Hot Docs Festival is happening, online!
We are proud to announce that starting from May 28th to June 24th, Ontario audience will be able to watch two films from Taskovski catalogue – Tales From The Prison Cell by Abel Visky and Proton Cinema (Hungary, Croatia, UK) and Shadow Flowers by Seung Jun YI (South Korea).
Hot Docs Festival Online will be available at hotdocs.ca. Streaming is geo-blocked to Ontario, so you will need to be within the province to stream films.
TALES FROM THE PRISON CELL by Abel Visky (Hungary, Croatia, UK)
Artscapes strand // North American Premiere
In a Hungarian prison, filmmakers task incarcerated fathers to write fairy tales about their children. Next, they will turn those fairytales into short films, with the prisoner’s loved ones in the leading roles. In an effort to help strained families bridge the unnatural divide that prisons cause, director Ábel Visky gets creative by spotlighting the transformative power of art. Unmissable is the weight of each father’s absence in the lives of their children, and the toll taken by each valuable moment lost. The battle with isolation, for some, becomes a war with paranoia, making the fairy tales more than just a way to give a gift to their families, but instead a vehicle to tell silenced truths. Tales from the Prison Cell seeks beauty where there often is none, providing fairy tales for families when their imaginations are the only place that they can truly be together. Nataleah Hunter-Young
SHADOW FLOWERS by Seung Jun YI (South Korea)
World showcase strand // Canadian Premiere
Best Korean Film – DMZ Docs 2019
Ryun-hee Kim, a North Korean housewife, leaves home in order to receive supplementary health care in China, only to find herself working off the incurred debts in South Korea. When she is discovered, she is accused of being a spy and forced to become a South Korean citizen against her will. Separated from her family in Pyongyang, she defiantly tries to return by any means possible. She attempts to smuggle herself out of the country, seeks political asylum at the Vietnamese embassy, and stages protests and appeals to the media and government for assistance. But all her efforts are in vain. Shadow Flowers logs her protracted struggle as she is sabotaged and denied by an absurd and hypocritical political situation of reverse defection. In one woman’s desire for reunification with her loved ones, we observe an even larger one in the complicated politics, propaganda and history of Korea as a whole. Angie Driscoll