Home for Christmas

“Here is the quintessential Hancox ‘personal documentary,’ a film in which both the production and role of traditional documentary and autobiographical filmmaking are thrown into question. Using his camera to record a visit out east by train to spend Christmas with the family, Hancox …. used his familiarisation with the annual rtitual as a form of a script… Although we see the journey through the subjective judgement of Hancox’s eyes, it is his intent to transfer the material from original event to camera, to editing, and finally to the audience, so that the personal content of the film… becomes universal.” – Michael Wade, Ontario Film Studies, Cinema Parallel “It is the honesty of portrayal which is staggering, for instead of an idyllic image which many filmmakers present of themselves, Hancox presents (and thus, sees) himself without cinematic make-up… with ‘wild sync’ sound (reminiscent of an early film), and with the use of only available natural light.” – Richard Stanford “‘Home for Christmas’ is a unique exploration of the Canadian mythos – winter, trains, booze, the family and solitude. In penetrating the essence of the mythical, Hancox has combined the home movie with the technological epic, to achieve a profound filmic archaeology of the warmth of Northern existence, in the Pierre Perrault sense, that if you are cold in this country, you must be a tourist.” – Michael Dorland “The most hotly debated of all the personal films shown at the Grierson.” – Ontario Film Association Newsletter