Doc Soup Closes Wed with SWEETGRASS

DOC SOUP 2009-10 SEASON CLOSES APRIL 14 WITH
“ONE-OF-A-KIND” FILM SWEETGRASS

FILMMAKER LUCIEN CASTAING-TAYLOR IN ATTENDANCE

See capsule review of film in the review section.

Toronto, April 12, 2010 – Hot Docs is pleased to announce that the 2009-10 season of the Doc Soup monthly screening series will close with Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s SWEETGRASS (USA, 101 MIN). Praised as “a really intimate, beautifully shot examination of the connection between man and beast” by The New York Times and “a one-of-a-kind experience… at once epic-scale and earthbound” by Variety, SWEETGRASS will screen on Wednesday, April 14, at 6:30 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. at the Bloor Cinema, 506 Bloor Street West. Filmmaker Lucien Castaing-Taylor will be in attendance at both screenings to answer audience questions and discuss the making for the film.

An unsentimental elegy for the American West, SWEETGRASS follows the last modern-day cowboys to lead their flocks of sheep up into Montana’s breathtaking and often dangerous Absaroka-Beartooth mountains for summer pasture. This astonishingly beautiful yet unsparing film reveals a world in which nature and culture, animals and humans, vulnerability and violence are all intimately meshed.

The Doc Soup monthly screening series brings the latest Canadian and international documentaries to the big screen in Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. Single tickets for SWEETGRASS are $12 and can be purchased in advance at http://www.hotdocs.ca or at the door on the night of the screening (subject to availability). A limited number of free tickets for the 9:15 p.m. screening will be available to students with proper ID (subject to availability) at the door, on a first-come first-served basis beginning at 5:30 p.m. 

Selections for the Doc Soup 2009-10 season in Toronto included THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE (D: R.J. Cutler, USA); OCTOBER COUNTRY (D: Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher, USA); TIBET IN SONG (D: Ngawang Choephel, Tibet); LAST TRAIN HOME (D: Lixin Fan, China/Canada); SOUNDTRACK FOR A REVOLUTION (D: Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman, USA); GARBAGE DREAMS (D: Mai Iskander, USA), and SWEETGRASS (D: Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, USA).

Subscriptions to the 2010-11 season of Toronto’s Doc Soup are now on sale at special Hot Docs Festival prices, and can be purchased in person at the Hot Docs documentary Box Office (55 Avenue Road, Hazelton Lanes lower level), by phone at 416-637-5150, or online at http://www.hotdocs.ca. 

Hot Docs is pleased to acknowledge Citytv as the Presenting Partner of the Doc Soup series.