A Hard Name
- May 3, 2009 (2009-05-03) (Hotdocs Film Festival)
A Hard Name is a 2009 documentary film by Alan Zweig that explores the lives of ex-convicts.[1]
In the film, Zweig interviews seven ex-convicts about their times in prison and their lives on the outside.[2] The men talk about insights they have gained about their lives, including how childhood abuse led to a life of crime. Film subjects include one man who stabbed fellow inmate Clifford Olson 21 times, before Olson committed his serial killings.[3]
Another of the film's subjects was abused as a child while a resident at the Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. A Hard Name ends with archival television footage of him performing, playing the guitar and singing for other young residents of the home.[4]
Zweig admitted to be intimidated about doing these interviews:
"[...] Intimidated, I guess. Less by their danger and more by a male competitive thing, in a way…they’re going to see through me. They’re going to see that if I went to jail, I’d be an easy mark. I’m not as tough as them. I haven’t survived what they’ve survived and they’re just going to dismiss me as a weak citizen.”
However, the ex-convicts interviewed were surprisingly open to Zweig and allowed themselves to be shown as vulnerable.[2]
Release
A Hard Name premiered May 3, 2009 at the Royal Cinema in Toronto.[2] The film received the Genie Award for Best Feature Length Documentary at the 30th Genie Awards in 2010.[1] It was also chosen as one of the top ten audience favourites at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.[5]
References
- ^ a b "Hot Docs turns focus on 2 Toronto directors". CBC News. 18 January 2011. Retrieved 12 February 2011.
- ^ a b c Papamarko, Sofi (29 April 2009). "Behind Alan Zweig's A Hard Name". E! Entertainment Television. Retrieved 14 February 2011.
- ^ Sumi, Glenn (2 December 2009). "A Hard Name". Now. Vol. 29, no. 14. Toronto. Retrieved 14 February 2011.
- ^ Barnard, Linda (4 December 2009). "A Hard Name: Ex-convicts out of jail but far from free". Toronto Star. Retrieved 28 April 2011.
- ^ Driscoll, Angie. "Focus on Alan Zweig: Hot Docs 2011 Guide". Now. Archived from the original on 5 May 2011. Retrieved 28 April 2011.
External links
- A Hard Name at IMDb
- A Hard Name at Primitive Entertainment
- Watch A Hard Name at TVOntario Doc Studio website
- v
- t
- e
1968–1978
- Never a Backward Step (1968)
- Good Times, Bad Times (1969)
- Wild Africa (1970)
- Les Philharmonistes (1971)
- Coming Home (1973)
- Janis (1975)
- Ahô: The Forest People (1976)
- The Inquiry Film: A Report on the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline (1977)
- The Champions (1978)
1980–2011
- Paperland: The Bureaucrat Observed (1980)
- Plusieurs tombent en amour (1981)
- P4W: Prison for Women (1982)
- The Devil at Your Heels (1983)
- Pourquoi l'étrange Monsieur Zolock s'intéressait-il tant à la bande dessinée? (1984)
- Raoul Wallenberg: Buried Alive (1985)
- Final Offer (1986)
- Dads and Kids (1987)
- God Rides a Harley (1988)
- Comic Book Confidential (1989)
- Strand: Under the Dark Cloth (1990)
- The Famine Within (1991)
- Deadly Currents (1992)
- Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives (1993)
- In the Gutter and Other Good Places (1994)
- The Champagne Safari (1995)
- Bones of the Forest (1996)
- Tu as crié: Let Me Go (1997)
- A Place Called Chiapas (1998)
- Just Watch Me: Trudeau and the '70s Generation (1999)
- Grass (2000)
- Westray (2001)
- Gambling, Gods and LSD (2002)
- FIX: The Story of an Addicted City (2003)
- The Corporation (2004)
- Scared Sacred (2005)
- Manufactured Landscapes (2006)
- Radiant City (2007)
- Up the Yangtze (2008)
- A Hard Name (2009)
- Last Train Home (2010)
- At Night, They Dance (2011)
2012–present
- Stories We Tell (2012)
- Watermark (2013)
- Super Duper Alice Cooper (2014)
- Hurt (2015)
- I Am the Blues (2016)
- Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World (2017)
- Anthropocene: The Human Epoch (2018)
- Nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up (2019)
- Wandering: A Rohingya Story (2020)
- Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy (2021)
- To Kill a Tiger (2022)
- Twice Colonized (2023)
- Avec tambours et trompettes (1968)
- Juggernaut (1969)
- KW+ (1970)
- The Sea (1971)
- Selling Out (1972)
- Grierson and Faire hurler les murs (1973)
- At 99: A Portrait of Louise Tandy Murch and Cree Hunters of Mistassini (1975)
- Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry (1976)
- Greenpeace: Voyages to Save the Whales (1977)
- The Hottest Show on Earth (1978)
- Priory: The Only Home I've Got (1980)
- No More Hiroshima (1986)
- The World Is Watching (1989)
- Stunt People (1990)
- The Colours of My Father: A Portrait of Sam Borenstein (1991)
- A Song for Tibet (1992)
- Le singe bleu (1993)
- Fiction and Other Truths: A Film About Jane Rule (1995)
- Maman et Ève (1996)
- Unveiled: The Mother/Daughter Relationship (1997)
- Shadow Maker: Gwendolyn MacEwen, Poet (1998)
- Hemingway: A Portrait (1999)
- The Delian Mode (2009)
- Sirmilik (2011)
- The Boxing Girls of Kabul (2012)
- Chi (2013)
- Jutra (2014)
- Bacon and God's Wrath (2015)
- This River (2016)
- Take a Walk on the Wildside (2017)
- My Dead Dad's Porno Tapes (2018)
- Take Me to Prom (2019)
- Sing Me a Lullaby (2020)
- Nalujuk Night (2021)
- Patty vs. Patty (2022)
- Madeleine (2023)
This article related to a Canadian documentary film of the 2000s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
- v
- t
- e
This article about a biographical documentary film is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
- v
- t
- e