# Large Site for Canadian Documentaries and Other Content, Viewable Free



## David Baxter PhD (Feb 24, 2010)

Large Site for Canadian Documentaries and Other Content, Viewable Free
February 23rd, 2010 

_CBC News_ has noted a new site from Hot Docs, which it describes as ?the largest documentary festival in North America.? The new Hot Docs site has well over 150 documentaries from Canadian filmmakers (along with some other content) and it?s all available online for free. The site is available at HotDocs Doc Library | Home (that?s the English, non-Flash version.) 

The front page has several sets of films you can go through ? films by young filmmakers, films for educators, the most popular films ? but I went straight to the browse tab and started poking around. The browse page is at HotDocs Doc Library | Browse . The documentaries are listed by title though they?re also sortable by year and by director. (The oldest dated documentary in the database was from 1951.) 

The first doc in alphabetical order is _$4 Haircut_, a 6-minute short (with a groovy oompa tuba soundtrack) about a guy who, well, gets $4 haircuts. It shows his methodology and experience and while you might not expect a short featuring mostly a guy sitting around waiting to get a haircut to be interesting, it was. The documentary is embedded in the page with the usual volume control, pop-out to full screen, etc. The page also contains a summary of information about the documentary (director, producer, editor, etc.) In this case, the documentary also had extras, specifically transcripts in English and French. 

I browsed through the shorts and found a number of topics ? one film was about ginsing. Another featured Geddy Lee. A third was about Thomas Edison and sound reproduction in technology. They ranged from under ten minutes to around fifteen to 32 minutes in the case of the Edison documentary. 

The videos loaded really quickly, there was a wide range of content, and it was all free. If you?re at all interested in documentaries check out this site.


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## Daniel (Feb 24, 2010)

Great content!  

HotDocs Doc Library: Let's All Hate Toronto


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## Andy (Feb 24, 2010)

lol I even have to laugh at that one!


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## David Baxter PhD (Feb 24, 2010)

Everybody hates Toronto. That's why we keep Toronto around.


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## Domo (Feb 25, 2010)

What's wrong with Toronto?


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## David Baxter PhD (Feb 25, 2010)

The Leafs

Premier Dalton McGuinty

Queen's Park

The Argonauts

The Blue Jays these days (although they were good at one time)

The Raptors

The traffic

The noise

The pollution

The crowds
Should I go on?

You're really asking the wrong question. It should be "What's good about Toronto?".


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## Domo (Feb 25, 2010)

I don't even know what half that stuff is :lol:

But the rest of it just sounds like any big city. Such as Australia's Sydney.

Is there anything goo about Toronto?!


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## David Baxter PhD (Feb 25, 2010)

Domo said:


> Is there anything goo about Toronto?!



You mean like gum on the sidewalks in the summer time?


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## Domo (Feb 25, 2010)

:rofl: ....good.


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## Banned (Feb 25, 2010)

Oh and don't forget the garbage strike during the heat of the summer a couple years back and the fact that they had to call out the Canadian Army to shovel a couple inches of snow.


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