2019 DOXA Documentary Film Festival Program Guide

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CONTENTS The Documentary Media Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

SPOTLIGHT:

Politics of Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Welcome from DOXA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

SPOTLIGHT:

Communities of Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Greetings from Our Funders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Justice Forum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Rated Y for Youth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Thank You to Our Donors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

SPECIAL PROGRAM: Longing and Belonging: 1990s South Asian Film and Video . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Awards and Juries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

SPECIAL PROGRAM: Italia Italia A Documentary Peninsula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Festival Schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Map of Venues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Tickets and General Festival Information . . . . . . . 84

DOXA Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

SCREENINGS A Bright Light: Karen and the Process . . . . . . . . . 39

Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Norman Norman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

A Place Called Chiapas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Generation ‘91 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Nostalgia of my pier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

A Radiant Sphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Gods of Molenbeek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

One Child Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

América . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

OshKiKiShiKaw: A New Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

American Factory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Basileus: the School of Kings (Basileus, la scuola dei re) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Greetings From Free Forests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Haven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Postings from Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Because We Are Girls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Home Made Visible Tour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Berlusconi: The Mondadori Affair (Berlusconi, Affaire Mondadori) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

The Hottest August . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Bolo! Bolo! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Buddy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 (La Convocazione) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Call Me Intern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Camfranglais . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Candice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 CittàGiardino . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 City Dreamers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 City of the Dead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 The Clinic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Coconut/Cane & Cutlass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Corleone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Crannog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Dark Suns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 DIVE: Rituals in Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 The Dreams of the Night Cleaners . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Enforcement Hours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Enhior’hén:ne [Tomorrow] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

How to Bee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 I Had a Dream (Avevo un sogno) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Pomelo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Propaganda: The Art of Selling Lies . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Push . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 The Resolute (Il Risoluto) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Illusions of Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Shooting Indians: A Journey with Jeffrey Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

In the Claws of a Century Wanting . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Sira . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Indian Rights for Indian Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Standing on the Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Instructions on Parting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Surviving Sabu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

It’s Going to Be Beautiful . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Talking at Night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Jaddoland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

They Were the Red Brigades (Ils étaient les Brigades Rouges) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Ka Ussi-Tshishkutamashuht . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Libre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Los Reyes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Mare Amarum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen . . . . . 31 Midnight Traveler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Mom Calling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Mommy Goes Race . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 My Home, in Libya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Everything Must Fall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

‘Ndrangheta: A Mafia of Business and Blood (‘Ndrangheta, une mafia d’affaires et de sang) . . . . . . . 65

Fast Horse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up . . . . . . . . . . 33

Time Is Out of Joint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Toad People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Toxic Beauty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 The Violence of a Civilization Without Secrets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Who Let the Dogs Out? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 The Wild Woman in the Woods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Winter’s Yearning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Xalko . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 The Years (Gli anni) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Young Solitude (Premières solitudes) . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

THE DOCUMENTARY MEDIA SOCIETY DOXA is presented annually by The Documentary Media Society, a Vancouver based non-profit, charitable society (incorporated in 1998) devoted to presenting independent and innovative documentaries to Vancouver audiences. The Documentary Media Society is a member tenant of the 110 Arts Co-op, which manages The Post at 750 office and studio facilities.

OUR MISSION:

To support a better understanding of the complexity of our times through engaging the public in documentary media as an art form.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Steve Chow / chowdesign.ca WEB DEVELOPMENT

Left Right Minds / leftrightminds.com BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Jill Anholt Chris Dafoe Kevin Eastwood

Andrea Gin CHAIR Martin Gerson TREASURER Romney Grant

Roger Holdstock VICE-CHAIR Debra Pentecost SECRETARY

Christina Larabie Carson Pfahl Anant Prabhakar

Kris Rothstein Milena Salazar

liisa Hannus David House Melissa James Christopher Jung Rami Katz Brie Koniczek

Viktor Koren Mélanie Lemaire Anna Lumberjack Michelle Martin Jeff Yu

Jill Anholt

Andrea Gin

Mel D’Souza Ann Marie Fleming Cari Green Duncan Low Alex Mackenzie

Wendy Oberlander Carmen Rodriguez Lauren Weisler Aerlyn Weissman

PROGRAMMING COMMITTEE

The Documentary Media Society is located on the traditional and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples.

Joseph Clark Selina Crammond Marco Fratarcangeli

DOXA STAFF, BOARD & COMMITTEES

Jurgen Beerwald Michelle Bjornson Josie Boyce Patrick Carroll Victoria Furuya Andrew Gaybull

SCREENING COMMITTEE

BUSINESS AND FINANCE MANAGER

Atenas Contreras DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMMING

Selina Crammond DEVELOPMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER

Teresa Alfeld OPERATIONS AND VOLUNTEER MANAGER

Gina Garenkooper PROGRAMMING AND INDUSTRY COORDINATOR

Milena Salazar DEVELOPMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS ASSISTANT

Marco Fratarcangeli HOSPITALITY MANAGER

Mélanie Lemaire PRINT TRAFFIC COORDINATOR

Aaron McHattie PROGRAM BOOK COORDINATOR

Katrina Orlowski PROGRAM BOOK COPY EDITORS

Patrick Geraghty, Josh Gabert-Doyon INTERN

Sofía Díaz Noriega MEDIA RELATIONS

Marnie Wilson / The Artsbiz Public Relations 4

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FUNDRAISING COMMITTEE

Teresa Alfeld ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Nova Ami Kris Anderson Colin Browne Szu Burgess Peg Campbell

VANCOUVER PODCAST FESTIVAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Joseph Clark Atenas Contreras Selina Crammond

Tara Flynn Marco Fratarcangeli Gina Garenkooper

Andrea Gin Hannah McGregor Andrea Warner

GUEST CURATORS

Thierry Garrel (Italia Italia)

Zool Suleman

(Longing and Belonging)

WRITERS

Teresa Alfeld Michelle Bjornson Josie Boyce Joseph Clark Selina Crammond Marco Fratarcangeli Victoria Furuya

Thierry Garrel Daniel Geddes Melissa James Christina Larabie Melanie Lemaire Katrina Orlowski Carson Pfahl

Anant Prabhakar Kris Rothstein Milena Salazar Zool Suleman Kaen Valoise Jeff Yu

WELCOME FROM DOXA WELCOME FROM THE CHAIR OF THE BOARD

WELCOME FROM THE DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMMING

On behalf of the Documentary Media Society, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the 2019 DOXA Documentary Film Festival. We are thrilled to have you join us for the next eleven days to celebrate the best documentaries from Vancouver and around the world.

From Icelandic infants learning to swim (DIVE: Rituals in Water) to the real-life Italian mobster who inspired The Godfather (Corleone), we’re excited to offer up an expansive lineup of some of the very best in contemporary documentary at the 18th annual DOXA Documentary Film Festival!

Each year we strive to bring local audiences documentaries that cultivate curiosity and critical thought. We are deeply grateful that you are willing to go along for the ride; our goal of fostering a local community interested in non-fiction media continues to grow every year.

It’s difficult to summarize all 82 films, but our spotlight programs provide some guidance: stories that explore the delicate art of relationships in Communities of Care, while towns and cities around the world are the site of artistic meditations in Politics of Place. And as usual, we’ve got plenty kickass women to celebrate (Opening Gala: Because We Are Girls and our Closing Gala: Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen).

This year we are launching a festival donor campaign to raise money for the Holdstock Fund, which helps bring filmmakers to the festival from across Canada and internationally to present their films and engage with audiences.

If you enjoy your experience at DOXA, please consider donating to this fund.

This year marks the 10 year anniversary of our Justice Forum, our flagship series aimed at fostering critical dialogue.

We’re proud to highlight Tasha Hubbard’s powerful new film about Colten Boushie and his family’s fight for Indigenous rights, nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up, as our special Justice Forum Gala.

I would also like to extend appreciation to our incredible staff, in particular Selina Crammond, Atenas Contreras, and Teresa Alfeld, who have each worked tirelessly and with unceasing passion and We’re grateful to you, our audience, for dedication to make this festival happen.

DOXA Staff. FRONT Sofía, Mélanie, Marco, Katrina BACK Teresa, Atenas, Selina, Milena, Gina They are, of course, supported by a rosattending with an open mind. You allow ter of talented and hard-working people, without whom DOXA would not be possi- us to showcase the work of artists who push the creative boundaries of documenble. Deepest thanks go out to our staff, volunteers, and Board members. tary film and who help us understand the complexities of our time.

I would also like to extend gratitude to all of our funders, sponsors, and donors for their ongoing support.

Finally, to the many documentary filmmakers participating in the festival, we sincerely thank you for sharing your outstanding work.

Please enjoy the festival!

Andrea Gin BOARD CHAIR

Thank you to our board of directors, partners, funders, and volunteers. This thing we love couldn’t happen without you. And lastly, a huge shout to out to the DOXA team! The early mornings and late nights would be unbearable without such a hilarious and cool-headed crew.

See you at the cinema!

Selina Crammond DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMMING

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GREETINGS FROM OUR FUNDERS

Welcome to the 2019 DOXA Documentary Film Festival!

Across the country, the arts bring Canadians together in a shared celebration of our history, traditions and cultural diversity. Our government knows that, in a place as vast and diverse as Canada, there are countless stories that deserve to be told. The documentary films being presented here help bring some of these stories to life.

We are proud to support events that give Canadians the opportunity to experience the arts within their communities and provide fresh perspectives on our country and the world. This is why we are pleased to once again be a part of the DOXA Documentary Film Festival.

As Minister of Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism, I would like to thank the hard-working organizers, the committed volunteers and the inspiring documentarians who helped make this year’s festival a success.

Enjoy the films!

The arts have the power to unite us, to spark dialogue and to offer unforgettable human experiences. They are crucial to our individual and collective actualization.

The Canada Council for the Arts is pleased to support DOXA Documentary Film Festival and sends along its best wishes for success.

Festivals play a vital role in ensuring that Canadian films from all corners of our country are discovered and enjoyed. At Telefilm Canada, we are committed to seeing even bigger. Our focus is on diversity, a great Canadian asset. We encourage the next generation to dare to make their first feature films. Indigenous filmmakers now enjoy more support, and we have seen our industry come together to support the shared goal of gender parity. We know that these voices will revitalize Canada’s rich cultural heritage. Thank you and congratulations to the DOXA DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL and all those who work to bring our diversity to the screen!

Simon Brault, O.C., O.Q.

Christa Dickenson

With its growing support for a dynamic, renewed and diverse artistic scene, the Canada Council for the Arts contributes to making Canadian creativity accessible to all Canadians and to extending its reach beyond all borders.

DIRECTOR AND CEO, CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS

On behalf of the BC Arts Council, I am pleased to welcome you to the 2019 DOXA Documentary Film Festival.

The Honourable Pablo Rodriguez MINISTER OF CULTURAL HERITAGE AND MULTICULTURALISM

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TELEFILM CANADA

Over the past 18 years, DOXA has developed an exceptional and accessible platform for audiences to explore this innovative genre. This is one of the key screening events and a vital forum for national and international filmmakers.

The BC Arts Council, with funding from the Province of British Columbia, is pleased to support this outstanding festival once again this year. We would like to extend our gratitude to the festival staff and volunteers for their hard work to develop and maintain this celebration of the artistic accomplishments of documentary filmmakers.

Susan Jackson CHAIR, BC ARTS COUNCIL

Film Festival.

On behalf of the citizens of Vancouver and my colleagues on Vancouver City Council, I want to extend my warmest greetings to all those attending the 18th Annual DOXA Documentary

DOXA is presented by The Documentary Media Society presenting independent and innovative documentaries to Vancouver audiences. Documentary films play an essential role in bringing new issues, concerns and human experiences to public attention. This year’s festival, like those that have gone before, brings a remarkable new series of films, both local and international.

Vancouver’s film and television production industry is one of the strongest in North America and programs like DOXA offer an important showcase for documentary productions.

Best wishes for the best festival!

Kennedy Stewart MAYOR, CITY OF VANCOUVER

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Three different types of financing.

Three different funds.

All from one source.

The Rogers Group of Funds offers support to Canadian independent producers with three different types of funding: Rogers Telefund offers loans to Canadian independent producers; Rogers Documentary Fund, Canada’s premier source of funding for documentary films and Rogers Cable Network Fund, an equity investor in Canadian programs with a first play on a Canadian cable channel. Three different types of financing. Three different funds. All from one source – Rogers.

For more information contact Robin Mirsky, Executive Director, at (416) 935-2526.

Application deadlines for the Rogers Documentary Fund are Wednesday, April 17 and Wednesday, August 14, 2019.

Application deadlines for the Rogers Cable Network Fund are Wednesday, June 19 and Wednesday, October 16, 2019.

www.rogersgroupoffunds.com

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

FUNDERS

MAJOR PARTNERS

PREMIER MEDIA PARTNERS

CULTURAL PARTNERS AND CONSULATES

INDUSTRY PROGRAM MAJOR SUPPORTERS

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INDUSTRY PROGRAM SUPPORTERS

MEDIA PARTNERS

HOSPITALITY PARTNERS

PRINT PARTNER

TRANSPORTATION PARTNER

TECHNICAL PARTNER

DISTRIBUTION PARTNER

SCREENING PARTNERS

AUDIENCE PARTNERS

HEU

HOSPITAL EMPLOYEES’ UNION

ACFC WEST, LOCAL 2020 UNIFOR

SCHOOL FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

LABOUR STUDIES PROGRAM

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THANK YOU TO OUR DONORS We would like to take a moment to recognize and acknowledge the support we receive from individual donors. Thank you for your generous gifts to DOXA, and for believing in the power of documentary film. We couldn’t do our work without you!

DOXA FUNDRAISING BRUNCH AT CHAMBAR

PRODUCER ($1,000+)

MOTIVATOR ($150-$499)

Kevin Eastwood Andrea Gin and Joseph Clark Roger Holdstock Kenji Maeda Laura Moore Little Mountain Holdings Company

Kathleen Barilla Colin Browne Christopher Dafoe Zoë Druick Kathy Evans Martin Gerson Lynda Griffiths Neil Jones-Rodway John LeBlanc Stacy Leblanc S. Ti Muntarbhorn Carol Newell Wendy Oberlander Barry Shell Mo Simpson In memory of Haida Paul Teri Snelgrove

ADVOCATE ($500-$999)

Jill Anholt Janice Chutter Tony Fogarassy Sonia Fraser

For more information about our individual giving program, contact Teresa Alfeld at teresa@doxafestival.ca or 604.646.3200 ext 104

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The Taming of the Shrew

SUPPORTER ($20-$149)

Laraine Adanic Maureen Albanese Michael Alexander Mary Allay Mary Anglesio Simone Artaud Laurel Axam Dominique Basi Robin Baugh Richard Biederman Michelle Bjornson Pat Bolton Ellen Bond Betty Bronson Glenn Bullard Peter Cameron Patrick Carroll Joseph Chan Anna Chmielewski Sylvia Chow Marian Collins Adam Cook Paul Coulter Wes Crammond Blair Cresswell Shelagh Day Alfred De Pew Roxanne Duncan Erin Ellis Mark Fettes Jane & Robert Flick Tara Flynn and David Sikula Cynthia Flood Mary Gavan Eva Gersbach David Gibson Julia Gordon Romney Grant Jim Hamm Jessica Hannon Layne Hellrung Wei-Ning Ho Annie Huston Katie Hyslop

Andrew McNee & Jennifer Lines

Randy Iwata Carol Jerde Faune Johnson Bonnie Klein In Honour of Elinor Warkentin Mark Lalonde F.T. Lam Gareth Lewin Stephen Lock Linda Loo Melody Mason Roberta McCann Kathy McGrenera Craig Merritt Cheryl Milner Sarah Moore Ron Neilson Beverly Olds Cinthya Onstad Bruce Pentecost Carson Pfahl Ana Policzer David Prowse Michele Rechtman Smolkin Bernard Roitberg Anita Romaniuk Sarah Rowland Milena Salazar Veronica Singer Ian Spence Ann-Marie Spicer Beverly J. Straight Leslie Thompson Tania Tomaszewska Peter Toppings Mary Ungerleider Laurie Watt Analee Weinberger Harold Welch Brad Westerop Carmen Wiseman Karen Wold Janelle Wong-Moon ...and all of our anonymous donors

Book Early For Best Seats!

J U N E 5 t o S E P T 21 M A I N S TAG E

H O WA R D FA M I LY S TAG E

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

ALL’S W E L L TH AT ENDS WE L L

SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE

C OR IOL A NU S

TICKETS FROM $26 604.739.0559 | bardonthebeach.org Media Sponsors

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AWARDS

AND

JURIES

The DOXA award winners are selected on the basis of three major criteria: success and innovation in the realization of the project’s concept; originality and relevance of subject matter and approach; and overall artistic and technical proficiency.

DOXA is very happy to welcome an outstanding group of filmmakers, film critics, and industry professionals to the Award Juries this year. Jury members meet during the course of the festival to choose the winning films, as well as award honourable mentions to selected films. See doxafestival.ca for more information on this year’s jury.

COLIN LOW AWARD FOR CANADIAN DOCUMENTARY FILMS IN COMPETITION

Because We Are Girls (p. 29) DIRECTED BY BALJIT SANGRA

Candice (p. 51)

DIRECTED BY SHEONA MCDONALD

City Dreamers (p. 57)

DIRECTED BY JOSEPH HILLEL

DOXA FEATURE DOCUMENTARY AWARD FILMS IN COMPETITION

A Bright Light: Karen and the Process (p. 39) DIRECTED BY EMMANUELLE ANTILLE

City of the Dead (p. 47) DIRECTED BY MIGUEL EEK

Corleone (p. 61)

DIRECTED BY MOSCO LEVI BOUCAULT

Greetings From Free Forests (p. 78) DIRECTED BY IAN SOROKA

Los Reyes (p. 73)

DIRECTED BY BETTINA PERUT AND IVÁN OSNOVIKOFF

Midnight Traveler (p. 83)

DIRECTED BY HASSAN FAZILI AND EMELIE MAHDAVIAN

One Child Nation (p. 82)

DIRECTED BY NANFU WANG AND JIALING ZHANG

Pomelo (p. 53)

DIRECTED BY PHUONG THAO TRAN AND SWANN DUBUS

Young Solitude (p. 37) DIRECTED BY CLAIRE SIMON

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Dark Suns (p. 61)

DIRECTED BY JULIEN ELIE

The Hottest August (p. 53) DIRECTED BY BRETT STORY

Illusions of Control (p.67)

DIRECTED BY SHANNON WALSH

nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up (p. 33) DIRECTED BY TASHA HUBBARD

Xalko (p. 70) DIRECTED BY SAMI MERMER AND HIND BENCHEKROUN

PHOTO: MONICA SILVESTRE

DOXA SHORT DOCUMENTARY AWARD FILMS IN COMPETITION

A Radiant Sphere (p. 83) DIRECTED BY SARA WILEY

Crannog (p. 82)

DIRECTED BY ISA RAO

Enforcement Hours (p. 74)

DIRECTED BY PALOMA MARTINEZ

Enhior’hén:ne [Tomorrow] (p. 77) DIRECTED BY ROXANN WHITEBEAN

Haven (p. 74)

DIRECTED BY COLIN ASKEY

It’s Going to Be Beautiful (p. 71)

DIRECTED BY LUIS GUTIÉRREZ ARIAS AND JOHN HENRY THEISEN

Ka Ussi-Tshishkutamashuht (p. 77)

DIRECTED BY BÉATRICE MARK, RACHEL MARK, GISÈLE MARK

Mare Amarum (p. 59)

DIRECTED BY PHILIPPE FONTANA

Norman Norman (p. 55)

DIRECTED BY SOPHY ROMVARI

Time Is Out of Joint (p. 71)

DIRECTED BY VICTOR ARROYO

The Violence of a Civilization Without Secrets (p. 71) DIRECTED BY ADAM KHALIL, ZACK KHALIL, JACKSON POLYS

NIGEL MOORE AWARD FOR YOUTH PROGRAMMING

DOXA is extremely proud to announce the seventh edition of the Nigel Moore Award for Youth Programming. Named in memory of Nigel Moore, a young man whose passion for knowledge, exploration and advocacy found a home in his love for documentary film.

For younger audiences, documentary has particular relevance. The world in which they’re growing up is an increasingly complex place. Documentary not only captures this complexity, but also has the capacity to act as a catalyst for social change, and fundamentally alter people’s behaviour.

FILMS IN COMPETITION

Call Me Intern (p. 63)

DIRECTED BY NATHALIE BERGER AND LEO DAVID HYDE

nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up (p. 33) DIRECTED BY TASHA HUBBARD

Propaganda: The Art of Selling Lies (p. 79) DIRECTED BY LARRY WEINSTEIN

Standing on the Line (p. 71)

DIRECTED BY PAUL ÉMILE D’ENTREMONT

Toxic Beauty (p. 69)

DIRECTED BY PHYLLIS ELLIS

The award will be adjudicated by a youth jury, who will choose the film that best exemplifies the qualities of compassion, social engagement and spirit in which Nigel lived.

2019 NIGEL MOORE AWARD FOR YOUTH PROGRAMMING JURY

Maya Biderman Teagan Dobson

Steven Hawkins Anna Hetherington

Jacob Saltzberg

DOX AFESTIVAL .CA

13

S AT U R DAY M AY 4

V A N C I T Y T H E A T R E 1181 Seymour St.

4:15 PM – 6:30 PM

DOXA INDUSTRY M AY 4–6, 2019 DOXA Industry brings together a diverse community of filmmakers and industry professionals to discuss the art and craft of non-fiction storytelling. Through a series of workshops, roundtable discussions, masterclasses, and networking events, we invite filmmakers at all levels of experience to engage in vital conversations while building the skills and connections needed to propel their projects forward.

Repatriating the Archives Postings from Home: of Nettie Wild’s Live Documentary A Place Called Chiapas Performance (1998)

Following a screening of the film, director Nettie Wild, producer Betsy Carson, copyright lawyer Martha Rans, and director of the Filmoteca UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) Hugo Villa will discuss the repatriation of the film’s original 16mm reels, the idea of copyright, and who owns the stories we tell. See more on page 47.

I N D U S T R Y T I C K E T S & PA S S E S

Industry Panels: $15 per session Industry Pass: $85 Provides access to all Industry programming

Discounted prices are available for members of DOC BC, CMPA-BC, and Capilano University. Please ask your organization for the promo code.

A PLACE CALLED CHIAPAS

14

#DOX A 2019

7:30 PM – 9:00 PM

Filmmaker Kelly O’Brien combines the collective sharing of personal life, now habitual on social media, with the 20th century tradition of the family slideshow to create a formally unique and emotionally affecting live performance. See more on page 35.

S U N DAY M AY 5

S F U W O O D W A R D ’ S 149 W Hastings St.

M O N DAY M AY 6

T H E P O S T A T 7 5 0 110 - 750 Hamilton St.

10:00 AM – 11:30 AM

2:00 PM – 3:15 PM

9:30 AM – 10:30 AM

2:45 PM – 4:00 PM

Beyond Story

Mapping the Funding Landscape

TELUS STORYHIVE Networking Breakfast

Demystifying 360/VR: A Work-in-Progress Case Study

“Documentary comes in many forms.

In times of trouble, we need all of its Get the insider perspective on what great range.”- BEYOND STORY: AN ONLINE, key decision-makers are looking for COMMUNITY-BASED MANIFESTO and best practices for pitching your Great works of documentary have projects. been shaped into compelling stories.

But should every film be molded into 3:30 PM – 4:45 PM a traditional story structure? Using A Matter of Access with Alexandra Juhasz and Alisa Lebow’s essay as a starting point, we invite Mosco Levi Boucault filmmakers to discuss unique formal Throughout his career, filmmaker and and narrative approaches to docu- journalist Mosco Boucault has estabmentary storytelling beyond the plot lished trust with insider protagonists and character-driven arc. from the French Resistance, Italian Red Brigade commandos, and some of the most powerful Mafia networks 11:45 AM – 1:00 PM in the world. In this masterclass, he Sensitivity on Screen will provide insight into what it takes How do ethical considerations influ- to tell authentic stories from the inence artistic choices when presenting side. Read more about his work on delicate subject matter on screen? page 24.

Filmmakers will discuss how they establish ongoing consent with their 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM participants and the considerations behind portraying moments of vul- DOC BC Industry nerability in their films.

Reception

Connect with visiting filmmakers and meet the TELUS STORYHIVE team, who will be sharing their innovative programs and opportunities for 2019.

Light breakfast will be served.

10:30 AM – 11:45 AM

Bonus Industry Session Industry programming continues with local and international guests. Check our website for more details to be announced.

Josephine Anderson and Claire Sanford discuss their exploration of VR storytelling from a documentary filmmaker’s perspective. Together they will provide an overview of their creative process and demystify the workflow for filmmakers interested in experimenting with the medium.

12:30 PM – 2:30 PM

Mastering Your Festival Launch with Sean Farnel For the producer seeking a path to market through film festivals, pragmatic and informed decisions must be made. This workshop will provide an overview of the options, opportunities, and alternatives to film festival distribution.

Raise a glass to welcome festival guests and celebrate the work of BC’s independent documentary community!

CORLEONE

CANDICE

DOX AFESTIVAL .CA

15

S P O T L I G H T

P O L I T I C S O F P L A C E Landscapes contain a multitude of narrative possibilities. Whether it’s a dense forest in southern Slovenia, the oldest skate park in Santiago, Chile, or an informal neighbourhood in Manila being engulfed by an expanding port, these formally rigorous films invite us to uncover the histories, politics, and personalities that emerge from a careful observation of place.

POMELO

Flow (p. 39)

Nicolás Molina, Chile, 2018

Los Reyes (p. 73)

(p. 65)

Bettina Perut and Iván Osnovikoff, Chile/Germany, 2018

FRI MAY 3 | 6:00 PM | CINEMATHEQUE THU MAY 9 | 2:30 PM | VANCIT Y

Jewel Maranan, Philippines, 2017

WED MAY 8 | 6:00 PM | VANCIT Y FRI MAY 10 | 8:00 PM | CINEMATHEQUE

A meditative journey along two rivers — the Ganges in India, and the Biobío in Chile — that serves as a junction between two similar but distinct ways of life.

Manila’s busiest international port is expanding, threatening to displace a community of migrants from the Philippine countryside who have settled in its shadows. Jewel Maranan casts a critical eye on the everyday violence preceding the construction of the ideal city.

Pomelo (p. 53)

Phuong Thao Tran and Swann Dubus, Vietnam, 2018

SAT MAY 4 | 9:15 PM | CINEMATHEQUE WED MAY 8 | 2:30 PM | VANCIT Y

The historic neighborhood of Pomelo in Hanoi, a vibrant maze of homes and businesses teeming with life, is being demolished for a highway project.

Winter’s Yearning (p. 55)

Sidse Torstholm Larsen and Sturla Pilskog, Norway/Greenland/Denmark, 2019

SUN MAY 5 | 2:00 PM | CINEMATHEQUE TUE MAY 7 | 4:45 PM | VANCIT Y

When the small remote town of Maniitsoq, Greenland is chosen as the site for American aluminum company ALCOA’s new smelting plant, the locals wait with bated breath for construction to begin.

16

In the Claws of a Century Wanting

SPOTLIGHT

MON MAY 6 | 6:00 PM | CINEMATHEQUE

Xalko (p. 70)

Sami Mermer and Hind Benchekroun, Canada, 2018

TUE MAY 7 | 8:30 PM | CINEMATHEQUE

Xalko is a Kurdish village in Turkey — a small, isolated collection of modest houses, ramshackle livestock pens, and scrubby landscape. Director Sami Mermer returns to his hometown to craft an intimate portrait of the women in his family and a place threatened by exodus.

Daily life at the Los Reyes Skate Park in Santiago, Chile, is unremarkable, but as Bettina Perut and Iván Osnovikoff’s wonderfully original film unfolds, we become aware that human affairs — of street cleaners, small-time drug dealers, and skateboarders — are incidental to the real story here. The stars of this film are its two canine subjects — Football and Chola.

Greetings From Free Forests (p. 78) Ian Soroka, US/Slovenia/Croatia, 2018

THU MAY 9 | 8:30 PM |

VANCIT Y

An evocative portrait of the southern Slovenian landscape that facilitated what is considered to be Europe’s most effective resistance movement during World War II. Part experimental ethnography, part metaphorical reflection, Greetings From Free Forests uses lush cinematography and a rich soundscape to contemplate life in the forest during wartime.

S P O T L I G H T

C O M M U N I T I E S OF CARE Whether it’s service dogs trained to assist their owners in practical matters, or brothers coming together to care for their 93-year-old grandmother, this collection of films presents intimate examples of companionship and trust. They remind us that in times of political and economic uncertainty, caring for one another can be the ultimate radical act.

BUDDY

Young Solitude (Premières solitudes) (p. 37)

Claire Simon, France, 2018

THU MAY 2 | 5:45 PM | CINEMATHEQUE

Claire Simon offers a close-up view of the conversations between a group of high-schoolers in the Ivrysur-Seine Parisian suburb in this poignant study of friendship and the path towards adulthood.

Buddy (p. 55)

(w/ Norman Norman) Heddy Honigmann, Netherlands, 2018

SUN MAY 5 | 3:15 PM | VANCIT Y

DIVE: Rituals in Water (p. 73) Anna Rún Tryggvadóttir, Elín Hansdóttir, Hanna Björk Valsdóttir, Iceland, 2019

WED MAY 8 | 4:15 PM | VANCIT Y SUN MAY 12 | 12:00 PM | CINEMATHEQUE

For the past 25 years, Snorri Magnusson has operated an infant swim class that, beyond the lessons, offers a sense of community for new families navigating the beginnings of parenthood.

SAT MAY 11 | 1:45 PM | VANCIT Y

What does it mean to be the person responsible for a parent’s care? Nelleke Koop follows three women who care for their aging mothers with dementia while balancing jobs and other family obligations.

WED MAY 8 | 8:00 PM | VANCIT Y

How to Bee (p. 63)

América (p. 81)

Documentarian Naomi Mark returns home to the Yukon to learn the craft of beekeeping from her father, Don Mark. Seasons change along with Don’s health, making the relationship between father, daughter, and bees grow all the more important.

Nelleke Koop, Netherlands, 2019

Amy Jenkins, US, 2018

Amy Jenkins’ elegy to her own family offers an emotionally challenging yet profound reflection on the nature of life, death, and grief.

SUN MAY 5 | 8:30 PM | VANCIT Y TUE MAY 7 | 2:30 PM | VANCIT Y

(w/ Crannog)

Instructions on Parting (p. 74)

Veteran Dutch director Heddy Honigmann celebrates the extraordinary skills of service dogs in Buddy, crafting a heartwarming exploration of the bond between these animals and the humans they support.

Naomi Mark, Canada, 2019

Mom Calling (p. 82)

Erick Stoll and Chase Whiteside, US, 2018

SAT MAY 11 | 12:00 PM | VANCIT Y

Erick Stoll and Chase Whiteside find beauty and humour in this story of three brothers brought together to care for their ailing 93-year-old grandmother.

SPOTLIGHT

17

J U S T I C E

F O R U M

For ten years, the Justice Forum has been one of DOXA’s cornerstone programs; showcasing films that facilitate active and critical engagement, create space for dialogue, and sow the seeds for social change. Each Justice Forum screening is paired with a panel of speakers including filmmakers, experts in the field, academics, and community activists. In celebration of the 10th anniversary, we’re excited to offer a selection of films that foster crucial conversations around a broad range of social issues, offering necessary perspectives for change and progress.

NÎPAWISTAMÂSOWIN: WE WILL STAND UP

JUSTICE FORUM GAL A

nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up (p. 33)

Tasha Hubbard, Canada, 2019

WED MAY 8 | 6:00 PM | SFU

Few events in recent Canadian history have sparked as much media attention and outrage as the death of Colten Boushie, a young Cree man who was murdered on a farm in rural Saskatchewan in 2016. Tasha Hubbard’s essential film follows his family’s fight for justice while casting an unflinching look at systemic racism in Canada.

A Place Called Chiapas (p. 47)

Rehad Desai, South Africa, 2018

SAT MAY 4 | 4:15 PM | VANCITY

THU MAY 9 | 6:00 PM | SFU

Nettie Wild follows eight months in the life of the Zapatista uprising in the acclaimed A Place Called Chiapas. A post-screening panel with the filmmakers and the director of the Filmoteca UNAM will discuss the repatriation of the film’s original reels to Mexico on the 25th anniversary of the revolution.

Tracing the most militant national revolt in South Africa since the first democratic elections in 1994, Everything Must Fall explores the intergenerational conflict between the 2015 #FeesMustFall student movement and their educational institutions.

Buddy (p. 55)

(w/ Norman Norman) Heddy Honigmann, Netherlands, 2018

SUN MAY 5 | 3:15 PM | VANCITY

Push (p. 41)

Fredrik Gertten, Sweden, 2019

SAT MAY 4 | 12:00 PM | VANCIT Y

Through interviews with common folk and politicians alike, Push shows the strain that cities across the globe have felt as housing has become a commodity for the wealthy, rather than a necessity for the many.

18

SPECIAL PROGRA M

Everything Must Fall (p. 76)

Nettie Wild, Canada, 1998

Veteran Dutch director Heddy Honigmann celebrates the extraordinary skills of service dogs in Buddy, crafting a heartwarming exploration of the bond between these animals and the humans they support.

Because We Are Girls (p. 29)

Baljit Sangra, Canada, 2019

TUE MAY 7 | 6:30 PM | VANCIT Y

A conservative Indo-Canadian family in small-town British Columbia must come to terms with a devastating secret: three sisters were sexually abused by an older relative beginning in their childhood years.

Mom Calling (p. 82) (w/ Crannog)

Nelleke Koop, Netherlands, 2019

SAT MAY 11 | 1:45 PM | VANCIT Y

What does it mean to be the person responsible for a parent’s care? Nelleke Koop follows three women who care for their aging mothers with dementia while balancing jobs and other family obligations.

One Child Nation (p. 82)

Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang, China/US, 2019

SAT MAY 11 | 4:00 PM | VANCIT Y

Weaving her personal experience with archival propaganda and testimonies, Nanfu Wang reveals the human rights violations and trauma caused by the Chinese government’s one-child policy.

Now in its 11th year, Rated Y for Youth was founded upon the idea of facilitating media literacy through thought-provoking documentaries.

DOXA selects programming for high school students and youth to foster an appreciation for cinema while giving young audiences an opportunity to engage in open dialogue on a broad range of social issues. Each Rated Y for Youth screening is followed by a post-screening discussion with filmmakers and community members.

STANDING ON THE LINE

Call Me Intern (p. 63)

Standing on the Line (p. 71)

Nathalie Berger and Leo David Hyde, New Zealand, 2019

Paul Émile D’Entremont, Canada, 2019

MON MAY 6 | 12:00 PM | VANCIT Y

WED MAY 8 | 12:00 PM |

Would you work full-time for months on end for free? Call Me Intern explores a job market where paid entry-level positions have become increasingly rare, introducing us along the way to a new generation of activists organizing to demand fair compensation for their work.

In both amateur and professional sports, being gay remains taboo. Standing on the Line looks at the experiences of LGBTQ+ athletes in Canada who set out to overcome prejudice.

Toxic Beauty (p. 69)

Phyllis Ellis, Canada, 2019

TUE MAY 7 | 12:00 PM | VANCIT Y

Meet Mymy, a young medical student who measures her body’s chemical burden from over 27 different cosmetic products. With exclusive access to scientists, lawyers, and whistle-blowers, Toxic Beauty critically examines the global cosmetic industry.

VANCIT Y

nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up

Propaganda: The Art of Selling Lies (p. 79) Larry Weinstein, Canada, 2019

FRI MAY 10 | 12:00 PM |

VANCIT Y

Propaganda has been harnessed as a powerful weapon to shape worldviews through compelling images and narratives. In an era of fake news and alternative facts, director Larry Weinstein asks the question: How do we know what we know?

(p. 33) Tasha Hubbard, Canada, 2019

THU MAY 9 | 12:00 PM |

VANCIT Y

Few events in recent Canadian history have sparked as much media attention and outrage as the death of Colten Boushie, a young Cree man who was murdered on a farm in rural Saskatchewan in 2016. Tasha Hubbard’s essential film follows his family’s fight for justice while casting an unflinching look at systemic racism in Canada.

SCHOOL BOOKINGS For information about the Rated Y for Youth program or to book your school group tickets, please contact Milena Salazar at milena@doxafestival.ca or 604.646.3200 ext.106.

SPECIAL PROGRA M

19

Rungh is a quarterly magazine of arts, culture and ideas. Subscription is free.

Join us at rungh.org/join 20

ESSAY

LONGING

1990

s

AND

BELONGING

SOUTH ASIAN FILM AND VIDEO

BY ZOOL SULEMAN

1990 s SOUTH ASIAN FILM AND VIDEO

ESSAY

21

21

The 1990s are the new “decade of the moment.” Driven in part by the nostalgia of the baby boomer generation as they relive old memories, this cultural throwback has reignited conversations which are also “new” once more — some of which include the very circuits of knowledge formation.

Pardesh, a multi-disciplinary arts festival that emerged in Toronto and operated from 1988–2001 [2]. Desh Pardesh was the “scene” that influenced the foundation of Rungh and where the first issue of Rungh magazine was launched in 1992 [3].

Identity politics, race, belonging, migration, empire, colonialism, class, religion, LGBTQ2++ identities, Indigenous rights, and more are the topics that increasingly dominate conversations in the academy, the street, the home, and the universes of media and social media. In his influential essay, “Cultural Identity and Cinematic Representation” [1], cultural theorist Stuart Hall references Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Jacques Derrida, Homi Bhabha, Kobena Mercer, and others as he explores what constitutes cultural identity. He posits a complex, layered definition that recognizes the “ruptures” and “discontinuities” of the historical, and the “traumatic” character of “the colonial experience.” He writes: IS

The Longing and Belonging program consists of three screenings, loosely structured around themes of diaspora, desire, and identity. Diaspora: Shorts Program includes two films, Ian Rashid’s Surviving Sabu (1998) and Leila Sujir’s The Dreams of the Night Cleaners (1995). Desire: Shorts Program includes Shani Mootoo’s The Wild Woman in the Woods (1993), Ian Rashid and Kaspar Saxena’s Bolo! Bolo! (1991), and Michelle Mohabeer’s Coconut/Cane & Cutlass (1994), and Ali Kazimi’s feature film Shooting Indians: A Journey with Jeffrey Thomas (1997) completes the program. These six films cannot possibly represent the large body of South Asian film and video work produced during the 1990s — to do so would take a festival unto itself. What these six films try to do is provide a small sense of the rich, multivalent intersections that THAN were explored in that era, as well as after, in film and video.

“

DIASPORA

MUCH MORE

Cultural identity… is a matter of ‘becoming’ as well as ‘being’. It belongs to the future as much as to the past.

It is not something which already exists, transcending place, time, history and culture. Cultural identities come from somewhere, have histories. But, like everything which is historical, they undergo constant transformation. Far from being eternally fixed in some essentialised past, they are subject to the continuous ‘play’ of history, culture and power. Far from being grounded in a mere ‘recovery’ of the past, which is waiting to be found, and which, when found, will secure our sense of ourselves into eternity, identities are the names we give to the different ways we are positioned by, and position ourselves within, the narratives of the past.

GEOGRAPHY

Diaspora is much more than geography and migration, and both of the films in the Diaspora program rely on family AND histories and archives. In Surviving Sabu, Rashid explores the story of Sabu, an Indian film actor who featured in orientalist films such as The Thief of Baghdad (1940) and Elephant Boy (1937), as a point of contestation between a father and a son in Canada. Is Sabu a representative of Hollywood success, or a tragic icon of cultural colonialism? In the end, as father and son watch Sabu on the screen, the father wryly says: “Relax. It is

M I G R AT I O N

Hall’s comments provide one possible lens through which to view the films within the Longing and Belonging program.

While the exercise of marking decades is false ab initio, since histories do not break into such easy demarcations, the 1990s were a time of significant cultural production within Canada’s South Asian arts communities. Influenced by the 1980s Black Arts Movement in Britain, and in opposition to state-sponsored multiculturalism paradigms in Canada, South Asian became a generous identifier for a variety of communities united by more than the geography of South Asia. No contemporary art production history of these communities from that time period can ring true without referencing Desh

22

LONGING AND BELONGING

”

[1] Originally published as “Cultural Identity and Cinematic Representation” in Framework, The Journal of Cinema and Media (1989) (Volume 36) (Special Issue on conference papers presented at the Theory and Politics on Location Symposium).

[2] The South Asian Visual Arts Centre (SAVAC), a non-profit, artist-run centre, has compiled an archive of Desh Pardesh, which can be found here: https://www. savac.net/collection/desh-pardesh [3] The first issue of Rungh magazine, focusing on the “proceedings” of Desh Pardesh in 1991 and other newly commissioned works (Volume 1, No. 1 and 2) (1992), can be found at the Simon Fraser Digitized Collections here: https://digital.lib.sfu.ca/ rungh-collection/rungh-south-asian-quarterly-culture-comment-and-criticism

only a film. What harm can a film do?” In The Dreams of the Night Cleaners, Sujir traverses a different cultural terrain, weaving together drama, a fable, the story of a missing family member, and a look at the labour of racialized immigrant women. Banff, Alberta serves as the backdrop to this production, co-produced with the Banff Centre for the Arts and the National Film Board of Canada.

Desire is only a part of the thread stringing together the three films in the program that carries its name. In Bolo! Bolo!, which debuted at Desh Pardesh in 1991, Rashid and Saxena document conversations with South Asian activists in response to the AIDS crisis. Mootoo explores butch/femme signifiers in The Wild Woman in the Woods and encounters a goddess in the forest. Coconut/Cane & Cutlass is an Indo-Caribbean journey by Michelle Mohabeer that broadens notions of the South Asian diaspora and traces oral histories.

Two of the winners of 2019’s Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts were artists Ali Kazimi and Jeffrey Thomas, but twenty-two years ago Kazimi was the filmmaker and Thomas the “subject” in Shooting Indians: A Journey with Jeffrey Thomas. Of course, when two media artists are involved in a dialogue about Edward Curtis, photography, and Indigenous rights and land, the notion of a “subject” becomes more nuanced and complex. A groundbreaking film, then and now.

Although much remains unexplored in the Longing and Belonging program, diving into the archive proves to be a rich and revelatory experience. This “activation” of the archive is a part of the journey for Rungh and DOXA as we continue to explore, in the present, the lasting themes of 1990s South Asian film and video.

Zool Suleman is a writer and editor. He is the current Editor of Rungh magazine and the Executive Director of the Rungh Cultural Society.

This year’s Longing and Belonging: 1990’s South Asian Film and Video programming arises out of a unique partnership between DOXA and Rungh. This partnership encompasses not only the program that is being presented at DOXA, but also an ongoing set of conversations which will take place in other venues and in the future, as well as in the publication of a special issue of Rungh magazine later this year. It is part of a multiplatform exploration of what happened in the 1990s.

PRESENTED BY

FILMS IN LONGING AND BELONGING INCLUDE:

Diaspora: Shorts Program

THU MAY 9 | 6:00 PM | CINEMATHEQUE

(pg 76)

Surviving Sabu

Ian Rashid, Canada, 1998, 16 mins

The Dreams of the Night Cleaners Leila Sujir, 1995, 47 mins

Desire: Shorts Program

THU MAY 9 | 8:00 PM | CINEMATHEQUE

(pg 78)

The Wild Woman in the Woods Shani Mootoo, Canada, 1993, 14 mins

Bolo! Bolo!

Ian Rashid and Kaspar Saxena, Canada, 1991, 30 mins

Coconut/Cane & Cutlass

Michelle Mohabeer, Canada, 1994, 30 mins

Shooting Indians: A Journey with Jeffrey Thomas Ali Kazimi, Canada, 1997, 56 mins

FRI MAY 10 | 6:00 PM | CINEMATHEQUE (pg 79)

1990 s SOUTH ASIAN FILM AND VIDEO

23

AFTER FOUR EDITIONS OF FRENCH FRENCH, ITALIA ITALIA IS A NEW LEG OF THE GRAND TOUR EXPLORING AUTEUR-DRIVEN DOCUMENTARIES FROM EUROPE

24

ITALIA ITALIA

A DOCUMENTARY PENINSULA

BY THIERRY GARREL

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of great moral crisis - DANTE ALIGHIERI (APOCRYPHAL) It has been said that Italy is, to a certain extent, the social and political laboratory of European democracy. Recently, Italian documentaries have captured major awards competing against fiction films in leading film festivals such as Berlinale, Venice, and Cannes, while triumphing in most of the prominent European documentary festivals. Strong auteurs have emerged such as Gianfranco Rosi, Stefano Savona, and Roberto Minervini, to name a few of the most celebrated, and these individuals have taken a stand and championed ideas through their films that deal with the urgent questions of our times. In this regard, it is significant that Nanni Moretti, one of the leading Italian cineastes, chose for his latest work to shift to a documentary format to recount how the Italian Embassy in Santiago, Chile, provided refuge to hundreds of dissenters in the aftermath of the brutal 1973 coup against democratic President Allende.* For Italia Italia, we have chosen** to confront several contemporary Italian and French films along with some of their directors, providing an opportunity

to showcase the new generation of documentarians blooming in Italy who are rediscovering the power of cinematic language to explore humanist values.

This movement might well be the forerunner of a real “renaissance” of Italian cinema.

In Sara Fgaier’s The Years (Gli anni), awarded Best European Short Film last year, films from a Sardinian family’s archive are recomposed with a literary text to become expressive elements constituting both a confession and a collective narrative.

For her first feature-length documentary, My Home, in Libya, visual artist Martina Melilli partners with a young Libyan during the final days of the Gaddafi regime to retrace the steps of her grandfather, who left Tripoli 50 years ago and remains nostalgic about his life in the former colony.

* The film will soon be theatrically released in Canada. ** I want to thank my friends Stefano Savona, Ludovica Tortora De Falco, Luciano Barrisone, Maria Bonsanti and Hugues Le Paige for their assistance with the selection process.

ITALIA ITALIA

25

In the remote countryside of Vermont, Giovanni Donfrancesco records the uncompromising confessions of The Resolute (Il Risoluto), an old man who was enlisted at age 15 into one of the fiercest fascist bands in Genoa under the leadership of the “Black Prince,” Junio Borghese.

While Stefano De Luigi, Italian photojournalist, embarks on the migrant rescue boat Aquarius for Mare Amarum, Marco Piccarreda and Gaia Formenti — who were awarded Best Innovative Medium-Length Film at Visions du Réel for CittàGiardino — build a powerful, almost silent dramaturgy around six teenage refugees from Africa indefinitely detained in a Sicilian reception centre for unaccompanied minors.

“

THE NEW GENERATION OF DOCUMENTARIANS ...

WHO ARE REDISCOVERING

THE POWER OF CINEMATIC L ANGUAGE TO EXPLORE HUMANIST VALUES

Claudia Tosi’s I Had a Dream (Avevo un sogno), a multiaward winner at the last DOK Leipzig festival, follows 10 years of political commitment by two female friends, one a member of parliament and the other a city councillor, as they fight for women’s rights and confront the disillusionment of uphill political struggle.

Coming from the other side of the Alps, renowned French director Mosco Levi Boucault spent most of the last 15 years of his unique career researching, shooting, editing, and producing films about Italian social, political, and judicial realities. Boucault excels at gaining privileged access to first-hand subjects and invaluable archives, and in Berlusconi: The Mondadori Affair (Berlusconi, Affaire Mondadori) he documents the bribery of a judge as the Prime Minister to be seeks to take possession of the largest publishing house in Italy. Likewise, in They Were the Red Brigades (Ils étaient les Brigades Rouges), Boucault extracts testimonials from four members of the unit that kidnapped, sequestrated, and murdered Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro 40 years ago.

Boucault has just completed the monumental Corleone, which pre-screened at the Rome Film Festival last October. The film charts the ruthless rise and fall of infamous Sicilian godfather Totò Riina, who drenched Italy in blood, defied the State for 20 years and ordered the execution of anti-mafia judges Falcone and Borsellino.

Two decades ago, Corradino Durruti began to film the long-lasting police investigation that would lead, after seven years, to the arrest and criminal

26

ITALIA ITALIA

”

conviction of a Calabrian mafia boss in ‘Ndrangheta: A Mafia of Business and Blood (‘Ndrangheta, une mafia d’affaires et de sang). Elsewhere, in The Call (La Convocazione), Enrico Maisto shoots powerful close-ups in the Assize Court of Appeal in Milan that capture the discussions and worries of ordinary citizens, some of whom will be chosen as members of the jury.

Filmed over an entire year in a suburban Roman school, Alessandro Marinelli captures the difficult implementation of social skills and hope among socially challenged students in Basileus: The School of Kings (Basileus, la scuola dei re). Complementary to this, French filmmaker Claire Simon’s*** latest opus Young Solitude (Premières solitudes) stages intimate dialogues between emotional teenagers on the edge of adulthood.

What characterizes all of these films is a clear choice by their directors to share these particular experiences of past and present realities through their own voices and styles, their “écriture.” The intent is to concentrate not only on what is told, be it education, crime, politics, or social change, but equally on how it is told, in order to enlarge for each single viewer the proper metaphorical resonance. Moving, tragic, thrilling, and genuinely crafted, all of these auteur-directed films remind us that cinema isn’t a mere machine for presenting images, it is a machine for sharing and thinking.

Thierry Garrel, a French Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres and Prix des Auteurs de la SCAM 2015, joined the Research Department of French Television at the age of 20. He founded the Documentary Film Unit of ARTE France, a European cultural channel, and acted as director from 1987 to 2008. Since 2009, he has lived in Vancouver, working as a consultant and tutoring around the world at seminars and workshops focusing on young documentary filmmakers. For the last four years, he has curated the French French program for DOXA.

*** A retrospective of her work screened at DOXA 2016 and is now touring throughout North America.

FILMS IN ITALIA ITALIA INCLUDE:

I Had a Dream CITTÀGIARDINO

(Avevo un sogno)

Young Solitude

MON MAY 6 | 9:30 PM | VANCIT Y FRI MAY 10 | 2:30 PM | VANCIT Y (pg 67)

The Call

(La Convocazione) Enrico Maisto PRECEDED BY

The Years (Gli anni) Sara Fgaier

SAT MAY 4 | 4:15 PM | CINEMATHEQUE SUN MAY 5 | 12:00 PM | CINEMATHEQUE (pg 49)

The Resolute (Il Risoluto)

Giovanni Donfrancesco

FRI MAY 10 | 8:00 PM | SFU

(Premières solitudes) Claire Simon

THU MAY 2 | 5:45 PM | CINEMATHEQUE

(pg 37)

‘Ndrangheta: A Mafia of Business and Blood

(‘Ndrangheta, une mafia d’affaires et de sang) Corradino Durruti

MON MAY 6 | 4:30 PM | VANCIT Y (pg 65)

They Were the Red Brigades (Ils étaient les Brigades Rouges) Mosco Levi Boucault

SAT MAY 4 | 6:30 PM | CINEMATHEQUE (pg 49)

Corleone

Mosco Levi Boucault

SUN MAY 5 | 8:00 PM | SFU FRI MAY 10 | 4:00 PM | VANCIT Y

(pg 80)

(pg 61)

CittàGiardino

Berlusconi: The Mondadori Affair

Marco Piccarreda and Gaia Formenti

(Berlusconi, Affaire Mondadori)

PRECEDED BY

Mosco Levi Boucault

Mare Amarum

(pg 41)

Philippe Fontana MARE AMARUM

THU MAY 9 | 4:30 PM | VANCIT Y

THU MAY 2 | 8:30 PM | CINEMATHEQUE SAT MAY 4 | 2:00 PM | CINEMATHEQUE

Martina Melilli

I HAD A DREAM

Alessandro Marinelli (pg 75)

My Home, in Libya

THE YEARS

(Basileus, la scuola dei re)

Claudia Tosi

(pg 37)

BASILEUS: THE SCHOOL OF KINGS

Basileus: The School of Kings

SUN MAY 5 | 5:30 PM | CINEMATHEQUE (pg 59)

SAT MAY 4 | 12:00 PM | CINEMATHEQUE

A Matter of Access: A Masterclass with Mosco Levi Boucault SUN MAY 5 | 3:30 PM | SFU

(pg 15)

ITALIA ITALIA ITALIA ITALIA MY HOME, IN LIBYA

27 27

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FRIDAY MAY 3

OPENING GALA SCREENING

7:00 PM PLAYHOUSE

JUSTICE FORUM

Because We Are Girls Baljit Sangra, Canada, 2019, 85 mins

A conservative Indo-Canadian family in Williams Lake, British Columbia must come to terms with a devastating secret: three sisters were sexually abused by an older relative beginning in their childhood years. After remaining silent for nearly two and a half decades, the sisters decide to come forward — not only to protect other young relatives, but also to set an example for their own daughters.

Vancouver-based Filmmaker Baljit Sangra explores the impact of sexual abuse on a family, turning her empathetic lens on intimate moments as they process and heal. Full of nuance and layers, Because We Are Girls weaves poetically between past and present. We witness the emotional toll experienced by sisters Jeeti, Kira, and Salakshana, not only from pursuing justice through the courts, but also through confronting their parents for not protecting them as children. We also share in their happiness as the sisters bond with their daughters and dance along to their favourite Bollywood songs. The film intertwines touching home footage of the sisters as young girls with uplifting scenes of the strong, empowered women they have become.

We are very proud to open our 18th annual festival with this courageous film that celebrates the strength of sisterhood in the face of profound pain and trauma. In one poignant scene the sisters reflect on the cost of breaking the cycle of abuse.

What’s ultimately revealed in Sangra’s powerful tribute is that the cost of remaining silent would be far greater. -SC ADDITIONAL SCREENING

TUESDAY MAY 7 | 6:30 PM | VANCITY THE MAY 7 SCREENING IS PART OF THE JUSTICE FORUM SERIES AND WILL INCLUDE A POST-FILM DISCUSSION. READ MORE ON PAGE 18.

OPENING GAL A SCREENING

29

BOLD FAIR

AUTHENTIC STEPHEN QUINN

SATURDAY MAY 11

CLOSING GALA SCREENING

7:00 PM SFU

Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen Hepi Mita, New Zealand, 2018, 87 mins

“One of my primary goals is to decolonize the screen and to Indigenize the screen.” These are the words of Merata Mita, the first Māori woman — and one of the first Indigenous women in the world — to write and direct a narrative feature film (Mauri, 1988). Mita, best known for her independent documentaries of the 1970s and 80s, continues to be recognized as one of the most influential women in Indigenous filmmaking. A notorious agitator, her films bear witness to the injustice Māori people face in New Zealand, providing a voice for Māori people and especially for Māori women.

Directed by her youngest son Hepi Mita, Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen is a tender posthumous tribute to his mother’s life and career. Through a wealth of archival footage we get to know the trailblazing director as she discusses her career, family, and political views with candor. Her interviews span decades and are intercut with never-before-seen footage from her unfinished films. Personal accounts from her grown children (who often worked on her films themselves) describe the challenges they faced growing up with a mom who was on the front lines of social movements, and was frequently harassed by police.

Mita’s striking footage of Māori land rights activists in her 1980 film Bastion Point: Day 507, recall similar images from Alanis Obomsawin’s pioneering documentary Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance. Obomsawin talks about her friendship with Mita and describes the power of seeing each other’s films for the first time, reflecting on how they both fought to elevate the voices of their people. (This tradition of Indigenous documentary filmmaking is carried forward in Tasha Hubbard’s new film nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up on page 33.)

We’re excited to conclude our festival with a warm-hearted portrait of a visionary artist, activist, and mother. Mita’s legacy is an inspiring reminder that film, on and behind the screen, is a critical tool for social and political change. - SC ADDITIONAL SCREENING

SATURDAY MAY 11 | 8:30 PM | VANCITY CULTURAL PARTNER

CLOSING GAL A SCREENING

31

POST PRODUCTION | VISUAL EFFECTS | COLOR GRADING OFFLINE SUITE RENTAL 10,000 sqaure feet of production space 9 editor/assistant offline suites for rent DI Theatre with 4K and Dolby 7.1 playback

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WEDNESDAY MAY 8

JUSTICE FORUM

JUSTICE FORUM GALA SCREENING

6:00 PM SFU

RATED Y FOR YOUTH

nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up Tasha Hubbard, Canada, 2019, 98 mins

Few events in recent Canadian history have sparked as much media attention, outrage, and horror as the death of Colten Boushie. On August 9, 2016, Boushie, a young Cree man from the Red Pheasant First Nation, died after being shot in the head on Gerald Stanley’s farm. On February 9, 2018, Stanley was acquitted, raising profound concerns about racism embedded within the Canadian legal system, as well as the ongoing racial tensions between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities across the country.

Indigenous filmmaker and scholar Tasha Hubbard goes beyond the headlines to present a detailed examination of race relations on the prairies. Using animated sequences, Hubbard weaves historical markers such as the Frog Lake Massacre, the legacy of residential schools, and the complicated treaty relations with footage of her own family, placing the tragedy within the context of raising her son on the same homelands. Interviews with Boushie’s family members describe in harrowing detail their experiences dealing with racist threats online, all the while grieving the loss of their loved one. Despite this, Boushie’s family is relentless in their pursuit of justice as they meet with politicians, journalists, and lawyers across the country.

Stunning cinematography captures Saskatchewan’s vast plains and open skies, a poignant backdrop that echoes the distance Canadian society still needs to go before it can ever achieve genuine reconciliation with Indigenous people. In Cree, nîpawistamâsowin translates to “we (small group) will stand up for others (big group).” This phrase — and the film itself — inspires a message of hope embodied by the Boushie family’s leadership. - SC ADDITIONAL SCREENING

THURSDAY MAY 9 | 12:00 PM | VANCITY THE WEDNESDAY, MAY 8 SCREENING IS PART OF JUSTICE FORUM SERIES AND WILL INCLUDE A POST-FILM DISCUSSION. READ MORE ON PAGE 18.

THE THURSDAY, MAY 9 SCREENING IS PART OF RATED Y FOR YOUTH AND WILL INCLUDE A POST-FILM DISCUSSION. READ MORE ON PAGE 19.

JUSTICE FORUM GAL A SCREENING

33

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SATURDAY MAY 4

SPECIAL LIVE PRESENTATION

7:30 PM VANCITY

Postings from Home Kelly O’Brien, Canada, 85 mins

Filmmaker Kelly O’Brien has taken the collective sharing of one’s personal life — now habitual on social media — and combined it with the 20th-century tradition of a family slideshow to create a formally unique and emotionally affecting live performance. Culled from eight years of daily photo essays posted on Facebook, this ever-evolving project was described as “a revelatory journey through the filmmaker’s intimately illuminating archive” by Patrick Mullen in POV magazine when it was first presented in 2016.

O’Brien’s eclectic mix of stories and quotations from artists, philosophers, and her kids provide the narrative for her photographs and short films. From the wonders and challenges of motherhood to anxious thoughts about the future during a time of political and environmental crisis, Postings from Home unearths the poetry found within the everyday.

MEDIA PARTNER

SPECIAL LIVE PRESENTATION

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THURSDAY MAY 2

CANADIAN PREMIERE

ITALIA ITALIA

5:45 PM CINEMATHEQUE

CARE

THURSDAY MAY 2 SATURDAY MAY 4

8:30 PM CINEMATHEQUE 2:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE

ITALIA ITALIA

Young Solitude

I Had a Dream

Claire Simon, France, 2018, 100 mins

Claudia Tosi, Italy/France, 2018, 84 mins

Here is something we rarely have the opportunity to observe: thoughtful and revealing conversations between teens on the acute challenges in their emotional lives. At a high school in Ivry, on the outskirts of Paris, Simon films pairs or groups of kids finding quiet spaces like the school roof, a schoolyard bench, or an empty hallway to talk about their families, fears, relationships, and dreams. Ten teens describe their experiences dealing with divorced parents, distant fathers, precarious housing situations, and growing up in an adoptive family. While the encounters themselves sometimes feel more staged than spontaneous, their conversations are so natural, exposed, and unrehearsed that any sense of performance falls away.

With the rise of populism, extremism, racism, and indifference, democracy is in crisis and nobody seems able to find a cure. Will it come from the politicians, the institutions, or the citizens? Director Claudia Tosi explores how this crisis unfolds in Italy through the battles of two remarkable women, Manuela Ghizzoni and Daniela DePietri, both members of the country’s Democratic Party.

(Premières solitudes)

The promise and energy of these teenagers keeps the film upbeat despite its sometimes harrowing subject matter. It is rare in its commitment to take seriously the words and inner lives of teens. The result is an inspired admiration for the bravery of these young people who have agreed to share the secrets of their hearts and minds with the world. Young Solitude is a welcome addition to Claire Simon’s impressive and cinematically astute oeuvre. Like all of her films, it has a distinct sense of place and attention to detail. And, as always, the sense of trust she inspires in her subjects is extraordinary. -KR THIS FILM IS PART OF ITALIA ITALIA. MORE ON PAGE 24.

(Avevo un sogno)

The film begins in 2008, when Ghizzoni and DePietri are seeking to have an impact on political decisions at the national and local level. Tosi films them over a period of ten years, capturing their everyday lives and tireless political organizing, offering insight into a tumultuous decade in Italian and European politics. When 70% of Italians vote for populist parties in the 2018 election, the two women reflect on this “dramatic failure.” Strengthened by each other’s friendship in the face of an increasingly hostile political environment, they vow to “keep working as if there was a future.” -ML GOLDEN DOVE AWARD FIPRESCI PRIZE INTERRELIGIOUS JURY PRIZE DOK LEIPZIG 2018 THIS FILM IS PART OF ITALIA ITALIA. MORE ON PAGE 24.

DOX AFESTIVAL .CA

37

A LW AY S T H E S M A R T C H O I C E

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THE HOTEL OF CHOICE FOR 2019 DOXA FILM FESTIVAL A PROUD HOSPITALITY PARTNER Sandman Suites Vancouver - Davie Street is an all-suite hotel situated in Vancouver’s West End, minutes from English Bay Beach, Robson Street, and Yaletown.

So Many Reasons to Stay: 198 comfortable suites with full kitchens | City, ocean & mountain views | In-suite washer/dryer units | Complimentary high speed Internet | Gated, underground parking | Moxie’s Grill & Bar with room service | pHresh Spa & Wellness Club | Outdoor pool | Meeting & banquet facilities | Fitness facilities

sandmanhotels.com | 1 800 SANDMAN (726 3626)

FRIDAY MAY 3 THURSDAY MAY 9

CANADIAN PREMIERE

6:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE 2:30 PM VANCITY

POLITICS OF PLACE

FRIDAY MAY 3 SATURDAY MAY 11

8:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE 2:15 PM CINEMATHEQUE

CANADIAN PREMIERE

Flow

A Bright Light: Karen and the Process

Flow is a meditative journey along two rivers — the Ganges in India, and the Biobío in Chile — that serves as a junction between two similar but distinct ways of life.

The film begins with impressions of rural lives in the highlands, where people tend livestock and split wood. Sheep cross a small wooden bridge over the Ganges, and cows graze in a wide valley beneath thick trees in Chile, while further down the rivers homes sit precariously on a hillside, surrounded by colourful blossoms.

Women hand-wash clothing and sort rice as a game of cricket is played in the sand of the river bed — these human inhabitants appear only briefly, but leave an indelible impression of resourcefulness and humour. Though their portraits are fleeting, the river and its environment are seen as much through their eyes as they are through the lens of the camera.

Karen Dalton was a crucial figure in the Greenwich Village urban folk scene of the 1960s. Lauded by her peers, including Bob Dylan and close friend and fellow troubadour Tim Hardin, Dalton struggled during her lifetime to find an audience outside of New York’s bohemian enclaves. After several years of performing and a muted reception to her emotionally complex recorded output, she eventually returned to a rural domestic life in the spacious wilds of the Colorado mountains.

There, she continued to write songs and play with local musicians, unwavering in her pursuit of creative development.

Nicolás Molina, Chile, 2018, 82 mins

As the river widens toward the sea, populations densify and urban life begins to dominate the shoreline. Still, it is often the quieter, non-human moments that deliver the greatest impact: a beach crammed with little boats, cows languidly traipsing across sand. Despite its title and framing structure, director Nicolás Molina does not dwell on rivers themselves but on the flow of life, emphasizing the universal necessity of human, animal, and natural confluence. -KR

Emmanuelle Antille, Switzerland, 2018, 94 mins

A Bright Light: Karen and the Process follows three women on an oneiric road trip as they trace the songwriter’s movements across the American landscape back to Woodstock, where she spent her final years. They encounter many of the people and panoramas that defined Dalton’s life, as well as a diverse array of contemporary musicians who have absorbed her ethereal spirit. At stops along the way, the unconscious processes of filmmaking are subsumed into the biographical discovery. The film becomes a holistic portrait of a musician possessed of one of the most expressive, and elusive, voices of her era. -DG

DOX AFESTIVAL .CA

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YOU EMPOWER

US www.ccec.bc.ca

SATURDAY MAY 4

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

12:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE

ITALIA ITALIA

SATURDAY MAY 4 FRIDAY MAY 10

12:00 PM VANCITY 6:00 PM SFU

JUSTICE FORUM

Berlusconi: The Mondadori Affair

Push

Mosco Levi Boucault, France, 2008, 52 mins

Who among us hasn’t ranted about housing in the past year? Conversations about rent increases, renovictions, gentrification, and general unaffordability seem inevitable when we meet up with friends and family in Vancouver. Leilani Farha has spent her career thinking about these very questions, from her beginnings in a small Ottawa office to her current position as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing. Push follows Farha as she traces a now global housing crisis. From London, to Valparaíso, to Milan, she speaks to the everyday people who tell the all-too-similar story about being pushed out of traditionally working class neighbourhoods to make way for luxury condo towers. Through interviews with common folk and politicians alike, we see the strain that cities across the globe have felt as housing, recognized as a human right by the UN, has become a commodity for the wealthy rather than a necessity for the many.

(Berlusconi, Affaire Mondadori)

In 1987, the sudden death of the head of Italy’s largest publishing house triggered a battle of succession between two of the country’s most aggressive businessmen: Silvio Berlusconi and Carlo De Benedetti. Both men attempt a series of power maneuvers for control of the company, and Berlusconi emerges victorious after convincing the company owner’s widow to sell him her shares. De Benedetti sues, but the judgment lands in Berlusconi’s favour.

Four years later, while conducting an unrelated investigation, prosecutors discover that the ruling had been bought, and Berlusconi was charged with corruption.

It was the beginning of a 20 year legal saga, one which did not prevent Berlusconi from rising to power as Italy’s prime minister, first in 1994 and then again in 2001.

Luminously narrated by key players in the case, the film is a judicial, financial, and political thriller that exposes multiple levels of corruption in il bel paese. -TG THIS FILM IS PART OF ITALIA ITALIA. MORE ON PAGE 24.

Fredrik Gertten, Sweden, 2019, 92 mins

DOXA 2017 audiences may recognize Ada Colau, the current mayor of Barcelona from Ada for Mayor. Colau and Farha speak of possible solutions to the worldwide housing crisis and start a conversation about how to once again provide adequate housing to working people in the world’s cities — a conversation that Vancouverites will be eager to take part in. -CP THE SATURDAY, MAY 4 SCREENING IS PART OF JUSTICE FORUM SERIES AND WILL INCLUDE A POST-FILM DISCUSSION. READ MORE ON PAGE 18.

SCREENING PARTNER

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CANADA’S

CONVERSATION Now, more than ever, Canada needs independent, fact-based journalism.

Join Canada’s Conversation.

D O X A 2 0 1 9

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THURSDAY MAY 2 5:45 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE

YOUNG SOLITUDE (PREMIÈRES

I

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4:15 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE

A PLACE CALLED CHIAPAS

- 93 MINS

SOLITUDES) - 100 MINS

4:15 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE

8:30 PM I THE CINEMATHEQUE

- 57 MINS

- 84 MINS

THE CALL (LA CONVOCAZIONE)

WITH

THE YEARS (GLI ANNI) - 20 MINS

(p. 49)

(p. 37)

6:30 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE

FRIDAY MAY 3 6:00 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE FLOW - 82 MINS (p. 39)

7:00 PM | THE PLAYHOUSE

THEY WERE THE RED BRIGADES

3:15 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE BUDDY - 86 MINS WITH NORMAN NORMAN - 7 MINS (p. 55)

3:45 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE

GODS OF MOLENBEEK - 73 MINS

(p. 57)

5:30 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE CITTÀGIARDINO - 57 MINS WITH MARE AMARUM - 19 MINS

(p. 51)

7:30 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE

POSTINGS FROM HOME - 85 MINS

SATURDAY MAY 4

(p. 51)

12:00 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE PUSH - 92 MINS

9:15 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE POMELO - 75 MINS

(p. 41)

(p. 53)

12:00 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE

9:30 PM I VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE THE HOTTEST AUGUST - 92 MINS

GORDON LIGHTFOOT: IF YOU COULD READ MY MIND - 90 MINS

CITY DREAMERS - 80 MINS

(p. 59)

6:00 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE

SEAHORSE: THE DAD WHO GAVE BIRTH - 90 MINS

(p. 59)

7:45 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE DARK SUNS - 154 MINS (p. 61)

8:00 PM | SFU-GCA

(p. 53)

(p. 41)

SUNDAY MAY 5

- 84 MINS (p. 37)

12:00 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE

2:30 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE CITY OF THE DEAD - 56 MINS

- 57 MINS

THE CALL (LA CONVOCAZIONE)

(p. 47)

(p. 55)

7:00 PM | SFU-GCA CANDICE - 80 MINS

9:15 PM | SFU-GCA

I HAD A DREAM (AVEVO UN SOGNO)

2:00 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE WINTER’S YEARNING - 77 MINS

(p. 57)

(p. 39)

2:00 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE

E

(p. 49)

(p. 35)

BERLUSCONI: THE MONDADORI AFFAIR - 52 MINS

L

5:30 PM | SFU-GCA

- 126 MINS

8:00 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE

A BRIGHT LIGHT: KAREN AND THE PROCESS - 94 MINS

U

(ILS ÉTAIENT LES BRIGADES ROUGES)

BECAUSE WE ARE GIRLS - 85 MINS

(p. 29)

D

(p. 47)

(p. 37)

I HAD A DREAM (AVEVO UN SOGNO)

E

WITH

THE YEARS (GLI ANNI) - 20 MINS

(p. 49)

CORLEONE - 145 MINS

(p. 61)

8:30 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE HOW TO BEE - 82 MINS (p. 63)

MONDAY MAY 6 12:00 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE CALL ME INTERN - 70 MINS (p. 63)

7:00 PM I VANCOUVER PUBLIC LIBRARY HOME MADE VISIBLE TOUR - 90 MINS (p. 85)

12:00 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE

SEAHORSE: THE DAD WHO GAVE BIRTH - 90 MINS

(p. 59)

(p. 33)

9:00 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE

2:30 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE FLOW - 82 MINS

EXPOSITIONS: SHORTS PROGRAM

- 77 MINS (p. 71)

BASILEUS: THE SCHOOL OF KINGS (BASILEUS, LA SCUOLA DEI RE)

WEDNESDAY MAY 8

- 78 MINS

(p. 65)

12:00 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE

6:00 PM | SFU-GCA

6:00 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE

(p. 71)

(p. 65)

2:30 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE POMELO - 75 MINS

IN THE CLAWS OF A CENTURY WANTING - 120 MINS

STANDING ON THE LINE - 80 MINS

(p. 53)

7:00 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE

ILLUSIONS OF CONTROL - 87 MINS

(p. 67)

9:00 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE CITY OF THE DEAD - 56 MINS (p. 47)

6:00 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE LOS REYES - 78 MINS (p. 73)

9:30 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE MY HOME, IN LIBYA - 66 MINS (p. 67)

(p. 75)

EVERYTHING MUST FALL - 85 MINS

(p. 76)

6:00 PM - THE CINEMATHEQUE

DIASPORA: SHORTS PROGRAM

- 63 MINS (p. 76)

4:15 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE DIVE: RITUALS IN WATER - 73 MINS (p. 73)

6:00 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE TOXIC BEAUTY - 90 MINS

6:30 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE

SCENES FROM TURTLE ISLAND: SHORTS PROGRAM - 60 MINS

(p. 77)

7:00 PM | THE MUSEUM OF VANCOUVER TOAD PEOPLE - 76 MINS (p. 77)

(p. 69)

8:00 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE

TUESDAY MAY 7

6:00 PM | SFU-GCA

- 74 MINS

12:00 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE TOXIC BEAUTY - 90 MINS

(p.33)

8:30 PM - VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE

8:00 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE

- 99 MINS

(p. 69)

2:30 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE HOW TO BEE - 82 MINS (p. 63)

(p. 55)

6:30 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE (p. 29)

NÎPAWISTAMÂSOWIN: WE WILL STAND UP - 98 MINS

INSTRUCTIONS ON PARTING - 95 MINS

BECAUSE WE ARE GIRLS - 85 MINS

6:30 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE GENERATION ‘91 - 85 MINS (p. 69)

#DOX A 2019

DESIRE: SHORTS PROGRAM

(p. 78)

GREETINGS FROM FREE FORESTS

(p. 78)

(p. 74)

8:30 PM - SFU-GCA 8:15 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE

4:45 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE WINTER’S YEARNING - 77 MINS

44

(p. 39)

4:30 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE

4:30 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE

’NDRANGHETA: A MAFIA OF BUSINESS AND BLOOD (‘NDRANGHETA, UNE MAFIA D’AFFAIRES ET DE SANG) - 90 MINS

NÎPAWISTAMÂSOWIN: WE WILL STAND UP - 98 MINS

8:30 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE XALKO - 100 MINS (p. 70)

2:15 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE

THURSDAY MAY 9

FRONT LINES: SHORTS PROGRAM - 65 MINS

(p. 74)

8:45 PM | SFU-GCA

AMERICAN FACTORY - 115 MINS

(p. 75)

PROPAGANDA: THE ART OF SELLING LIES - 92 MINS

(p. 79)

FRIDAY MAY 10

SATURDAY MAY 11

SUNDAY MAY 12

12:00 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE

12:00 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE AMÉRICA - 76 MINS

12:00 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE

PROPAGANDA: THE ART OF SELLING LIES - 92 MINS

(p. 73)

12:00 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE CITY DREAMERS - 80 MINS

12:00 PM | SFU-GCA

(p. 79)

2:30 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE MY HOME, IN LIBYA - 66 MINS

(p. 61)

6:00 PM | SFU-GCA PUSH - 92 MINS (p. 41)

(p. 82)

1:45 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE MOM CALLING - 58 MINS WITH CRANNOG - 14 MINS

1:45 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE THE HOTTEST AUGUST - 92 MINS

(p. 82)

2:15 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE

A BRIGHT LIGHT: KAREN AND THE PROCESS - 94 MINS

(p. 39)

6:00 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE

SHOOTING INDIANS: A JOURNEY WITH JEFFREY THOMAS - 56 MINS

(p. 79)

7:00 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE

4:00 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE ONE CHILD NATION - 85 MINS (p. 82)

MILES DAVIS: BIRTH OF THE COOL

4:15 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE JADDOLAND - 90 MINS

(p. 80)

(p. 83)

8:00 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE LOS REYES - 78 MINS

6:30 PM | THE CINEMATHEQUE AMERICAN FACTORY - 115 MINS

8:00 PM | SFU-GCA

6:30 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE MIDNIGHT TRAVELER - 87 MINS

- 115 MINS

(p. 73)

THE RESOLUTE (IL RISOLUTO) - 159 MINS

(p. 80)

9:15 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE

WHO LET THE DOGS OUT? - 70 MINS

(p. 81)

ONE CHILD NATION - 85 MINS

(p. 57)

(p. 67)

4:00 PM | VIFF’S VANCITY THEATRE CORLEONE - 145 MINS

DIVE: RITUALS IN WATER - 73 MINS

(p. 81)

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NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

A Place Called Chiapas

City of the Dead

On January 1, 1994, the day NAFTA went into effect, the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) took over five towns and more than 500 ranches in the southern state of Chiapas, Mexico. Under the leadership of the mysterious and charismatic Subcomandante Marcos, the Indigenous guerilla forces seized the land in protest of centuries of oppression by landowners and the Mexican government. Director Nettie Wild and her Canadian/Mexican crew captured eight months in the life of the revolution in A Place Called Chiapas. Wild’s revealing depiction of what The New York Times called “the world’s first postmodern revolution” reflects on the tensions of the uprising and was released to international acclaim.

A fierce look at the banality of death. In Palma de Mallorca, there lies a dense multi-level cemetery city, an overwhelming palace of winding catacombs, crypts, and gravestones, piled as high as the eye can see. Inside the gates, mourners intertwine with gardeners, coroners, casket hawkers, and even some itinerant beer drinkers who take refuge in the endless haunted hallways. Intimate snippets of life show us the daily grind of the modern funeral industry, satisfying every morbid curiosity. Existential water cooler talk and gallows humour is standard for cemetery workers as they prepare bodies and remove old caskets from tombs, while playfully discussing the afterlife, armageddon, and the benefits of cremation Director Miguel Eek asks us to abandon sentimentality in order to ponder the more functional aspects of death.

Nettie Wild, Canada, 1998, 93 mins

On the 25th Anniversary of the rebellion, 370 kilograms of the original 16mm reels were returned to Mexico, where the film was screened in Spanish for the first time thanks to a collaboration between the filmmakers, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México’s film archives (Filmoteca UNAM), and the Canadian Embassy in Mexico. DOXA is proud to present A Place Called Chiapas followed by a post-screening conversation with director Nettie Wild, producer Betsy Carson, copyright lawyer Martha Rans, and the director of the Filmoteca UNAM, Hugo Villa Smythe, who will discuss the repatriation of the footage, the idea of copyright, and who owns the stories we tell. -MS

Miguel Eek, Spain, 2019, 56 mins

The cemetery itself is beautifully captured at a slow pace, allowing us to absorb the spectacular scenery of this dizzying maze where bereavement occurs but the dead live on. As you’d expect from a film about funerals, City of the Dead is brimming with flowers, memories, prayers, and grief. But what it demonstrates most elegantly is that it’s the person who sweeps up, trims hedges, or pulls a rib cage out of a fresh corpse that truly allows the circle of life to continue. Overall, the unsettling ease with which death is handled makes us question our importance in the universe. Not for the faint of heart. -MJ

THIS SCREENING IS PART OF JUSTICE FORUM AND WILL INCLUDE A POST-FILM DISCUSSION. READ MORE ON PAGE 18.

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SATURDAY MAY 4 SUNDAY MAY 5

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NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

ITALIA ITALIA

6:30 PM CINEMATHEQUE

ITALIA ITALIA

The Call

They Were the Red Brigades

Enrico Maisto, Italy, 2017, 57 mins

Mosco Levi Boucault, France, 2011, 126 mins

Randomly selected by a computer, 60 apprehensive common citizens take their places in the courtroom of the Milan Assize Court of Appeal, which tries Italy’s most notorious criminals. The lead judge explains they’ll be stuck there all day until each of them has been interviewed and six jurors are chosen. She reminds them they will have to use their common sense in deciding a difficult case, but when she claims that no one needs to be scared of the mafia they look rather concerned and confused. The camera records strikingly intimate close-ups, while the sotto voce speculations about the judicial process and fear of making these irreversible choices are all captured by planted microphones. Maisto’s film is an impeccable, cinematic fly-on-the-wall drama that opens up broad questions about civic duty, democratic institutions, and human nature. -TG

On March 16, 1978, in a Rome under siege, nine members of the Red Brigades blocked the convoy of one of Italy’s most prominent political leaders, Christian democrat Aldo Moro. After killing his bodyguards, they kidnapped Moro and locked him up in what they called a “people’s prison.” Their demand was clear: release 13 imprisoned revolutionary fighters in exchange for Moro’s safe return.

This shattering event summed up the whole period of Italy’s “years of lead,” an era marked by a wave of both left-wing and right-wing political terrorism beginning in the late 1960s. Moro’s assassination sounded the death knell for the Red Brigades, an underground group that set revolution as its goal and worked through armed confrontation with capitalism and the State, all in the name of creating a more just society.

(La Convocazione)

BEST MID-LENGTH DOCUMENTARY HOT DOCS 2018

(Ils étaient les Brigades Rouges)

AUDIENCE AWARD FESTIVAL DEI POPOLI 2018

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The Years (Gli anni)

Sara Fgaier, Italy/France, 2018, 20 mins

Gestures, faces, and scenes from Sardinian family footage are reassembled with fragments of French writer Annie Ernaux’s text Les Années.

Replete with archival footage of the group in action and punctuated by evening news reports of the drawn-out Moro affair, They Were the Red Brigades comes in two parts (1 Voting Doesn’t Pay, Let’s Take Arms and 2 Revolution Is Not A Dinner Party).

Expert documentarian Mosco Levi Boucault studies the logic of this high profile event from within the Red Brigades organization itself, through in-depth testimonies by four members of the command who organized Moro’s kidnapping and, after extended negotiations with the State, chose to bring about a tragic conclusion. -TG PRIX DU DOCUMENTAIRE HISTORIQUE BLOIS 2011 THIS FILM IS PART OF ITALIA ITALIA. MORE ON PAGE 24.

BEST SHORT FILM 2018 EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS THESE FILMS ARE PART OF ITALIA ITALIA. MORE ON PAGE 24.

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WORLD PREMIERE

Candice

Sheona McDonald, Canada, 2019, 80 mins

Candice Vadala aka Candida Royalle is known to many as the “godmother of feminist porn.” She began her career as an adult performer at the height of the sexual revolution, and in her thirties turned to directing and producing her own films, which flipped the male gaze on its head by focusing on women’s sexual pleasure.

She produced pioneering porn that was radically different from the mainstream and invited women to proudly explore and celebrate their sexuality.

In Candice, director Sheona McDonald goes beyond the headlines to craft a layered portrait of the woman behind the icon. The film captures Vadala in her sixties when, confronted with an ovarian cancer diagnosis, she is eager to tell her story in her words and to confront questions that have haunted her since childhood.

Through intimate conversations, in true cinema verité style, McDonald portrays Candice as a prolific filmmaker, entrepreneur, and advocate for women’s rights, but also as a woman coming to terms with a tumultuous personal life. Candice is ultimately a tribute to a resilient woman who unapologetically carved her own path. The dialogue she brought forward on sex positivity and women’s sexual autonomy echoes far beyond the adult film industry. -MS

Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind Joan Tosoni and Martha Kehoe, Canada, 2019, 90 mins

As an internationally-lauded craftsman of song, Canadian icon Gordon Lightfoot has had a profound influence over fans and fellow musicians alike for over forty years. His is an unlikely, peripatetic tale that begins with his upbringing in rural Ontario, then moves to his musical debut in the burgeoning early-1960s folk scenes in Toronto and New York, to his massive arena concerts, to his struggles with substance abuse in the 1970s, and finally to his present status as mythic elder statesman.

Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind features disarmingly honest musings from Lightfoot himself, as well as astonishing archival footage which captures him during his earliest days of performing. Canadian peers and international stars provide further commentary, including Sylvia and Ian Tyson, Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee, Steve Earle, and Randy Bachman. The film ultimately provides an illuminating and emotional glimpse into the personality and behind-the-scenes life of a Canadian legend. -DG

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POLITICS OF PLACE

Pomelo

The Hottest August

The historic neighbourhood of Pomelo in Hanoi, a vibrant maze of homes and businesses teeming with life, is being demolished to make way for a highway project. Numerous private contractors knock buildings down while surrounding structures are still occupied, and multiple parties quickly swoop in to reclaim valuable metal components for resale. This isn’t typical urban development — the destruction feels visceral, in-your-face, and chaotic.

It’s August in New York City and the otherwise warm and inviting cityscape is permeated by an undercurrent of unease. Beautifully composed images of New Yorkers at work, at home, at the beach, and on the subway give a glimpse of the ordinary lives of these urban dwellers living in an era far from ordinary. Climate change, unemployment, race and class tensions, and loss of community — Brett Story’s simple questions of the New Yorkers she encounters around the different boroughs reveal that these issues are on everyone’s lips, and the languid summer moments feel like the quiet before a great storm.

Phuong Thao Tran and Swann Dubus, Vietnam, 2018, 75 mins

Yet rubble has never looked more soulful, and filmmakers Phuong Thao Tran and Swann Dubus’s film captures the beauty that perseveres even as the neighborhood disappears. The film is atmospheric, observational, and immersive, but strong characters emerge — the students at the local hairdressing school, a group of women scavengers who risk their lives daily, and Huy and Quyen, two workers who navigate between an exploitative boss, criminal street gangs, and less-thanskilled labourers.

Tran has a personal connection to the location, as her parents owned a home in Pomelo. This relationship makes the film feel urgent, authentic, and ultimately tragic. Residents with strong roots and history are being displaced, and the migrant labourers doing the work are poorly compensated. Pomelo is a film both contemplative and raucous, and as historic neighbourhoods across Asia and the world are levelled for new developments, it provides a vital perspective on gentrification around the globe. -KR

Brett Story, Canada/US, 2019, 92 mins

New Yorkers remain hopeful that they will get a good job and a nice home, start a family, or go on a holiday, but in the same breath they utter their deep fears about the future in our increasingly precarious climate. Through casual conversations and quiet scenes, we get a sense both of deep anxiety and incredible resilience as everyone attempts to make sense of a rapidly changing world.

DOXA audiences may remember Brett Story’s artful and complex study of hidden geographies, The Prison in Twelve Landscapes (winner of the 2016 Colin Low Award for Best Canadian Documentary). -KO

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Winter’s Yearning

Buddy

When the small remote town of Maniitsoq, Greenland is chosen as the site for American aluminum company ALCOA’s new smelting plant, the locals wait with bated breath for construction to begin. At a national level, the potential 3.5 billion dollar investment from ALCOA is a step toward a more diversified economy and could pave the way for the country’s ultimate goal of financial independence from Denmark. Surprisingly, this is not a launching point for the familiar NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) narrative that you may have come to expect. In the opening scenes, it’s made very clear that the community of Maniitsoq is overwhelmingly onside and joyfully anticipates the plant’s arrival. Largely made up of Greenlandic Inuit, the effects of colonization linger as residents struggle against issues of unemployment, addiction, and a general sense of isolation that is driving most of its younger people to leave the country for Denmark.

In Buddy, veteran Dutch director Heddy Honigmann crafts a heartwarming exploration of the dog-human bond, celebrating the extraordinary skills of service dogs and how they support the physical and emotional health of their companions.

Sidse Torstholm Larsen and Sturla Pilskog, Norway/Greenland/Denmark, 2019, 77 mins

With the global financial crisis complicating matters, the film follows locals over the span of several years as the smelting plant’s fate remains unclear and the future of Maniitsoq and its residents hangs in the balance. Offering a unique and intimate glimpse into the lives of Greenlanders, this film is a testament to personal strength and a community’s resilience in the face of uncertainty. -CL

Heddy Honigmann, Netherlands, 2018, 86 mins

Set in the Netherlands, Honigmann explores six dog-human relationships. Makker assists an octogenarian woman blinded by an explosion in World War II and who — for over half a century — has benefited from the support and friendship provided by a long series of canines. Mister serves a veteran of the Afghan invasion who struggles with crippling post-traumatic stress disorder, soothing him after nightmares and literally watching his back. Utah’s snuggles are the one thing that can calm the boy with autism and epilepsy that he supports.

Buddy demonstrates the incredibly high degree of training, skill, and patience that service dogs possess. But they are animals as well as workers, and seeing these caring and intuitive creatures just being dogs is a joy in itself. -KR PRECEDED BY

Norman Norman

Sophy Romvari, Canada, 2018, 7 mins

As her 16-year-old Shih Tzu nestles next to her, a young woman spends a night surfing the internet and pondering the ethics of genetic replication, the possible pitfalls of animal immortality, and the eternal wonders of Barbra Streisand.

THIS SCREENING IS PART OF JUSTICE FORUM AND WILL INCLUDE A POST-FILM DISCUSSION. READ MORE ON PAGE 18.

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SUNDAY MAY 5 SATURDAY MAY 11

3:45 PM CINEMATHEQUE 9:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE

SUNDAY MAY 5 SATURDAY MAY 11

5:30 PM SFU 12:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE

Gods of Molenbeek

City Dreamers

The Molenbeek district of Brussels is oft-seen as contentious and brimming with unrest when spoken about in the media, but director Reetta Huhtanen deliberately captures the neighbourhood through a more innocent set of eyes. Meet Aatos and Amine, 6-year-old best friends living in the same building block who share an exuberant imagination.

City Dreamers offers a glimpse into the careers of four trailblazing urban architects of the 20th century: Phyllis Lambert, Blanche Lemco van Ginkel, Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, and Denise Scott Brown. Each of the four boasts an impressive and decades-long career in shaping urban spaces. Despite their lists of accomplishments, none have achieved the household name status of their male contemporaries like Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn, or Mies van der Rohe.

Reetta Huhtanen, Finland, 2019, 73 mins

Aatos is of Finnish-Chilean descent, while Amine comes from the notable Muslim migrant community of Brussels. A coming-of-age story at heart, Gods of Molenbeek is unique in its visual deftness and pointed dialogue as it explores the weighty questions of humanity from the curious minds of children.

From magic carpet rides along the sidewalk to wanders in nearby forests, the camera stays close to the two friends’ sides, always perched low to the ground. In doing so, the concerns of adult life seem distant, even if they never fully disappear. There are passing reminders of perils — a radio broadcast speaks of a terrorist attack, the harassment of a Muslim group is overheard in the marketplace, and a local militia goes as far as to check the backpacks of the kids themselves as part of a security protocol. Segments like these serve as an acknowledgment of external uncertainties in a film that is nonetheless grounded by the charm and assurance of its young protagonists. Gods of Molenbeek is thus at once a tender portrayal of friendship, as well as a warm-hearted search for meaning in an increasingly adult world. -AP

Joseph Hillel, Canada, 2018, 80 mins

Joseph Hillel’s film paints a portrait of each woman and highlights their landmark achievements of design, including Vancouver landmarks such as the Law Courts at Robson Square, the Museum of Anthropology, and VanDusen Botanical Garden, each designed by Oberlander. The film also uncovers the far-reaching influence that Lambert and van Ginkel had on Montreal’s urban planning and development, including their advocacy for preserving heritage buildings. Through interviews, archival footage, and drawings, City Dreamers celebrates the lives and careers of these pioneering women of city planning and architecture, and the uphill battles they faced in a male-dominated field. -VF

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SUNDAY MAY 5

CANADIAN PREMIERE

5:30 PM CINEMATHEQUE

SUNDAY MAY 5 MONDAY MAY 6

6:00 PM VANCITY 2:15 PM VANCITY

ITALIA ITALIA

CittàGiardino

Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth

How can the mind of a teenager who survived war, violence and poverty, and struggled for his own life through the desert and the sea, react when he finds himself stuck for months in a remote corner of a foreign island?

Freddy is 30 years old and yearns to start a family. For him, this ordinary desire comes with unique challenges. He is a gay transgender man, and the decision to carry his own baby required years of soul searching. The reality of pregnancy came as a shock, both as a physical experience and one that challenges society’s fundamental understanding of gender, parenthood, and family. What for Freddy feels pragmatic, to others seems deeply confusing and confronting. Against a backdrop of increasingly open hostility towards trans people the world over, Freddy is forced to confront his own naivety, mine unknown depths of courage, and lean on every friend and family member who will stand by him.

Marco Piccarreda and Gaia Formenti, Italy, 2018, 57 mins

A remote Sicilian reception centre for unaccompanied migrant minors is about to close, and six teenagers are left awaiting the decision that will seal their fate.

They sleep, eat pre-packaged meals, and peer into their cell phones — their only tool to stay in touch with their dreams, their loved ones, and their friends. Defeated by boredom, buoyed by small rituals and clumsy desires, they live suspended lives beautifully captured by the directors in still and exquisitely composed wide shots. -TG MOST INNOVATIVE MEDIUM LENGTH FILM VISIONS DU RÉEL 2018 PRECEDED BY

Mare Amarum

Philippe Fontana, France, 2018, 19 mins

In January 2018, Italian photographer Stefano De Luigi set sail aboard the Aquarius, an SOS Méditerranée migrant rescue ship. With great modesty, De Luigi’s black and white photos and film footage record the harrowing experiences of both the migrants and rescue workers at the centre of a humanitarian crisis. -TG

Jeanie Finlay, UK, 2019, 90 mins

DOXA audiences may remember director Jeanie Finlay’s previous works Orion: The Man Who Would Be King (DOXA 2015) and The Great Hip Hop Hoax (DOXA 2013). In Seahorse, Finlay’s camera expertly captures intimate moments between Freddy and his family throughout his journey. There are many points where the story seems like it may go sideways into darkness, yet despite the challenges, the film ultimately lands on a note of resilience and hope. -JB

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SUNDAY MAY 5

7:45 PM CINEMATHEQUE

SUNDAY MAY 5 FRIDAY MAY 10

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

8:00 PM SFU 4:00 PM VANCITY

ITALIA ITALIA

Dark Suns

Corleone

There is a crisis in Mexico. While headlines that sensationalize drug cartels and glorify bosses like El Chapo hint at the problem, Julien Elie’s epic Dark Suns reveals the terrifying extent of the violence and its consequences.

In two parts (1 Power and Blood, 2 The Fall), Corleone tells the real-life story of Teodoro Totò Riina, the man that inspired the character of Vito Corleone played

by Marlon Brando in Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece, The Godfather. Born in the Sicilian village of Corleone into a poor peasant family, Riina entered Cosa Nostra at age 26, and by age 52 he would become the godfather of the Sicilian mafia, after terrorizing the Italian state for 20 years. He ordered the murder of journalists, deputies, police officers, politicians, and judges including Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino (both key players in the landmark anti-mafia Maxi Trial begun in 1986). Thanks to an informant, Riina was captured, tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison. In 2017 he died in jail just one day after his 87th birthday.

Julien Elie, Canada, 2018, 154 mins

Beginning with the individual stories of the apparently arbitrary kidnappings and murders of countless women in the Mexican cities of Juárez and Ecatepec, the story expands across the country and details how the violence has spread to include the journalists and activists attempting to uncover the problem. The criminal justice system proves useless, either unable or unwilling to confront the cartels.

Stories of callous police disinterest and the willful neglect by politicians will sound all too familiar to Canadian audiences, echoing the epidemic of uninvestigated cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women in this country.

While the details are harrowing, the courage and persistence of the families and survivors of this violence are inspiring. Mothers refuse to give up the search for their missing daughters. One man ventures deep into the desert to exhume unmarked shallow graves in the hopes that one day the remains will belong to his brother.

Shot in stark black and white with a sound design that immerses the viewer in a vivid sense of place, Dark Suns is a thoroughly cinematic experience that honours the lives and deaths it explores, balancing intimate stories with the mammoth scale of this national crisis. -JC

Mosco Levi Boucault, France, 2019, 145 mins

Corleone delivers a Shakespearean storyline about the rise and fall of a notorious villain, those who supported him, and those who tried to bring him down. Several characters, including Maxi Trial prosecutor Giuseppe Ayala and Palermitan photojournalist Letizia Battaglia, provide the narrative foundation, while Riina’s lieutenant and three of his sicarios give chilling masked testimonies. Corleone shatters the myth of the mafiosi as men of honour and shows a rogue and ruthless criminal organization that left a trail of destruction in its wake. -TG THIS FILM IS PART OF ITALIA ITALIA. MORE ON PAGE 24.

GRAND PRIZE, BEST CANADIAN FEATURE RIDM (MONTREAL DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL) 2018

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RATED Y FOR YOUTH

How to Bee

Call Me Intern

Don Mark lived life in harmony with nature. Opting out of the heated political climate of 1960s America, he chose to be an adventurer who explored the Arctic, ran sled dogs, and lived off the land. Don eventually settled north of Whitehorse, where he became a caring father and keeper of innumerable honey bees. Through lively springs, bright Yukon summers, and frigid winters, he saw his hives and his children thrive year after year. Even a diagnosis of COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), a critical lung disorder, could not stop the peaceful life cycle.

Would you work full-time for months on end for free? Would you take a demanding job without even getting minimum wage? These are the questions filmmaker Leo David Hyde asked himself when he graduated from university and could only secure unpaid internships. To raise awareness of the pervasiveness of the issue, he accepted an internship with the United Nations in Geneva, where, unable to afford housing, he settled in a tent by the lakeshore.

Naomi Mark, Canada, 2019, 82 mins

Documentarian Naomi Mark returns home from Vancouver to learn the craft of beekeeping from her father, bringing along her keen filmmaking instincts. Intimate photography conveys the ups and downs of becoming a professional beekeeper, along with the preciousness of every moment spent between members of a one-of-a-kind family. Seasons change along with Don’s health, and the relationship between father, daughter, and bees grows all the more important. Through every sting, laugh, and cry, we are drawn into this profound relationship, and feel the bittersweet beauty that even the most technical beekeeping discussions carry with them. A heartfelt passing of the torch between two generations of explorers, How to Bee captures the essence of the love of family and the natural world. -CP

Nathalie Berger and Leo David Hyde, New Zealand, 2019, 70 mins

Beginning with Hyde’s experience, the film explores a job market where paid entry-level positions have become increasingly rare, putting young professionals in the precarious position of accepting unpaid work in exchange for the holy grail of “experience.” The stories of interns working across Europe and the United States also sheds light on how the system disproportionately affects young people from less privileged economic backgrounds, sustaining a legacy of intergenerational inequality.

Call Me Intern not only calls attention to the injustice of unpaid labour, but also to a new generation of activists organizing, demonstrating, and even suing some of their former employers. A small drop of hope in an ocean of unrestrained capitalism. -ML THIS SCREENING IS PART OF RATED Y FOR YOUTH AND WILL INCLUDE A POST-FILM DISCUSSION. READ MORE ON PAGE 19.

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Ex Oriente Film 2019

East Silver Market 2019

East Doc Platform 2020

KineDok

international training programme for creative documentary films in development 3 workshops, 3 cities, 12 projects

unique film market dedicated solely to the completed documentary films from Central and Eastern Europe

The largest co-production, funding and distribution platform for Central and East European documentaries

international innovative distribution of creative documentaries

Submission deadline: April 19, 2019

– –

Silver Eye Awards East Silver Caravan

October 24—29, 2019, Jihlava (CZ) Submission deadlines: Finished films: May 31, 2019 Rough cuts: July 31, 2019

March 2020, Prague (CZ) – – – –

East Doc Market East Doc Forum East Doc Shorts East Doc Interactive

BG / CZ / HR / HU / NO / RO / SK kinedok.net

Submission deadline: November 8, 2019

The David Lam Centre at SFU has been supporting events and outreach on the Asia Pacific diaspora since 1989. To join our mailing list and find out more please visit us online. www.sfu.ca/davidlamcentre/for-community.html

MONDAY MAY 6

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

4:30 PM VANCITY

ITALIA ITALIA

‘Ndrangheta: A Mafia of Business and Blood (‘Ndrangheta, une mafia d’affaires et de sang) Corradino Durruti, France, 2008, 90 mins

On July 13, 2000, the little town of Rizziconi, in the hinterland of the prosperous harbour of Gioia Tauro in Calabria, makes the headlines: the President of the Republic has issued an executive order dissolving the town council following allegations of mafia infiltration and manipulated building permits. Meanwhile, members of the Crea family — rumored to belong to the Calabrian mafia nicknamed ‘Ndrangheta — are accused in anonymous letters of terrorizing and shaking down the population.

‘Ndrangheta: A Mafia of Business and Blood documents a seven-year-long police investigation into the Crea family. Government-appointed prosecutor Roberto Pennisi and superintendent Nico Morrone initiate a wide-scale investigation, conducting house searches, bank account and land title registry checks, phone taps, and interrogations. The chief of police is replaced, but Morrone keeps patiently collecting evidence and testimonies, a hidden camera discreetly by his side.

A unique and thrilling investigation with multiple twists and turns, Corradino Durruti’s film serves as a chilling study of the morals and mores of both the Italian police and of the notorious ‘Ndrangheta, a powerful criminal network with tentacles reaching deep into the corporate and political worlds. -TG THIS FILM IS PART OF ITALIA ITALIA. MORE ON PAGE 24.

MONDAY MAY 6

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

6:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE

POLITICS OF PLACE

In the Claws of a Century Wanting Jewel Maranan, Philippines, 2017, 120 mins

In the backstreets of Manila’s busiest port, thousands of people — many of them migrants from the Philippine countryside — live under precarious conditions. For the residents of the impoverished district of Tondo, an industrial cacophony permeates daily life as children look for scrap metal and coal, women prepare meals for their families, and men watch television before their night shifts at the docks.

From their makeshift homes (with no gas or electricity) they see and hear a flow of international cargo ships, stacked containers, moving cranes, and goods that come and go. It’s the sight and sound of global capitalism and the promise of a better future. The port is thriving, but its planned expansion will displace thousands as the surrounding area is demarcated for development.

Filmmaker Jewel Maranan observes the contradictions in this changing landscape and their effect on the lives of various characters who share the same fate. Her camera follows the plight of four families as the government forces their resettlement, casting a critical look at the everyday violence that precedes the construction of a globalized city. Among the struggle, her contemplative cinematography finds resilience and poetry in the quotidian. The camera catches a glimpse of a crane against the sky through a corrugated sheet of iron, then lingers on the sight of a busy road overpowered by the deafening sounds of rain. A layered study of unbridled capitalism, In the Claws of a Century Wanting reveals the imprints of systemic forces on ordinary moments. -MS SCREENING PARTNER

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THE CCE RECOGNIZES THE FINE WORK OF OUR FELLOW EDITORS AT DOXA 2019 Exciting events all month long!

Enjoy delicious food, the Italian Market, workshops, live music, theatre, games and kids’ activities. Everything Italian!

June 2019

www.italianculturalcentre.ca

The 2019 CCE Awards, honouring the best in Canadian editing, takes place on May 30th, in Toronto. Get your tickets today!

For more info about other post-production related networking events, workshops, and how to join - visit cceditors.ca @cceditors

@canadiancinemaeditors

@cce_editors

MONDAY MAY 6 SUNDAY MAY 12

7:00 PM VANCITY 3:45 PM CINEMATHEQUE

MONDAY MAY 6 FRIDAY MAY 10

CANADIAN PREMIERE

9:30 PM VANCITY 2:30 PM VANCITY

ITALIA ITALIA

Illusions of Control

My Home, in Libya

Resilience in the face of disaster is at the heart of Shannon Walsh’s expansive study. Shot across five different countries, Walsh introduces us to five courageous women, each encountering their own form of crisis: Silvia searches for her missing daughter in the deserts of northern Mexico; Yang attempts to curb desertification in China; Kaori mobilizes mothers as citizen-scientists in Fukushima, Japan; Stacey builds on Indigenous knowledge to confront toxic legacies in Yellowknife; and Lauren, a renowned philosopher, confronts her terminal cancer diagnosis.

Martina is a visual artist living in Italy. Mahmoud is a nuclear engineering student living in Libya. An unlikely friendship develops between the two when Martina becomes interested in documenting her grandparents’ history in Tripoli, where they lived before fleeing the country as a result of Muammar Gaddafi’s 1970 coup d’état. Unable to obtain a visa to visit Libya, Martina connects with Mahmoud online and asks him to visit her grandparents’ old neighbourhood and to send her photos and video, demonstrating the evolution of the community.

Arresting landscape cinematography is seamlessly interwoven with interviews to evoke a collective sense of empathy, revealing surprising new ways to live on and reimagine a life beyond the ruins. A particularly resonant shot of a lone tree thriving in the desert captures the film’s spirit of endurance, leaving behind an uplifting and hopeful outlook for the uncertain future ahead. Ultimately, Illusions of Control unfolds as a remarkable collection of micro-narratives meditating on the human will to persevere. -AP

Over the course of the film, director Martina Melilli juxtaposes her family’s memories of living in Tripoli when it was an Italian colony with the current reality Mahmoud faces living under militia rule. Feelings of nostalgia and longing are conveyed through overlapping images, sound, and text, pushing the viewer to piece them together for a complete narrative. A demiurgic meditation on the changed landscape of Tripoli, My Home, in Libya weaves a fabric of intertwined histories and people connected through photographs, the internet, and memory. -MF

Shannon Walsh, Canada, 2019, 87 mins

Martina Melilli, Italy, 2018, 66 mins

THIS FILM IS PART OF ITALIA ITALIA. MORE ON PAGE 24.

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Media that Matters: The Nature of Media JUN 19–23 Going Under the Words: Creating Fiction & Memoir JUN 23–28

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Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Creative Spirit Within JUL 3–7

Reel Youth Intergenerational Film Project AUG 9–14

From Point-and-Shoot to Brilliant Photography AUG 4–9

Podcasting: The Story from Hear AUG 28–SEP 1

TUESDAY MAY 7 WEDNESDAY MAY 8

12:00 PM VANCITY 6:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE

RATED Y FOR YOUTH

TUESDAY MAY 7

6:30 PM CINEMATHEQUE

WORLD PREMIERE

Toxic Beauty

Generation ‘91

For many people, it’s part of a daily routine. Each morning, we slather, splash, and douse ourselves with numerous personal care products. But how often do we stop and question the safety of those very products we use? The big companies behind our lotions and potions insist there’s nothing to be concerned about, yet a landmark case against Johnson and Johnson — makers of the eponymous baby powder — alleges the company knew about carcinogens in its product for years and took no action.

Twenty-four subjects with different backgrounds, ideologies, interests, and perspectives. Their careers vary from a priest to an ex-soldier, an LGBTQ activist, an underground heavy metal musician, and even a Trump supporter. What unites them all is their birth year: 1991, the onset of Ukraine’s separation from Russia.

This potent study of a group of millennials provides a unique view of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. Filmmaker Christina Tynkevych asks the hard questions: How important is nationalism? Would you die for your country? Faced with a civil war that has divided families and caused immense violence and bloodshed, their answers feel both urgent and cathartic.

Phyllis Ellis, Canada, 2019, 90 mins

Toxic Beauty is a biting exposé of the multi-billion dollar beauty industry and the toxic ingredients they push. Woven throughout the film is a “human experiment”

by Boston University medical student Mymy Nguyen, who measures her body’s chemical burden from over 27 different products. With exclusive access to scientists, lawyers, whistle-blowers, regulators, politicians, and advocates, Toxic Beauty interrogates whether the cosmetic industry constitutes a public health risk and introduces us to the people advocating for safer alternatives. -TA THE TUESDAY MAY 7 SCREENING IS PART OF RATED Y FOR YOUTH AND WILL INCLUDE A POST-FILM DISCUSSION. READ MORE ON PAGE 19.

AUDIENCE PARTNER

Christina Tynkevych, Ukraine, 2019, 85 mins

The film provides an intriguing snapshot of Ukrainian life as it weaves seamlessly from character to character. With a backdrop that feels frozen in time, aesthetically it could still be 1991. Intimate vignettes depict daily routines, jobs, and hobbies, relaying a sense of continuity and hustle. Despite their determination, the ‘91 cohort shares a thread of nihilism; the pressure of their country’s identity crisis has created a resounding apathy. Frustrated by a gruesome political war that threatens their lives, hopes, and dreams, the perspective they deliver is poignant. On the brink of turning 30, and buckling under the pressure of a system that has never been about them, this film will resonate with members of Generation ‘91 far and wide. -MJ

HEU

HOSPITAL EMPLOYEES’ UNION

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TUESDAY MAY 7

8:30PM CINEMATHEQUE

WE BUILD BRIDGES BETWEEN CANADA AND FRANCE IN THE ARTS, SCIENCES AND EDUCATION Want to know more?

Francecanadaculture.org FranceCanadaCulture @franceaucanada

POLITICS OF PLACE

Xalko

Sami Mermer and Hind Benchekroun, Canada, 2018, 100 mins

Xalko is a Kurdish village in Turkey, a small, isolated collection of modest houses, ramshackle livestock pens, and scrubby landscape. It is the birthplace of filmmaker Sami Mermer, and the home of his female relatives. “In our family there isn’t a man left,” says one woman. “All those men, all those handsome men! There’s no one left. I haven’t seen one man from our family in two years.” Though men return home to father children, there are virtually none to be seen in Xalko, as every last one has either legally or illegally relocated to Europe in pursuit of a new life. Mermer is one of the departed, albeit to Canada as a child, and he returns now to document the daily routines of his female relatives in the city of his birth.

The women make bread together, milk the sheep, knead cheese, and commiserate about their absent husbands and the lack of support they receive — all while sharing a sense of humour.

The film does not glamourize or beautify its setting. Though the women’s lives are emotionally challenging and physically demanding—with some living near poverty — it is the women themselves that give the film its unique beauty. Xalko is also remarkable for the intense intimacy offered by Mermer’s access to his subjects — members of his own family who trust him and feel at ease discussing even their most private moments. - KR

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#DOX A 2019

TUESDAY MAY 7

9:00 PM VANCITY

CAMFRANGLAIS

Expositions: Shorts Program Sira

Rolla Tahir, Canada, 2018, 6 mins

The exodus of a family displaced from Kuwait as a result of the Gulf War.

Nostalgia of my pier

Ben Donoghue and Julieta María, Canada, 2018, 12 mins

An investigation of contemporary culture in the Caribbean coast of Colombia influenced by the wave of Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian migration.

It’s Going to Be Beautiful

Luis Gutiérrez Arias and John Henry Theisen, Mexico/US, 2018, 9 mins

Eight prototypes for a border wall stand on the US-Mexico border.

Time Is Out of Joint

Victor Arroyo, Canada/Mexico, 2018, 25 mins

More than 40,000 acres of Indigenous forest in Michoacán, Mexico, have been appropriated by narco industries and state-sponsored violence.

Camfranglais

WEDNESDAY MAY 8

12:00 PM VANCITY

RATED Y FOR YOUTH

Standing on the Line

Paul Émile D’Entremont, Canada, 2019, 80 mins

Since the dawn of professional sports, being gay has remained taboo. Even today, few dare to come out of the closet for fear of being stigmatized and, for many, the pressure to perform is compounded by a further strain: whether or not to affirm their sexual identity.

Standing on the Line features candid interviews with a group of Canadian gay and queer athletes, including Olympic speed skater Anastasia Bucsis, who first came out to her family and friends at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. A few years later, while heading to Sochi 2014 in Russia (remember how they banned gay “propaganda”), Anastasia came out publicly, making her the only openly gay North American Olympian at the time.

Breaking the code of silence that prevails on the field, on the ice, and in the locker room, Standing on the Line provides a thoughtful and empathetic portrait of gay athletes in Canada and the battles they’ve waged. They’ve set out to overcome prejudice in the hopes of changing things for this country’s next generation of athletes. - SC THIS FILM IS PART OF RATED Y FOR YOUTH AND WILL INCLUDE A POST-FILM DISCUSSION. READ MORE ON PAGE 19.

Mylène Augustin and Feven Ghebremariam, Canada, 2018, 15 mins

Set in 2117 Tiohtià: ke (Montreal), Camfranglais draws parallels between Cameroonians and First Nations of Canada’s struggles for linguistic sovereignty.

The Violence of a Civilization Without Secrets Adam Khalil, Zack Khalil, Jackson Polys, US, 2017, 10 mins

An urgent study on the historical violence of museum archives.

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Fill out DOXA’s 2019 Audience Survey and you could win goodies from our pals at Modo and JJ Bean

Find the survey at every screening venue and online at doxafestival.ca/survey

WEDNESDAY MAY 8 SUNDAY MAY 12

CANADIAN PREMIERE

4:15 PM VANCITY 12:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE

CARE

WEDNESDAY MAY 8 FRIDAY MAY 10

CANADIAN PREMIERE

6:00 PM VANCITY 8:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE

POLITICS OF PLACE

DIVE: Rituals in Water

Los Reyes

For the past 25 years, Snorri Magnusson has operated an infant swim class pushing the boundaries of what we believe tiny humans are capable of. His sundrenched circular pool in the snowy Icelandic mountains serves as a sanctuary for new life, and in the crystalline water he challenges conventions, dunking babies like they are seals and precariously balancing them in his palm. Snorri believes no child is too young to swim, his cheerful magnetism helping to coax infants off a diving board with ease, much to their parents’ disbelief.

Daily life at the Los Reyes skate park in Santiago, Chile, is unremarkable, but as Bettina Perut and Iván Osnovikoff’s wonderfully original film unfolds, we become aware that human affairs — of street cleaners, small-time drug dealers, and skateboarders — are incidental to the real story here. The stars of this film are its two canine subjects — Football and Chola. While human life passes them by, occasionally inconveniencing them or offering them a treat, Los Reyes offers us the world of these two old dogs. Football seeks out a new improvised chew toy, as Chola makes friends with the local skaters and invents a new game for herself. As the film goes on, the human realm recedes and the viewer finds themself thoroughly immersed in this dog’s eye view of life.

Anna Rún Tryggvadóttir, Elín Hansdóttir, Hanna Björk Valsdóttir, Iceland, 2019, 73 mins

A long-ago drowning incident in Snorri’s town turned the locals into avid swimmers. Determined to deter such a tragedy from happening again, the town invested in a public swimming pool in the hope that its residents would learn how to swim. More than just a swim class, Snorri offers a sense of connection and community for new families navigating the beginnings of parenthood. This meditative contemplation of the first stages of human life produces a profound analysis of pregnancy, birth, and physical touch, and examines our most basic human needs.

The soothing vibrational soundscape and lush underwater cinematography bring us back to the womb. Full of tenderness, nurturing, and lots of cute babies, DIVE: Rituals in Water is a must see. -MJ

Bettina Perut and Iván Osnovikoff, Chile/Germany, 2018, 78 mins

You don’t have to be a “dog-person” to be moved by the simple eloquence of Chola and Football’s daily concerns. When documentary is at its best, it shows us the world from the point of view of someone different from ourselves — In Los Reyes, Perut and Osnovikoff go one step further by giving us the point of view of another species. And in an age of environmental crisis there may be something profoundly important in taking the nonhuman world more seriously. In doing so, Los Reyes may well be the first triumph of post-humanist filmmaking. -JC

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WEDNESDAY MAY 8

8:00 PM VANCITY

WEDNESDAY MAY 8

8:15 PM CINEMATHEQUE HAVEN

CANADIAN PREMIERE

CARE

Instructions on Parting Amy Jenkins, US, 2018, 95 mins

Prepare to be devastated. Amy Jenkins’ emotional elegy to her own family will break your heart. Instructions on Parting is an intimate portrait of the filmmaker’s own life and of those dearest to her as they deal with marriage, childbirth, and three cancer diagnoses in her immediate family. The autobiographical intimacy and reflexiveness of the film might remind viewers of Ross McElwee’s work (his film Bright Leaves screened at DOXA in 2012), but without the ironic distance.

Instead, Jenkins embraces the powerful emotions at the heart of this film and returns a beautiful reflection on the nature of life, death, and grief.

Narrated using answering machine messages and hand-written title cards, the film has a home-made quality that endears as it draws the viewer in. But even as it incorporates this home video aesthetic, the film looks stunning. Between the emotionally raw footage of a family dealing with loss, Jenkins uses time-lapse video of the natural and human world around her to give pause, allowing the viewer to reflect on their own lives and meditate on universal questions about time, memory, and human frailty.

While undoubtedly an emotionally challenging film, Instructions on Parting rewards at its end with a message that is as much about transformation and acceptance as it is about loss. -JC

Front Lines: Shorts Program Haven

Colin Askey, Canada, 2019, 18 mins

Inside Vancouver’s Crosstown Clinic, participants in a radical opioid-assisted therapy program, the first of its kind in North America, are provided with medical-grade heroin and a safe place to inject.

The Clinic

Elivia Shaw, US, 2018, 16 mins

Amidst a devastating opioid epidemic, a needle exchange and free clinic operates in the shadows of Fresno, California.

Talking at Night

Eric Thiessen, Canada, 2017, 6 mins

For almost 40 years, a vital yet underappreciated mobile crisis centre in Saskatoon has been providing 24/7 support to people in distress.

Enforcement Hours

Paloma Martinez, US, 2018, 13 mins

The San Francisco Rapid Response Network maintains a 24/7 hotline where undocumented residents can call to report a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid in their neighbourhood.

Libre

Anna Barsan, US, 2018, 12 mins

From the visual journalism unit Field of Vision, this film exposes a private company that offers to reunite detained immigrants with their families in exchange of exorbitant monthly fees and invasive monitoring.

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WEDNESDAY MAY 8 SATURDAY MAY 11

8:45 PM SFU 6:30 PM CINEMATHEQUE

THURSDAY MAY 9

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

American Factory

Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, US, 2019, 115 mins

When a General Motors plant in Dayton, Ohio, closed down during the 2008 recession 2000 people were laid off. A few years later, Dayton residents are relieved to hear that Fuyao, a Chinese automotive glass company, is taking over the factory plant and bringing back jobs. With the takeover, Fuyao’s chairman, Cao Dewang, also brings with him hundreds of workers from China to supervise the Americans. The result is a post-Fordist drama that provides a gripping and often humorous insider-look at cultural differences between workers, with a sharp-eyed examination of shifting power in the global economy. Fair pay, workers’ rights, and the value of work-life balance take centre stage. When billionaire Cao insists on paying lower wages, he tells the Chinese workers, “It’s not how much money you make, it’s changing how Americans view the Chinese.” -SC “What starts as a workplace comedy where Americans are mocked for their lazy tendencies and ‘fat fingers’ quickly becomes a film about power, manipulation, dangerous working conditions, fair pay, and the reconciliation, or lack thereof, of Chinese and American culture.” - VOX MAGAZINE

4:30 PM VANCITY

ITALIA ITALIA

Basileus: The School of Kings (Basileus, la scuola dei re)

Alessandro Marinelli, Italy, 2018, 78 mins

“If you lose the toughest kids, the school is no longer a school. It is a hospital that cares for the healthy and rejects the sick.” -DON LORENZO MILANI For one year, director Alessandro Marinelli and his team followed the students of a school in a disenfranchised suburb of Rome. In this microcosm, the strong and peculiar relationship between the teachers and the students emerges. The teachers are passionately engaged in their students’ education, inventing and trialing new methods and activities. Deeply connected with neighbourhood life, the teachers strive to support kids facing staggering challenges before beginning their adult lives. In a fragmented mosaic of raw reality, uncertainty, and rebellion, they express their feelings with instinctive body language and words often grammatically incorrect, yet deeply vital.

Without interfering, Marinelli’s camera captures the real and immediate emotions of the students, and paints a moving portrait of a low-income community told through a chorus of young people’s voices and experiences. -TG THIS FILM IS PART OF ITALIA ITALIA. MORE ON PAGE 24.

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THURSDAY MAY 9

6:00 PM SFU

THURSDAY MAY 9

6:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE SURVIVING SABU

CANADIAN PREMIERE

1990s SOUTH ASIAN

JUSTICE FORUM

Everything Must Fall Rehad Desai, South Africa, 2018, 85 mins

Everything Must Fall presents an unflinching look at the #FeesMustFall student movement that stormed onto the South African political landscape in 2015 as a protest over the cost of education.

The story is told by four student leaders at Wits University, a public institution in Johannesburg, as well as their Vice Chancellor, Adam Habib, a former antiapartheid student activist. When Habib’s efforts to contain the protest fail, he abandons his progressive principles and brings 1000 police to campus. Predictably, there are dire consequences for the young leaders.

The drama unfolds chronologically, revealing the activists’ internal struggles with the weight of leadership, along with inspiring moments of solidarity. When the university management starts outsourcing janitorial services to a private company (who then cut salaries in half), workers join forces with the student movement.

Everything Must Fall shows the challenges, as well as the rewards, of building a decolonized movement aimed at fighting economic inequality. Intersectional in its approach, the film inspires with its story of how students, workers, and citizens worked together to fight back against institutional racism, patriarchy, and homophobia in South Africa. The lessons learned from the #FeesMustFall act as a strong call to action for student and social movements the world over. -SC THIS SCREENING IS PART OF JUSTICE FORUM AND WILL INCLUDE A POST-FILM DISCUSSION. READ MORE ON PAGE 18.

AUDIENCE PARTNER

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#DOX A 2019

LABOUR STUDIES PROGRAM

Diaspora: Shorts Program Surviving Sabu

Ian Rashid, Canada, 1998, 16 mins

Sabu, the iconic Indian film star of 1930s and 1940s British cinema (including films The Jungle Book and The Thief of Baghdad), is the flashpoint in the troubled relationship between a father and son in a Muslim family. Amin, the son, is making a film about Sabu, whose acting roles dried up once he reached adulthood.

While Amin and his father Sandru once bonded over Sabu’s movies, they have now become the battleground for settling other, more personal arguments about sexuality and family obligations.

The Dreams of the Night Cleaners Leila Sujir, Canada, 1995, 47 mins

Drama, archival footage, and animation are woven together in a fable format that explores the mythologies influencing our cultures at both societal and individual levels. Using intricate storytelling as well as humour, magic, and history, the misconceptions haunting the subjects’ lives are swept away. -KO THIS FILM IS PART OF LONGING AND BELONGING: 1990S SOUTH ASIAN FILM AND VIDEO. MORE ON PAGE 21.

PRESENTED BY

THURSDAY MAY 9

6:30 PM VANCITY

THURSDAY MAY 9

7:00 PM MOV

ENHIOR’HÉN:NE [TOMORROW]

Scenes from Turtle Island: Shorts Program Fast Horse

Toad People

Isabelle Groc and Mike McKinlay, Canada, 2017, 76 mins

The story of three fierce Indigenous women who start a grassroots battle to regain their treaty status and rights.

Every summer, thousands of fingernail-sized Western toads cover a rural road in the community of Ryder Lake in Chilliwack, British Columbia. When the toadlets migrate from their breeding ground in the wetlands into the forest, many never make it to the other side of the road. Western toads, like other amphibians in BC, are struggling because of habitat loss, climate change, and human interference.

For local residents like Steve Clegg, who grew up catching tadpoles in nearby ponds, the rapid population decline is a cause for concern. Directors Isabelle Groc and Mike McKinlay introduce us to the stories of people like Clegg who make up the community-led movement to save this endangered species. Through stunning cinematography that takes us from the wetlands to the forest, and to various communities across BC, Toad People serves as a powerful call to action and a hopeful reminder that people of all ages can come together to make a difference. -MS

Ka Ussi-Tshishkutamashuht

Toad People is presented with the Museum of Vancouver in conjunction with the exhibit Wild Things: The Power of Nature in Our Lives.

Alexandra Lazarowich, Canada, 2018, 14 mins

A captivating look at the dangerous and high-stakes game of Indian Relay.

Mommy Goes Race

Charlene McConini, Canada, 2018, 6 mins

A portrait of the only female car racer in Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg Nation.

Indian Rights for Indian Women Alexandra Lazarowich, Canada, 2018, 6 mins

Béatrice Mark, Rachel Mark, Gisèle Mark, Canada, 2018, 5 mins

A group of women from the Innu nation of Unamen Shipu attempt to train new choir singers in this heartwarming and humorous short.

SCREENING PARTNER

OshKiKiShiKaw: A New Day Jules Koostachin, Canada, 2019, 25 mins

Twins Tapwewin and Pawaken take part in a sacred Cree coming-of-age ceremony.

Enhior’hén:ne [Tomorrow]

Roxann Whitebean, Mohawk Territory, 2018, 5 mins

A group of Mohawk children’s predictions about the state of Mother Earth 200 years into the future.

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THURSDAY MAY 9

8:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE

THURSDAY MAY 9

8:30 PM VANCITY

COCONUT/CANE & CUTLASS

1990s SOUTH ASIAN

Desire: Shorts Program The Wild Woman in the Woods Shani Mootoo, Canada, 1993, 14 mins

A South Asian woman adopts butch signifiers from white lesbian culture as an antidote to her invisibility but, as a femme at heart, she doesn’t really know how to do the things butches are apparently supposed to do. Her search for courage takes her into the mountains where she encounters her idol, a feisty goddess who has no time for timidity, roles, or rules.

Bolo! Bolo!

Ian Rashid and Kaspar Saxena, Canada, 1991, 30 mins

An exploration of the response of diasporic South Asian communities to the AIDS crisis told through interviews, an examination of facts, and a weaving of images.

At the core of the film are the testimonials of artists and activists — gay, lesbian, and straight — to the barriers and successes of organizing around the AIDS crisis.

Coconut/Cane & Cutlass

Michelle Mohabeer, Canada, 1994, 30 mins

A poetic rumination on exile, displacement, and nationhood from the perspective of an Indo-Caribbean lesbian who migrated to Canada 20 years ago, Coconut/ Cane & Cutlass layers front-screen projection, re-created archival images, oral narratives/histories, and dramatic scenes. -KO THIS FILM IS PART OF LONGING AND BELONGING: 1990s SOUTH ASIAN FILM AND VIDEO. MORE ON PAGE 21.

PRESENTED BY

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CANADIAN PREMIERE

POLITICS OF PLACE

Greetings From Free Forests Ian Soroka, US/Slovenia/Croatia, 2018, 99 mins

In his debut feature, director Ian Soroka creates an evocative portrait of the southern Slovenian landscape that facilitated what is considered to be Europe’s most effective resistance movement during World War II. Part experimental ethnography, part metaphorical reflection, the film uses lush cinematography and a rich soundscape to contemplate life in the forest during wartime.

The German and Italian occupation of Slovenia forced thousands to flee their homes. A Communist-led resistance movement known as the Liberation Front formed when Slovenian Partisans sought refuge deep in the forests of Yugoslavia. They constructed their stronghold under the cover of spruce trees where the movement’s leadership operated, hidden from fascist occupiers and collaborators, for almost two years.

After the war, Communist authorities built another secret bunker deep beneath the forest floor. Originally intended to shelter party leadership in the case of atomic fallout, this climate-controlled facility now houses the film archives of the Cinematheque of the Republic of Slovenia. Soroka artfully weaves archival footage from this collection with contemporary scenes and commentary from survivors, historians, and naturalists to trace the footpaths and ruins that remain as monuments to the resistance. -CL “The Slovenian forest is at risk of erosion (partially due to logging, which is also covered in the film by way of old newsreel material), and the same can be said for memory. Greetings From Free Forests is a remarkable attempt to fight this process of oblivion.” - CINEUROPA BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM AWARD 2018 DOCLISBOA FESTIVAL

THURSDAY MAY 9 FRIDAY MAY 10

8:30 PM SFU 12:00 PM VANCITY

RATED Y FOR YOUTH

Propaganda: The Art of Selling Lies Larry Weinstein, Canada, 2019, 92 mins

Propaganda, whether in film, print, posters, or architecture, is an act of persuasion that succeeds by bypassing critical thinking and unconsciously tugging at emotions. Spanning diverse sources, including the Catholic Church, mythical caves, totalitarian regimes, and the glitzy allure of capitalism, propaganda has been harnessed as a powerful weapon to shape worldviews through compelling images and narratives. Propaganda: The Art of Selling Lies explores a diverse range of mediums from well-recognized symbols of fascist movements, to more subtle forms in political satire and online slander. It uncovers the means and techniques of persuasion employed by both powerful figures and those working to undermine the status quo. In a mediascape increasingly threatened by fake news and alternative facts, one question lingers: how do we know what we know? -JY THE FRIDAY, MAY 10 SCREENING IS PART OF RATED Y FOR YOUTH AND WILL INCLUDE A POST-FILM DISCUSSION. READ MORE ON PAGE 19.

FRIDAY MAY 10

6:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE

1990s SOUTH ASIAN

Shooting Indians: A Journey with Jeffrey Thomas Ali Kazimi, Canada, 1997, 56 mins

A journey full of quiet insights and surprising twists, Shooting Indians begins with Ali Kazimi, a newly arrived student in Canada, unraveling the hidden history of the land he has chosen as his new home.

Kazimi takes interest in the career of his friend and colleague, Iroquois photographer Jeffrey Thomas. Through the work of early American photographer Edward Curtis, Thomas became inspired to examine how Indigenous peoples have been photographed. Woven throughout the film is Kazimi’s exploration of the irony of an Indian from India making a film about a North American Indian. -KO Ali Kazimi and Jeffrey Thomas are both recipients of the 2019 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts.

THIS FILM IS PART OF LONGING AND BELONGING: 1990s SOUTH ASIAN FILM AND VIDEO. MORE ON PAGE 21.

PRESENTED BY

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FRIDAY MAY 10 SUNDAY MAY 12

7:00 PM VANCITY 4:00 PM SFU

FRIDAY MAY 10

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool Stanley Nelson, US/UK, 2019, 115 mins

Miles Davis was perhaps the quintessential musical artist of the 20th century, a brilliant innovator and iconoclast whose work single-handedly changed the face of jazz and popular music alike. He was a man with a considerable mystique, a proud yet enigmatic pillar of the black community. Regrettably, as his friends and colleagues attest, he was also a frequently tormented soul, profoundly affected by the racial prejudice he witnessed and experienced in America, along with the pressures of success, and the temptations of drugs and alcohol. Davis was a man capable of making Manhattan clubgoers swoon with the sweet longing in his trumpet tone, while also terrifying those around him with his rage and self-destruction.

Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool tracks the artist’s history from his affluent upbringing as the son of a prominent Illinois dentist, through his training at Julliard in New York, and on to the truly remarkable records and performances which defined his apex years of creativity from the mid 1950s to the late 1970s. The winding tale is one of high peaks and low valleys, and is related through recollections by Davis himself as well as collaborators, friends, children, lovers, and ex-wives. Fans of Davis will revel in watching never-before-seen footage and learning more about the complex man behind his canonical body of music. - DG

ITALIA ITALIA

The Resolute (Il Risoluto)

Giovanni Donfrancesco, Italy/France, 2017, 159 mins

Retired with his wife in a house in the Vermont woods, Piero Bonamico, an old Italian in his late eighties, lives a quiet secluded life reading, cooking, tending to the garden, and singing every Sunday in his presbyterian church’s choir. But when he meets filmmaker Giovanni Donfrancesco, he seizes the occasion to look back on his long and eventful life. Suddenly, 70 years of silence is broken, and a past which has been hidden from all around him emerges. Suppressed wartime memories trigger recollections of his inconvenient past as an adolescent soldier: at age 15, like other poor teenagers, he enrolled in the Genovese ranks of the Decima Mas, one of the most violent fascist militias headed by Chief Bottero. Sitting with Donfrancesco in the basement of his house, Piero speaks about the popular devotion to Mussolini, recalls daily extortions and executions perpetrated by militiamen, as well as an encounter with infamous Black Prince Borghese (leader of the fascist militias). Donfrancesco even makes a revelation concerning Mussolini’s lost treasure, which he himself helped to transfer, hidden in five big leather suitcases in the presence of a cardinal.

Giovanni Donfrancesco’s extensive portrait gives flesh to one of the darkest hours of Italian history. This perpetrator’s narrative of rising tension, violence and remorse is a journey down the winding road of memory that speaks eerily to the present day. -TG THIS FILM IS PART OF ITALIA ITALIA. MORE ON PAGE 24.

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8:00 PM SFU

FRIDAY MAY 10 SUNDAY MAY 12

9:15 PM VANCITY 3:00 PM VANCITY

SATURDAY MAY 11

12:00 PM VANCITY

CARE

Who Let the Dogs Out?

América

To the majority of people alive and breathing in the year 2000, Who Let The Dogs Out? is the name of a massively popular radio hit by the flash-in-the-pan group Baha Men. To artist Ben Sisto, it is a philosophical question that challenges accepted notions of authorship and creative ownership.

When their father is jailed for allegedly neglecting his eponymous 93-year-old mother, grandsons Rodrigo, Bruno, and Diego reunite to care for her. Diego, a circus performer living in Puerto Vallarta, unhesitatingly returns to the small town of Colita with hopes of forming the “ideal team” to care for her in her final years – or at least until they can work a corrupt system to get their father out of prison.

Brent Hodge, Canada, 2019, 70 mins

Brent Hodge’s documentary Who Let The Dogs Out? follows Sisto’s obsessive quest to become the world’s leading expert on the song and its confusing pedigree. Beginning in the present day, Sisto takes the stage in front of a packed club and begins a TED talk-style presentation about the cultural phenomenon of the song, its known origins, and unanswered questions around who really coined the eponymous lyric and subsequent woof/woof/woof/woof structure.

Sisto meets with a lively cast of characters, each laying different and compelling claims to having created the catchy hook. His pursuit of a definitive answer is relentless, stretching further and further back in time as new contenders emerge.

The result is a wonderfully funny and entertaining film as much about creative ownership as it is about one person’s compulsion to find the truth. -TA

Erick Stoll and Chase Whiteside, US, 2018, 76 mins

Diego sees poetry and purpose in this tragedy, believing she willfully fell out of bed to save herself, and her family. But to Rodrigo, América is a victim of her advanced dementia, which leaves her unable to choose whether even to live or die.

He might be projecting when he tells the members of a meditation he leads that, “You have been living in a dream. Reality destroys that dream.” But the brothers can at least agree when he asserts, “But love is something eternal.”

Directors Chase Whiteside and Erick Stoll delicately capture the stark mundanity of daily life, quietly coaxing its complexities with gentle agility. Even the most tense moments seem subdued – like when Ro and his partner Cris calmly wash dishes while Bruno and Diego wrestle, shouting and rolling on the floor, arguing about money. The camera remains impartial, and yet it can’t help but highlight the inevitable hilarity of a scene so many siblings have lived. Can anyone love more deeply, and fight more furiously, than family?

América is a tightwire act, balanced between love and obligation, independence and co-dependence, vitality and infirmity, laughter and tears. -KV

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NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

JUSTICE FORUM

1:45 PM VANCITY

CARE

4:00 PM VANCITY 12:00 PM SFU

JUSTICE FORUM

Mom Calling

One Child Nation

Nelleke Koop’s quiet but impactful Mom Calling focuses on three women caring for their aging mothers, all of whom are living with dementia. The women are part of the ‘sandwich generation’: they must balance jobs, and family obligations — including their own kids — with caregiving for their parents. It appears that Elin and her mother were never close; Carin has just retired but her mother’s declining mental health keeps her tethered to responsibilities; Hanna’s family is from Africa, and her cultural inheritance is one of duty, patience, and honour for elders.

From 1979 to 2015, the Chinese government implemented a strict one-child policy, restricting families from having more than a single child in an attempt to curb a booming population. Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang’s deeply personal film exposes the collective trauma caused by the policy. Wang, a first-time mother, returns home to China to interview her family and uncovers harrowing stories of abandoned infant girls, state-forced sterilization, and twins separated at birth.

While propaganda in the form of songs, posters, and large-scale performances permeate public space, One Child Nation bravely exposes decades of silence on the disturbing social experiment that impacted generations. -SC

Nelleke Koop, Netherlands, 2019, 58 mins

Through the camera’s patient observation, we come to understand how each woman’s responses are shaped by the specifics of their own relationships with their mothers, as well as their cultural values. Koop fixes her gaze on the main subjects as they move through their daily lives, driving about or taking transit, all while talking on the phone with their mothers, with other family members, and with healthcare providers. These stylistic choices create an intimate, thoughtful exploration of what it means to be responsible for a parent’s care. -MB PRECEDED BY

Crannog

Isa Rao, UK, 2018, 14 mins

A young woman with a life-threatening disease cares for rescued and sick animals in this quiet reflection on kindness in the face of mortality.

THIS SCREENING IS PART OF JUSTICE FORUM SERIES AND WILL INCLUDE A POST-FILM DISCUSSION. READ MORE ON PAGE 18.

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#DOX A 2019

Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang, China/US, 2019, 85 mins

WINNER, GRAND JURY PRIZE SUNDANCE 2019

“The film is a valuable record and a sober but frightening illustration of the dark side of this government-controlled experiment…. The bitter irony, after absorbing so much evidence of lives scarred or destroyed with no official accountability, is the shift since the policy was discontinued to a two child society in an effort to address the shortage of young people to look after China’s aging population. All traces of one child propaganda have been erased, replaced by images of happy families with two beaming kids apiece.” - THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER THE SATURDAY MAY 11 SCREENING IS PART OF THE JUSTICE FORUM SERIES AND WILL INCLUDE A POST-FILM DISCUSSION. READ MORE ON PAGE 18.

SATURDAY MAY 11

4:15 PM CINEMATHEQUE

SATURDAY MAY 11 SUNDAY MAY 12

6:30 PM VANCITY 6:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE

CANADIAN PREMIERE

Jaddoland

Midnight Traveler

Over a five-year collection of visits to her childhood home in the West Texas town of Lubbock, Nadia Shihab explores questions of identity in diaspora through the life and work of her visual artist mother. The daughter of an Iraqi immigrant, Nadia is acutely aware of the reductive identities others have projected onto her, but works to defy them, influenced by having grown up watching her mother carve out a space of her own. Revisiting the landscapes of her youth, the poignancy of her mother’s longing for home becomes ever more apparent as she observes her creative process and the seclusion in which she finds herself. The arrival of Nadia’s grandfather from Iraq serves as a reminder of the life her mother left behind, the absence of family, and the supportive partnership she longs for.

Arresting and unique, Midnight Traveler is at once an intimate study of displacement as well as a compelling road movie. The journey of the Afghani Fazili family begins in Tajikistan, where a long wait has resulted in the rejection of their asylum claim. Over the next several years, Hassan Fazili uses cell phones to film his family’s journey back to Afghanistan, and then through Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Serbia. In his company are his wife and daughters, Nargis and Zahra, two luminous, inquisitive, and infinitely funny girls whose resilient spirits shine in every scene, underlining the urgency of this flight to freedom.

Nadia Shihab, US/Kuwait, 2018, 90 mins

Long takes and wide, still images give a photographic quality, leaving room for visual contemplation and a sense of nostalgia. A beautiful portrait of the exploration into the self, Jaddoland weaves intergenerational stories which can only be told through the interactions of those that live them. Our lives are lived in the spaces between us, their interplay creates the meaning we share. -VF PRECEDED BY

A Radiant Sphere Sara Wiley, Canada, 2019, 9 mins

The filmmaker enters the archive and discovers a long lost family member — the Canadian Communist poet and political prisoner, Joe Wallace.

AUDIENCE PARTNER

Hassan Fazili and Emelie Mahdavian, US/Qatar/Canada/UK, 2019, 87 mins

The family’s migration story fluctuates between harrowing crises and absolute tedium, as they hide in safe houses, dash across borders, flee police, and wait (and wait and wait) in detention camps. Fazili was targeted for death by the Taliban, but life in Eastern Europe is hardly safe, as right-wing populism triggers riots and anti-migrant mobs threaten the family.

The phone footage is far from the typical shaky or scrappy home video, and is complemented by atmospheric soundscapes and incidental music. Fazili and his wife were both directors in Afghanistan and the film poses tough questions about the power and limits of art and cinema. Ultimately, Midnight Traveler offers a critical, and deeply moving, look at the predicament of refugees, why they resort to crossing borders illegally, and the many entanglements that face them along the way. -KR AUDIENCE PARTNER

SCHOOL FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

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TICKETS AND GENERAL FESTIVAL INFORMATION

MEMBERSHIP

DOXA presents films that have not been seen by Consumer Protection BC. Under BC law, anyone wishing to see these unclassified films must be a member of The Documentary Media Society, and at least 18 years of age, unless otherwise stated.

INDUSTRY PANELS (each): $15 / INDUSTRY PASS: $85

The Industry Pass provides access to all Industry programming.

See page 14 for details.

When you purchase your $2 membership, you are entitled to attend screenings, provided you show your membership card and your ticket. Check out the films we rate especially for youth and families (18 and under) at doxafestival.ca.

Discounted prices are available for members of DOC BC, CMPA-BC, and Capilano University. Please ask your organization for the promo code.

TICKETS

HOW TO BUY

GENERAL ADMISSION: $15

Weekday evenings and weekends WEEKDAY MATINEE TICKETS: $13

Weekday films starting at 5:00pm or earlier STUDENTS (with valid ID) SENIORS (65+) LOW INCOME

$2 discount from regular prices for any film screening except for special presentations SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS: $18

Opening Gala screening, Closing Gala screening, and live presentation FESTIVAL PASS

$195 Includes membership; valid for all film screenings including

Opening Gala, Closing Gala, and live presentation

FESTIVAL TICKET PACKS

Early Bird Price from April 9-16: $45 (5 tickets); $85 (10 tickets) Regular Price in effect April 17: $65 (5 tickets); $115 (10 tickets) Festival 5 and 10 Ticket Packs are only available online. Packs are valid for one ticket per screening.

All films must be chosen at time of purchase.

NOTE: Ticket Packs are NOT valid for special presentations and do not include the $2 membership.

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INDUSTRY

#DOX A 2019

ONLINE: DOXAFESTIVAL.CA

Tickets are available for purchase online up to one hour in advance of the screening. If the screening takes place within one hour, tickets must be purchased at the venue box office.

COMMUNITY BOX OFFICE:

#110 – 750 Hamilton St.

From April 23-30 (12:00pm - 5:00pm), buy tickets in person at the DOXA office.

VENUES

The Cinematheque (May 2-12) VIFF’s Vancity Theatre (May 4-12) SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts (May 4-5 and May 8-12) Tickets are available for all festival screenings. Box office opens 30 minutes prior to the first screening of the day at each venue.

REFUND POLICY

All sales are final. No exchanges. DOXA only offers refunds in cases of technical failure or cancellation of screening.

RUSH TICKETS

Rush tickets may be available at the door when all advance tickets have been sold.

A generous allotment of seats are reserved for passholders. Any unclaimed seats will be released starting 10 minutes prior to the screening on a first come, first serve basis. To speed entry, cash is appreciated.

WILL CALL

Will Call opens 60 minutes prior to opening and closing night films, and 30 minutes prior for all other screenings. Please arrive 15 minutes in advance to allow time to pick up your order. You must present your ID for pick up.

THEATRE PROCEDURES FOR FESTIVAL PASSHOLDERS

E-TICKETS

Bring your Festival Pass and membership and arrive at least 15 minutes prior to the screening you wish to attend. Festival passholders are not guaranteed seating.

All passes are strictly non-transferable and passholders are required to show ID.

Skip the Will Call and Box Office lines and get your tickets delivered to your mobile device or e-mail.

DOXA OFFICE

ACCESSIBILITY

All theatres are wheelchair accessible, with limited spots available. Please email boxoffice@doxafestival.ca or call the DOXA office to make note of space requirements. Attendants accompanying persons with disabilities will be admitted at no cost.

#110 – 750 Hamilton St, Vancouver, BC Canada V6B 2R5 | 604.646.3200 The Documentary Media Society is located on the traditional and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱ wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples.

FEES

Third-party processing fees are applied to all online orders.

• A $1 processing fee is applied to each ticket order.

• A $2 processing fee will be added per Festival Ticket Pack.

• A $5 processing fee will be added per Festival Pass.

• Tickets and passes purchased in-person at our community box office or at any venue are not subject to processing fees.

PMS: 2925

facebook.com/DOXAfestival twitter.com/DOXAfestival youtube.com/DOXAfestival instagram.com/DOXAfestival

PMS: 3005

P.O. Box 1950 Kahnawake Mohawk Territory J0L 1B0 T:450-633-1016 F:450-633-1017 Established 2003

DOXA-OUTLINES.indd 1

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M O R E G R E AT F I L M F E S T I VA L S

Reel 2 Real International Film Festival for Youth

The Vancouver Podcast Festival returns this November.

April 7 - 13, 2019 | r2rfestival.org A celebration of diverse, imaginative, and inspiring films, R2R is catered to children and youth ages 6-19 and their families. We kick off the festival week with Sunday Fun Day! Come early for a pancake breakfast, and spend the day watching films and making animation. R2R also features virtual reality, unique hands-on workshops, a media conference and career fair for teens, and a showcase of films made by students. R2R is sure to delight young audiences and the young at heart.

The Vancouver Queer Film Festival August 15 - 25, 2019 | queerfilmfestival.ca The Vancouver Queer Film Festival is a vibrant space for queer arts, culture, and community. It showcases dynamic and thought-provoking films from BC filmmakers as well as other Canadian and international directors and storytellers.The Festival curates films which contextualize and celebrate queer lives and experiences and prioritize foregrounding diverse identities in our communities, including narratives from trans people, queer people of colour, and Indigenous people. It is Western Canada’s largest queer arts event.

17th Vancouver Latin American Film Festival August 22 - September 1, 2019 | vlaff.org When you like something, you should do it all night long.

- CHAVELA VARGAS

Everyone is welcome at the 17th Vancouver Latin American Film Festival as we showcase a groundbreaking lineup of 70 films from 16 countries in 19 different languages (always with English subtitles). Highlights include Costa Rica as the Guest Country, an Indigenous Languages series, and a program of dance films and popup performances. Have a great time at DOXA and see you all again on August 22!

Featuring live tapings, special presentations, panels, workshops, networking and more. November 7–10, 2019.

For more information, visit vanpodfest.ca and follow us for updates.

presented by

#vanpodfest

Rendez-Vous French Film Festival February 2020 | rendez-vousvancouver.com Visions Ouest Productions (VOP) offers a variety of events & activities throughout the year. The 26th Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois et francophone, first week of February 2020, recognizes the success of Canadian and Francophonie Internationale cinema, celebrating the diversity and talent of our artists. Our Rendez-Vous French Film Festival, Beaux Jeudis Serie and the School Matinees Screenings provide ideal opportunities to foster the link with the francophone community via the presentation of top quality films presented with English subtitles.