-film packages. Those coming to the box office in person have to deal with multi-hour waits in line, while those ordering on line have to contend with server issues and…
The “Cinema Appreciation Society of Toronto,” myself included, voted on their favourite films of the recently completed Toronto International Film Festival. Not surprisingly, the top film in the poll was 12 Years a Slave, which was the film that walked away with the People’s Choice Award at the festival. However, a surprise on the list…
