from vk & associates

FILMMAKER CLIO BARNARD IN ATTENDANCE

Toronto, February 3, 2011 – Hot Docs is pleased to announce that the March installment of the Doc Soup monthly screening series will feature the innovative, award-winning THE ARBOR (D: Clio Barnard, UK, 90 minutes), recipient of multiple prizes at the London Film Festival and Best New Documentary Filmmaker at the Tribeca Film Festival, and recently named winner of the Guardian First Film award. Called “extraordinary… compelling and stimulating, keeping you on your feet but never distancing you from the story at its heart” by Time Out and “brilliant” and “distinctively textured” by the Guardian, THE ARBOR will screen on Wednesday, March 2, at 6:30 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. at the Bloor Cinema, 506 Bloor Street West. Filmmaker Clio Barnard will be in attendance to introduce the film and answer audience questions following the screening.

THE ARBOR tells the powerful true story of Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar (“The Arbor, Rita, Sue and Bob Too) and her daughter Lorraine. Hailed as “a genius straight from the slums,” Andrea Dunbar wrote honestly and unflinchingly about her upbringing on the Buttershaw Estate. Her first play, The Arbor, originally written as part of a school assignment, described the experiences of a pregnant teenager with an abusive drunken father. Andrea Dunbar died tragically at the age of 29 in 1990, leaving ten-year-old Lorraine with bitter childhood memories. THE ARBOR catches up with Lorraine in rehab in the present day, also aged 29, and ostracized from her mother’s family. Re-introduced to her mother’s plays and letters, Lorraine reflects on her own life and begins to understand the struggles her mother faced. Through interviews with other members of the Dunbar family, we see a contrasting view of Andrea, in particular from Lorraine’s younger sister Lisa, who idolizes Andrea to this day. A truly unique blend of non-fiction and dramatization, THE ARBOR is a captivating and celebrated piece from the documentary’s new wave.

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