Over the last week and half, I volunteered with the Hot Docs Festival and also saw some documentaries. This was one of the better volunteer experiences I’ve had which included some perks that I wasn’t expecting to receive.
Here are the documentaries that I managed to see last week during the festival:
Catch Up!
This was about a cheerleading team in Finland’s arctic who struggle to move up from the bottom of the Finnish cheerleading competitions. As the team work on their moves, the coach and two of the girls have their own personal struggles to work through.
Callshop Istanbul
It followed several people who left their home countries, mostly in Africa and the Middle East, to live in Istanbul in the hopes of making a better life. Not realizing that they were moving from one struggle to another, some of the people realize that they would have preferred staying in their home country. Many of them use shops in Istanbul to contact their families in their native land and are often updated on the situations facing their family.
Sonita
Sonita is a young Afghan woman who took refugee status in Iran. She struggles to pursue her dream of becoming a rapper. Sonita’s family who is need of money asks her to return to Afghanistan to be sold as a bride in order for her brother to provide his bride price.
Strike a Pose
Seven of Madonna’s back-up dancers from the “Blonde Ambition” tour remember their struggles with working with Madonna and the influence she had on their lives. Also, the dancers provided their stories post-Madonna as they strived to move their lives away from the life-changing work.
Out of these four documentaries, I really enjoyed Strike a Pose.
