The Hot Docs Festival in Toronto, one of the prestigious documentary film festivals of the world, will be held virtually this year. The organisers have decided to uphold and celebrate the spirit of movie making and film-makers with a 'festival-at-home' experience that kicked off on May 5.
All the films will be screened for the members of this festival, and the festival will be open for film lovers for 10 days. Non-members will have to register on the festival's online box office. The Hot Docs Festival 2020 will offer more than just a movie viewing experience with interactive, live-streamed Q&A sessions with filmmakers and creators as well as industry experts, producers, TV and film studio executives, and distribution professionals.
The only Indian film premiering at this prestigious international festival is Sona Mohapatra’s documentary Shut Up Sona which will premiere on May 7. Directed by Deepti Gupta, the feature-length film follows the Indian singer. The film is about music, art and social change. The 85-minute feature takes the audience through the alleys of vrindavan and to the doorstep of a dargah and also questions the patriarchy prevalent in Bollywood.
The film that premiered at MAMI in 2019 and won a Critics Guild Award has gone on to make a big impact at the Rotterdam Festival, Goteborg Festival, and even won a special mention at the Impact Docs Award. Sona was invited by the Hot Doc organisers to perform a specially curated musical set at the festival but due to lockdown, this has been postponed. Sona says, "With the world locked down and in anxious times, music, storytelling, cinema and art play an even more important role in helping us get back on our feet as a society. I am grateful that Shut Up Sona will find an entirely new audience in another part of the world through the Hot Docs Festival. I couldn't have imagined that our film would be selected in these top festivals of the world when we were making it. That it is a universal story and is finding resonance across the globe validates my journey as an artiste who has never felt restricted to being just a singer. I carry my country, its art, its present and its history within me. In telling my story, I hope to connect the disparate dots within my culture to build a narrative that portrays a more nuanced view of the hopes and aspirations of India."