COVER STORY
 
Catching the Last Train Home
By Alice Shih

Asian-Canadian filmmaker Lixin Fan has documented the Zhang family for years on their annual trek home for China’s Spring Festival. His film Last Train Home raises issues about China’s growing generation gap and changing economy.
 
POINT OF VIEW INTERVIEW

Peter Mettler
 
By Marc Glassman
 
Visionary filmmaker Mettler talks about his creative process, from working as a cinematographer for Atom Egoyan to directing the acclaimed feature docs Picture of Light and Gambling, Gods and LSD.
 

INTERNATIONAL ISSUES

State of the Art
By Pepita Ferrari

What’s happening to feature docs in the US, UK and Canada? Ferrari examines Kartemquin in the US, and the British company Lone Star Productions and talks to Canadian veteran producer Betsy Carson about the problems in film production now.

We all line in a Mellow Submarine
By Peter Wintonick

Ringo Starr may not work with Submarine, Holland’s hottest multimedia company, but Peter Greenaway does – and he sings their praises. Wintonick finds out more about a 21st century firm committed to making docs- across many platforms.

Age of Stupid
 
By Zoe Cormier

Franny Armstrong’s fierce attack on climate change The Age of Stupid is stirring the pot in British political circles. Now her film is going for international impact, after a global fall launch. Cormier looks at a film and a phenomenon.

Che, Fidel and Me
 
By Peter Davis
Was the Cuban revolution ever wonderful- even in the Sixties? From his magnum opus Documentary and its Discontents, veteran filmmaker Davis offers his memories of Che, Fidel and a radical regime.

ONLY IN CANADA?

Barns, Brits and Birthrights
By Scott Mackenzie

Philip Hoffman’s All Fall Down combines the filmmaker’s personal tales with accounts of Native people in Ontario and rural life in general. Mackenzie interrogates the inclinations and methodology of a director who straddles the experimental and documentary genres.

Remembering the Present
 
By Tammy Stone
Focusing on NFB filmmaker Wolf Keening and the Board’s Candid Eyes series, Stone looks at cinema verite and its relationship to other artistic movements of the ‘50s, the Beats and Modernism.

Encircled by Neo-liberalism
 
By Truls Lie
Truls Lie, the editor of Europe’s major English documentary magazine DOX, offers his analysis of Richard Brouillette’s tough radical doc Encirclement: Neoliberalism Ensnares Democracy.

COLUMN

Policy Matters 
 
By Barri Cohen

Are we going to be a generation of broadband laggards?
 
ON THE COVER - Last Train Home, dir. Lizin Fan (2009)