Trailblazer Christine Choy on ‘Our Responsibility to Document History While It Is Unfolding’
Jennie Punter Documentary trailblazer Christine Choy kicked off Hot Docs’ Industry LIVE conference with a captivating fast-forward through the plot points and ideologies of her experimental, activist filmmaking, including her recent turn in front of the camera in Violet Columbus and Ben Klein’s doc-feature debut “The Exiles,” winner of this year’s U.S. Grand Jury Prize in documentary at the Sundance Film Festival.The film has its international premiere at Hot Docs on Thursday, with a followup cinema screening on Sunday.A beloved, outspoken film professor for many years, Choy has also worked steadily behind the camera since the early 1970s, and was a founding director with New York-based Third World Newsreel, one of the oldest alternative media arts organizations in the U.S., and through which she made the seminal “From Spikes to Spindles” (1976).