Leave Them Laughing | |
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Directed by | John Zaritsky |
Produced by | Montana Berg |
Starring | Carla Zilber-Smith Mac Zilber |
Cinematography | Ed Matney |
Edited by | Scott Doniger Justin Cousineau |
Music by | Carla Zilber-Smith David Ramos |
Production company | Magical Flute Films |
Release date |
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Running time | 90 minutes |
Countries | Canada United States |
Leave Them Laughing: A Musical Comedy About Dying is a 2010 documentary film directed by Academy-Award-winning director John Zaritsky. It follows the life of singer and comedian Carla Zilber-Smith, after she is diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease, as she blogs and jokes her way through a disease that carries a certain death sentence. The film premiered at Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival on May 6, 2010, winning the Special Jury Prize for best Canadian Documentary. It was nominated for Best Documentary at the 31st Genie Awards.
The film has received a mainly positive reception. At the 2010 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, the film won the Hot Docs Award for Best Canadian Feature Documentary Special Jury Prize. It also won the People's Choice Award for Best Canadian Documentary at the Vancouver International Film Festival, [1] and the Directors' Choice Award at the 2011 Sedona International Film Festival. [2] It also won the People's Choice Award at the Canadian-American Film Grand Prix, the Audience Choice award for best Documentary at the Mill Valley Film Festival, Best of Festival at Calgary's Picture This...International Film Festival, Best Documentary at the 2011 Vancouver Women in Film Festival, and Best on the Edge in New Zealand's 2011 "Documentary Edge Film Festival". [ citation needed ]
Mina Shum is an independent Canadian filmmaker. She is a writer and director of award-winning feature films, numerous shorts and has created site specific installations and theatre. Her features, Double Happiness and Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity both premiered in the US at the Sundance Film Festival and Double Happiness won the Wolfgang Staudte Prize for Best First Feature at the Berlin Film Festival and the Audience Award at Torino. She was director resident at the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto. She was also a member of an alternative rock band called Playdoh Republic.
John Zaritsky was a Canadian documentarian/filmmaker. His work has been broadcast in 35 countries and screened at more than 40 film festivals around the world; in 1983, his film Just Another Missing Kid won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
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The Hot Docs Award for Best Canadian Feature Documentary is an annual Canadian film award, presented by the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival to the film selected by jury members as the year's best Canadian feature film in the festival program. The award was presented for the first time in 1998; prior to that year, awards were presented in various genre categories, but no special distinction for Canadian films was presented. The award is sponsored by the Documentary Organization of Canada and Telefilm Canada, and carries a cash prize of $10,000.
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