CINEMA POLITICASELECTIONS2013–2014

S C R E E N I N G T R U T H

INTRODUCTION

SCREENING TRUTH TO POWER

OUR LOCALS

INTERVIEW: PARAMITA NATH

HOME MOVIES 2013-2014

FILM PROFILE: HANDS ON: WOMEN, CLIMATE, CHANGE

ADOPT-A-DOC PROFILE: ANOTHER WORD FOR LEARNING

NEW ACQUISITIONS

PARTING THOUGHTS

CREDITS

2

5

8

14

19

29

32

35

42

44

TABLE OFCONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

2 / 3

ABOUT CINEMA POLITICAIn case we’ve never met, let us introduce ourselves. Cinema Politica (CP) is a global network of semi-autonomous documentary screening sites. With around 100 chapters, or “locals,” worldwide, we’ve earned bragging rights as the largest grassroots community- and campus-based documentary screening network around. With a headquarters in Montreal staΩed by a small but fierce crew of five, and tentacles that reach from coast to coast to coast in Canada as well as other continents, we are a dedicated team of docuphiles who see the dissemination of political cinema as an important, worthy and revolutionary activity. Each year we program a raft of amazingly provocative and activating independent political documentary and make those films available to our local organizers

throughout the lands. They in turn put together programs, organize around screenings and invite filmmakers, activists and other speakers to lead post-projection discussions. Taken together, these art-insurrections of by-donation public screenings of under-served works feed our main objectives, which we will now outline.

OUR MANDATE Our mandate consists of three central objectives: (1) to support independent and marginalized Canadian artists—especially Indigenous, underrepresented and less-visible artists—working in film and video whose art encourages and expands cultural citizenship and participation; (2) to diversify, expand and sustain audiences and their appreciation, enjoyment and support for media arts by independent Canadian artists foremost, and

to a lesser extent other independent artists; and (3) to connect independent Canadian media artists and their works with other social, political and artistic issues, topics, initiatives, groups and movements in accessible and inclusive screening spaces.

These mandate objectives are guided by three organizational considerations: (1) visibility—to ensure and increase visibility for independent Canadian media artists; (2) circulation—to support and increase the dissemination, presentation and reception of independent Canadian cinema works through a vast, grassroots, campus-based and inter-connected network; and (3) alternative screening spaces — to create inclusive, dynamic and engaged public, non-commercial spaces in Canada for audiences to discover and enjoy independent

Canadian cinema, while participating in post-screening discussions.

WHAT WE DOCinema Politica has been around for 11 years running, and in that time we’ve held over 3,000 screenings of around 700 independent political films throughout our dynamic network of local screening sites. We pay screening fees to filmmakers and our budget comes from foundations and arts councils like the Canada Council for the Arts, membership fees from locals and good old fashioned fundraising. Starting up a CP local is a piece of cake, and we’re always excited to bring new locations and communities into the network, so drop us a line if this might interest you (INFO@CINEMAPOLITICA.ORG) and get ready to change minds, light fires under seats and

create a space where independent artistic expression co-mingles with political conviction.

ABOUT THIS PUBLICATIONCP doesn’t just show films, we also produce our own content in the form of online video interviews with artists, blog posts, Tumblr tumbles and print publications like the one you now hold in your hands (or are reading as a PDF on line). In 2013 we published our first full-stop book, called Screening Truth to Power: A Reader on Documentary Activism, from which we will excerpt in the following section. We also publish a series of booklets called Cinema Politica Selections, in which we gather together text and images that provide a roundup of our last year of activity.

Cinema Politica Selections 2013-2014 is our newest installment in this series, and its production has been generously supported by a Canada Council for the Arts media arts grant. The pages that follow contain synopses of some of our most-screened Canadian works of the last year, new acquisitions, interviews and project profiles. We hope you enjoy this eΩort to share some of our ideas, films and perspectives, and if you want to learn more or get involved visit CINEMAPOLITICA.ORG today.

4 / 5

EXCERPT

SCREENINGTRUTH TO POWER

A PASSAGE FROM THE NEW BOOK PUBLISHED BY CINEMA POLITICA

Screening Truth to Power is a new collection of essays, reflections, interviews and missives published by Cinema Politica and edited by its co-founders, Svetla Turnin and Ezra Winton. In the introduction, Turnin and Winton give shape to the main component of Cinema Politica, that of documentary activism. We have included an excerpt of that introduction here.

ENCOUNTERS WITH DOCUMENTARY ACTIVISMby Svetla Turnin and Ezra Winton

A filmmaker once said that cinema is something that takes place somewhere between the audience and the screen, which is to say that audiences, along with producers, have agency and investment in making meaning, packing and unpacking mediated messages, and interpreting art. Documentary activism, as a concept, is similarly constitutive and reflexive: it is a force or phenomenon that occurs when certain destabilizing elements combine, and it is a form of political and artistic expression that responds to larger societal currents. Documentary activism brings together worlds we love, labour in and call home: the dynamic, diverse and devotional spheres of art and activism. Documentary activism takes shape when the filmmaker and subjects, the screen and the audience, and event organizers and collaborators come together. It is an impulse that combines the aΩective and eΩective powers of documentary cinema, along with the cultural, political and social transformative community spaces that grow out of and inform

documentary while activating new forms, pathways and modalities for social change. Documentary activism evolves with the representation of subjects of documentary, accounting for their historical circumstances and social, economic and cultural realities, moves through the documentary art form into screening spaces, and diΩuses out into the wider currents of audiences, publics, movements and organizations. This sociopolitical force is continually in motion, forming imbricated spheres of influence, experience and impact. Just as a social movement could inspire the making of a documentary, a documentary in turn could activate a social movement. Meg McLagan and Yates McKee, in their recently published and wonderfully interdisciplinary volume Sensible Politics: The Visual Culture of Nongovernmental Activism, write, “Cumulatively, there is a continual feedback loop whereby political actions, cultural forms, and technologies of mediation interact with each other, each with their own dynamics of innovation, but in mutual interdependence” (2012, 23). It is in the interdependent relationship between art and action that we find the greatest potential for progressive social transformation.

6 / 7

Documentary as a particular art practice can activate us, and can serve as a pry bar to separate the layers of political domination and cultural oppression, revealing the light, imagination and hope that are continually and deliberately obscured by status quo culture and politics. Doc activism (doctivism?) is often seeded in the filmmaking process, it is re-activated during screenings, and it extends beyond the projections into the everyday lives of audiences, subjects and filmmakers. As John Walker says in one Cinema Politica artist talk, “Documentary is a conversation, a conversation in a moment of time with a confluence of people interacting, filmmakers interacting with real people, coming to certain ideas and conclusions and experiences, events, whatever it might be. A film has to stop, it has to end, but the conversation has to continue.” Each film is then in the hands of interpretative communities—audiences who process the information, respond emotionally and act upon what they have seen and heard on the screen and at the screening. This live wire of inspiration and activation is a kind of interpretation of the artwork, and it is articulated through social relations that, when compounded, can have a real, tangible, positive eΩect.

For our part, the documentary activism that inscribes our lives comes out of what McLagan and McKee call the “image-complex”, the constellation of social, political and cultural contexts in which visual culture is disseminated. In other words, our activism revolves around the space of documentary, or the organized screenings of political independent documentaries. For us, putting on these screenings is a political act. Providing a platform for documentary is essential, and we agree that “platforms are not neutral spaces, but sites, that produce the image [in our case, the moving image] politically” (McLagan and McKee 2012, 17). Although we are encouraged by documentary’s recent ascension in the popular imagination and across corporate media platforms, we are determined to not only acknowledge but nurture the ties and associations nonfiction cinema has with its history of speaking truth to power—of upsetting the power balance, confronting the status quo and tackling di≈cult issues head on. Untethered from this history and embedded in entertainment–consumer regimes like megaplexes, Netflix and many commercial film festivals, documentary loses some of its transformative power. That is to say, the image–complex forecloses on radical

intervention, political action and expression in order to maintain apolitical, neutered, “neutral” spaces of capital, where consumers are free to consume without the bothersome additives of activists, organizers and plug-in and take-away opportunities for audience engagement.

To purchase Screening Truth to Power: A Reader on Documentary Activism, visit: CINEMAPOLITICA.ORG/DOCUMENTARYACTIVISMBOOK

GALLERY

CINEMA POLITICALOCALSSNAPSHOTS FROM SOME OF OUR 90+

LOCALS ACROSS THE GLOBE

Audience at Cinema Politica Berlin screening, Germany, winter 2014.

8 / 9

Filmmaker Paul Émile d’Entremont and lawyer El-Farouk at Cinema Politica at the Bloor screening, Toronto, summer 2013.

Cinema Politica Concordia organizers with HONOUR YOUR WORD filmmaker and film subjects, Montreal, winter 2014.

Cinema Politica Campbell River organizers, BC, winter 2014.

Audience at Cinema Politica U of T screening, Toronto, winter 2014.

Special guest Dwayne Shaw aka Sister Squeal Loud and Proud from the Toronto Sisters at Cinema Politica U of T screening, Toronto, winter 2014.

10 / 11

John Greyson at Cinema Politica 10 Year Anniversary and Book Launch, Montreal, spring 2014.

Audience and organizers at Cinema Politica Malmö screening, Sweden, winter 2014.

Audience at Cinema Politica UQAM screening, Montreal, fall 2013.

Cinema Politica Gothenburg organizers, Sweden, winter 2014.

Filmmaker Catherine Hébert at Cinema Politica UQAM screening, Montreal, fall 2013.

12 / 13

Cinema Politica Ridge Meadows organizer with participants from their Youth Vision Film Festival, BC, spring 2014.

Cinema Politica UBC interview with CiTR, Vancouver, winter 2014.

Cinema Politica UBC organizers, Vancouver, winter 2014.

Audience at Cinema Politica Oslo screening, Norway, fall 2013.

INTERVIEW

PARAMITANATH

14 / 15

PARAMITA NATH, born and raised in India, moved to Canada in 1996 to study music and is now based in Toronto. As an independent filmmaker and producer, Paramita works in both traditional and emerging platforms, experimenting with new approaches to storytelling. She is inspired by the boundaries that connect and separate diΩerent genres, platforms, peoples, identities and truth from fiction. In 2012 she founded Chitra Film & Media Inc. to support her creative vision. Paramita’s first short, Found (2009), has been described as “visually remarkable” (Hu≈ngton Post) “like a poem…a cinematic gem” (DOK Leipzig). Following its premiere at TIFF, the film received multiple awards and travelled to over 30 festivals worldwide. Her second short, Durga (BravoFACT), won the

prestigious 2011 BanΩ Quebecor Production Fellowship and premiered at Hot Docs (2012). Since 2009, Paramita has been part of the core creative team for the ongoing, critically acclaimed Highrise web-documentary project (NFB) that has won every major award for digital non-fiction, nationally and internationally. In 2012/13, Paramita worked as lead Interactive Producer for the experimental web-doc 17.000 Islands (CPH:DOX’s DOX:Lab and Norwegian Film Institute) in collaboration with award-winning Norwegian documentarian Thomas Østbye and Indonesian filmmaker Edwin. Paramita is currently in production with Shadow Waltz (Canada Council for the Arts and Ontario Arts Council), an experimental

doc about acclaimed Canadian jazz musician Phil Dwyer’s battle with addiction and living with bipolar disorder. She is also in advanced development with a feature doc (Ontario Arts Council, OMDC Film Fund, Berlinale Talent Campus’ Doc Station, TIFF Studio) about the global arms trade, having had special access to the Arms Trade Treaty negotiation process at the United Nations.

After acquiring her stunning short Durga, Cinema Politica invited Paramita to be interviewed by filmmaker, teacher and CP Board Member Liz Miller.

INTERVIEW BY LIZ MILLER

LIZ MILLER: What was your motivation for making this film and what prompted you to portray gender violence in this form?

PARAMITA NATH: I grew up in India and moved to Canada when I turned 20. I had an unusual childhood as my family is Hindu, but I went to a Christian boarding school from the age of five. So basically I had a diverse experience in terms of religious exposure. Hinduism is not a religion of the book, so a lot of it exists in ritualistic practices, individuals and stories. I found it very interesting to see how within this, there is a particular respect given to female goddesses that goes beyond everyday gender practices in India. I was always conscious of the contradictions between these two worlds. It is a patriarchal society in which women are looked at so diΩerently but somehow, when it comes to religion, you see men worshipping goddesses. At the same time, with idol worship, it was interesting to go to Kolkata and see the neighbourhoods where these are made. It’s a squat community that has become an industry and all they do is make idols year round for various religious festivals. They are artisans and, for generations, they have been making idols of gods and goddesses that are immersed

in water at the end of the ceremony. This is how the ritual works. I also realized that it is men who have created the visual references of what we know as goddesses. There is not a single woman who makes these idols. So I found it interesting that even in this, what it means to be a goddess and this feminine representation is a very male vision. So I thought it would be interesting to look at the problem of domestic violence alongside this goddess worship.

LM: Was there something new you discovered through making the film about this particular control over the representation of women?

PN: The film was really di≈cult to make. I really felt overwhelmed when doing the project. I had a grant from BravoFACT to make a short film and I spent time in a women’s shelter in Kolkata where all the women were victims of domestic violence. I wept because I felt that what I was doing was so self-indulgent. There was a woman whose face was unrecognizable because her husband had thrown acid in her face. These were very, very intense realities. I was faced with this real ethical crisis of what I was trying to do with

this film and the purpose it would serve. It took me a long time to accept the scope of the film. It is a short film, it is trying to address an idea or make a connection between two worlds that contradict each other but co-exist. It’s an essay film, a visual poem, and I felt a real struggle in making the film because I wasn’t telling any one particular story so a lot depended on me putting those connections together. It was also ethically challenging placing the artisans there, because they could be perfectly innocent and beautiful human beings and what right did I have to represent them as perpetrators of feminine beauty or power? In the end what I hoped to do was to make connections but not point fingers at any one person or figure, calling attention to these contradictions.

LM: There is one line in the script that really stood out to me and I wonder if you can talk about it : “It is clay harvested in brothels made holy by the morals shed by men that makes you pure.”

PN: That came from a heavy reality in the practice of idol making—the soil that is found in front of a brothel entrance is considered most pure because it is believed that before a

16 / 17

man enters a brothel he discards all his morals, so the soil is considered the purest and the starting point of creating an idol, a symbol of purity. At first I was going to be more didactic about it but moved away from it. There were huge protests against this practice by sex workers and it adds another layer to the connections being made: that even a goddess’ purity depends on the morals shed by men.

LM: Can you tell me about writing the script? Was this a departure from how you have worked before?

PN: It was a real struggle. It was more about finding comfort with the silences and not feeling the need to put down too many words, and this process was di≈cult. It feels very personal but it isn’t because I have not experienced the kind of violence I witnessed with the women that I met. The agreement I had with them was that I understood it was not safe to talk about things openly, so I made audio recordings. I did not photograph them at all, so their experiences really inform the emotion but I did not use a particular story or narrative. It was more my reaction and sense

of empathy, feeling overwhelmed by what they had gone through. So I felt I had to understand what my voice was there for.

LM: What was it like to have two female cinematographers document this primarily male domain?

PN: It wasn’t a problem. For me what stuck out more was looking at how the class division has grown so much. The footage I love the most was from smaller festivals. In Kolkata, there are smaller festivals all over. Every neighbourhood has their own festival tent and they commission these artisans to make the goddess and this is the way it’s done. So the neighbourhood associations will raise money and they will meet the artisans and get them to make this with a delivery date. Some artisans will do five or six commissions, and others are star-artisans who are commissioned by a√uent neighbourhoods with huge sponsors. It’s unbelievable—that is, the business side of it. But I also felt that we had access to some of the main sites of the festivals that were missing the essence of spirituality. In Hindu religion there is something called darshan—to see with your eyes the face of God, which has special significance. In these more middle-class

festival tents, people forget about eye contact because they would line up and take photos with their mobile phones—there was no praying or looking. So when we went to the smaller slum festivals it was interesting to see the diΩerence and how open people were to us. With the bigger ones, there was concern, like “You can’t go beyond this line.” There were more restrictions, so that was more of an issue.

LM: Did you make the film to instigate some form of social change?

PN: I have sent the film to India and given it to the communities where we filmed. I am interested in going beyond black and white when it comes to political subjects. It’s easy to look at victims and perpetrators, but I find that often the reality goes beyond that. For me, the discussion in India around domestic violence, which is now a major story internationally, goes beyond gender and is about governance and the kind of desperate realities in which people have to get by. I hope the film appeals to people who would be called perpetrators to ask the question why. There is room for female power and respect embedded into the culture, so it is crucial to ask why it is so di≈cult to

translate that to their lives. I don’t believe that my eleven-minute film can incite change but I hope it can plant questions, and this is the beginning of some kind of transformation. With regards to the Western audience, I hope that even if the symbols don’t mean the same thing as they do in India, there is a certain thread that can add some nuance to the way we look at domestic violence in India, including rape and gender diΩerences.

LM: What is your next project?

PN: I am in production with an arts Council-supported documentary about mental health and creativity and what it means to be the caretaker or the family member of someone with mental health. I am also working on a film about the arms trade. I have been working on it for six years. I followed a negotiation process at the United Nations for an arms trade treaty that was adopted at the General Assembly last year. Now it requires 50 ratifications for it to be entered into force and there are over 40 signatures already. When I say arms trade, I often get lumped into working on an “issue-based” political documentary. I am learning that although I am very much a

political person and interested in politics, I strive to approach film from a place where the humanity will hopefully help the politics emerge.

LM: Is there anything else you want to add?

PN: I feel that each of my projects makes me question the responsibility I have as a storyteller; how and where our responsibility lies as alternative voices to mainstream media or to the sensationalist critique of things. So I find myself constantly battling that and being okay tackling a subject such as the arms trade. I would say that it would feel like I had succeeded if I could talk about weapons without having to show tanks rolling on screen. That’s been done many times already. I guess I tried to achieve that in Durga by addressing domestic violence without having to show a woman with a bruised face on screen. So for me it’s about exploring the power of storytelling but hoping that you are creating enough space where audiences can bring their empathy and understanding to the experience of the film. This is a constant goal of mine.

18 / 19

HOME MOVIES

2013–2014A SELECTION OF CANADIAN

TITLES THAT OUR LOCALS SCREENED

IN THE PAST YEAR

ANARCHRONIQUESFERNANDO GARCIA BLANES, KARINE

ROSSO / CA / 2011 / 85’

Blanes and Rosso’s film presents contemporary Quebecois anarchist politics as a viable alternative to an ineΩective electoral system that relies on repressive force, destructive practices and collective apathy to remain in power. By embracing an interpretation of anarchism as “without authority,” Anarchroniques documents various organizations and businesses that have adopted non-hierarchical organizational structures and fervent egalitarianism among their membership. The filmmakers also question the personal ramifications of radical political activity by addressing the interpersonal and sexual double standards faced by devout and casual anarchists alike. Anarchroniques positions the egalitarian ideals of contemporary Quebecois anarchism as a work in progress more than a manifesto for revolution, but also as a social project whose necessary and fervent self-critique fuels its own practice.

CAPITALISM IS THE CRISIS: RADICAL POLITICS IN THE AGE OF AUSTERITY

MICHAEL TRUSCELLO / CA / 2011 / 100’

Truscello’s searing indictment of neoliberal capitalism’s role in propagating widespread economic inequality, environmental destruction, exploitative labour practices and governmental corruption advocates public resistance and active protests as a means of asserting democratic power over corporate authoritarianism. The interviews with academics, journalists and politicians substantiate the film’s call for revolution by showcasing various interpretations of direct action and “eΩective activism,” which includes both violent and non-violent protest.

DEFENSORARACHEL SCHMIDT, JESSE FRIESTOR /

CA–USA–GUATEMALA / 2013 / 41’

The story of Guatemala’s Mayan, or Q’eqchi, and their struggle to legally reclaim their ancestral homelands from Canadian mining corporations manifests as both an environmental and cultural resistance eΩort. Defensora thoughtfully depicts daily life in the marginalized Q’eqchi community whilst oΩering a rich local commentary on a repressed history that is largely untold outside the immediate community. Schmidt expands the film’s scope by revealing the Canadian mining industry’s often violent abuses against the Q’eqchi and other small communities around the world. The film concludes with the Ontario Supreme Court’s landmark 2013 settlement that allows Indigenous groups abroad to seek reparations against Canadian corporations within Canada, which suggests that justice for the Q’eqchi and other violated communities may not be too far away.

20 / 21

EAST HASTINGS PHARMACYANTOINE BOURGES / CA / 2012 / 43’

This unique and unflinching look at the day-to-day goings-on in an East Vancouver methadone clinic puts a human face on recovering addicts and the medical policies that govern their treatment. Although the clinic’s clientele within the film are methadone patients, Bourges oΩers the social actors the opportunity to perform moments that they recall from their experiences of visiting methadone-dispensing pharmacies. By restaging their own realities, and without any contextualizing voiceover narration, the film’s participants are able to ensure their stories are told on their own terms. As a captivating documentary/fiction hybrid, East Hastings Pharmacy challenges and reifies documentary cinema’s precarious presumption of truthful representation by entrusting social actors with their own improvised self-depiction.

HERMAN’S HOUSEANGAD BHALLA / CA / 2012 / 81’

An inventive and unique portrait of an artist and prisoner, as well as a story about solidarity, justice and expression, Herman's House is a singular work that defies the staid talking head tradition found in so many documentaries. The film chronicles art student Jackie Sumell’s unstoppable resolve to realize former Black Panther Herman Wallace’s dream of his ideal house, to be built outside the confines of his own cell walls as an expression of his freedom and his political will, and as a collaborative art piece. Wallace served over three decades in the torturous conditions of solitary confinement, ostensibly for the murder of an

Angola prison guard. Despite dubious evidence and the historical record proving at least the need for a retrial if not clemency, Wallas spent his adult life in a cell six feet by nine feet. His ordeal was at the centre of several social movements intersecting with prison justice, race and class in the US. Wallace was released in 2013, so that he could die shortly after in a hospital, but Bhalla’s brilliant film will live on, and serve as a testament to both the ongoing injustice of the US legal and penal system and the power of art to collapse the borders of imagination. A compassionate, committed and imaginative work.

HONOUR YOUR WORDMARTHA STIEGMAN / CA / 2013 / 59’

The Algonquin community of Barriere Lake demand that the Canadian and Quebec governments respect their signed treaties. When government-supported logging developments break those treaties, the Barriere Lake community peacefully blocks the highway that leads into their territory. The ensuing standoΩ with a well-armed police force opens Stiegman’s respectful and haunting portrayal of a marginalized community united in defense of their culture, language and land. Honour Your Word is a potent and timely reminder of the consequences of legislated ignorance and the cultures of resistance and distrust that it vicariously creates.

THE INMATES ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUMMEGAN DAVIES / CA / 2013 / 36’

Combining interviews, archives and animation, this collectively written history of the Mental Patient’s Association (MPA), a self-organized and non-hierarchical community of mental health patients in 1970s Vancouver, playfully reveals a unique support system that was structured horizontally around “friendship and community” without the intrusion of psychiatrists or bureaucrats. The former MPA members recall the group’s creation and practices, particularly the ways in which the membership employed itself to self-manage its own community housing and drop-in centres. The MPA Documentary Collective position the 1970s MPA as a social movement in its own right, alongside its contemporary women’s rights and gay rights movements.

INSIDE LARA ROXXMIA DONOVAN / CA / 2011 / 81’

When Lara, an aspiring pornographic actor, makes history by contracting HIV during a film shoot, her physical and psychiatric recovery inspires her to return to Los Angeles to stand up for sex worker’s labour conditions. Lara’s activist work with Protecting Adult Welfare, her changing relationship with her family, and the challenges of her ongoing living conditions frame Donovan’s exposé of the porn industry’s oscillating disinterest and compassion towards its performers’ well-being. Lara’s tumultuous recovery process lends a sympathetic face to the harsh realities of sexual exploitation, addiction, terminal illness and the stubbornness of hope.

22 / 23

INSURGENCEGROUPE D’ACTION EN CINÉMA ÉPOPÉE / CA / 2013 / 137’

A collective art piece in the true sense, this film was produced by the Montreal-based Épopée collective and interprets the 2012 student movement and civil society uprising in Quebec. With no narration, interview or info-graphics, Insurgence cuts its own path among social movement films, opting for fluidity, raw political expression and the embodiment of protest, instead of an explanatory exploration of the events that led to the largest student movement in Quebec history. Its makers call this experience immersion cinema: the constantly mobile camera and nameless protagonists of the film wash over the

audience and the politics insinuate a hold in each viewer’s conscience, but the film promises little prosaic instruction. Instead, Insurgence captures a political, cultural and historical moment without containing it, reflects a collective spirit without naming it, and reveals the creative and political force of resistance without diagnosing it. In short, Insurgence is an art piece that connects aesthetically to each person’s intellect, and as a cinematic experience, is as far from a “watchable product” as documentary can get.

JOY! PORTRAIT OF A NUNJOE BALASS / CA / 2012 / 70’

Queer faeries, gay nuns and a cosmic order of transgression and defiance of all that is hetero-normative and religio-normative and there you are, in the thick of this playful, intriguing and never-dull documentary. Joy! takes an intimate, candid and compassionate look at the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a gay male nun community that has renounced celibacy, convention and even Catholicism, and are unified by a missionary philosophy of “promulgating joy and expiating stigmatic guilt.” Balass’s film tours the uno≈cial and gloriously cluttered archives of the San Francisco convent, which reflects the non-structured organization of their community. This ethnographic account of the Sisters defies any easy analysis or explanation, and must be seen to be appreciated.

KANAWAYANDAN D’AAKI – PROTECTING OUR LAND

ALLAN LISSNER / CA / 2012 / 13’

The resistance of northern Ontario’s Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) community against environmental compromise and the mining and natural resource industries exemplifies the ongoing struggle of First Nations communities to hold colonial governments accountable to their own treaties. Lissner’s dignified interviews and majestic photography of the landscape the KI elders intend to preserve conveys both the sincerity and the urgency of their cause.

OCCUPY LOVEVELCROW RIPPER / CA / 2012 / 95’

Winner of Cinema Politica’s 2013 Audience Choice Award, Occupy Love proposes that contemporary activist movements reframe themselves as love stories. By likening activist causes such as the Arab Spring or climate change advocacy to love stories that must resolve in either triumph or tragedy, Velcrow Ripper’s film insists that political activity is a force of “alert joy,” thereby contextualizing apathy as a public enemy. This upbeat, critical and informed endorsement of horizontal “methodology, not ideology” positions neoliberalism as its fitting antagonist: a headless, oblique, greedy and pervasive verticality that must be overthrown to put the financial markets at the service of people and the earth, not the other way around.

PEOPLE OF A FEATHERJOEL HEATH AND THE COMMUNITY OF

SANIKILUAQ / CA / 2011 / 90’

The Sanikiluaq community of Hudson Bay responds to lost footage from Robert Flaherty’s 1922 Nanook of the North by recording their traditional and modern ways of life on their own terms. From traditional hunting and gathering practices to contemporary ecological preservation eΩorts, the sumptuous photography and haunting soundscape portray life in the Canadian north as harshly beautiful, culturally vibrant and in urgent need of preservation.

24 / 25

A PEOPLE UNCOUNTED AARON YEGER / CA / 2011 / 99’

The romanticism surrounding Roma culture is revealed to be completely unrelated to the daily hardships of modern Roma life in this sweeping and industrious documentary. Yeger’s comprehensive account of Roma communities across central and eastern Europe delves into the devastating impact of the Nazi Holocaust on Europe’s Roma population, and the ongoing history of discrimination and hate crimes committed against Roma communities. Linking an historical account to contemporary contexts, A People Uncounted thoughtfully contextualizes Roma music, art and dance as a nomadic livelihood amidst discriminatory poverty, and a cultural heritage of survival amidst hateful persecution.

PORTRAIT OF RESISTANCEROZ OWEN & JIM MILLER / CA / 2011 / 72’

Toronto-based Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge have been combining their artistry and activism since 1976 in large political photographic collages, performances, video installations and more. This biographical documentary centres on their praxis of politically conscious art, and the creative collaboration that fuels their drive to keep challenging power in all its dressings. From past projects on gender equality among Ontario auto workers, to their current works on environmental and labour exploitation, Condé and Beveridge

champion the unheard and the disadvantaged by inviting capitalism’s subalterns to be part of their art. Owen and Miller’s film not only pays homage to this incredibly vibrant and important art team, but skillfully renders decades of art and activism into a vibrant and interventionist artwork of its own.

THE PIPEDREAMS PROJECTRYAN VANDECASTEYEN AND

FAROE DES ROCHES / CA / 2011 / 28’

Three British Columbia residents document their 900 km kayak trip from Kitimat, the site of a proposed Alberta tar sands pipeline that would service Chinese supertankers, to Vancouver in an attempt to raise awareness about the conservation eΩorts in the aΩected area. As the oil industry attempts to push its plans to fruition, without valuing the pristine northern landscape or meaningfully consulting the aΩected Indigenous communities, Vandecasteyen and Des Roches’s film engages with the politics of local interests in the face of government-supported corporate expansionism. This beautifully photographed account of the kayakers’ journey stresses the personal responsibility of communal resistance to preserve national wonders in a world of multinational capitalism.

RAINFOREST: THE LIMIT OF SPLENDOURRICHARD BOYCE / CA / 2011 / 52’

Boyce documents his experiences of growing up near the rainforests of Vancouver Island as part of his artistic resistance to the local logging industry. By focusing on the unique ecologies of the arboreal canopy, Boyce’s stunning cinematography captures a vision of the rainforest that is unseeable from the ground and irreplaceable once deforested. The distinct combination of artist-activist praxis prompts the filmmaker to take personal pulley-and-harness shots to avoid damaging the trees by climbing them with filmmaking equipment. These images, in turn, are juxtaposed with the cables and machinery of the modern logging industry, thereby contrasting environmentalist and industrial views of —and from—the trees.

REVOLUTIONARY MEDICINE: A STORY OF THE FIRST GARIFUNA HOSPITAL

BETH GEGLIA AND JESSE FREESTON / CA / 2013/ 40’

Dr. Luther Harry Castillos’ attempts to open a free-access hospital for the Garifuna, a marginalized Afro-indigenous community in Honduras, questions the role of private enterprise in the absence of governmental support. Geglia and Freeston depict the daily work of the hospital and its community interactions in a way that champions compassion as a form of heroism, and medicine as a form of resistance.

26 / 27

SALMON CONFIDENTIAL TWYLA ROSCOVICH / CA/ 2013 / 69’

This essayist approach to conservation filmmaking follows the investigation of the outbreak of salmon leukemia in British Columbia’s Fraser River in 2010. When scientific findings confirmed that Canadian salmon farms were hotbeds for an industry-destroying virus, the federal inquiry attempted to discredit the research rather than adequately verify the findings. Roscovich’s film is a searing indictment of the politics of inconvenient research, and the Canadian government’s habit of muzzling scientists whose research implicates the Harper regime.

SHE SAID BOOM: THE STORY OF FIFTH COLUMN

KEVIN HEGGE / CA / 2012 / 64’

This history of Toronto-based feminist punk-rock band Fifth Column delves into the clash between 1980s popular and conformist cultures and feminist activity. Hegge’s film traces the origins and development of not only the band but the riot grrrl movement to which Fifth Column was so essential. By “becoming their own artwork,” these self-described “bull dykes from Transylvania” engaged with the alienating constructions of heteronormative consumer culture by living the non-conformity at the heart of their music.

SHOWDOWN AT HIGHWAY 134FRANKLIN LÓPEZ / CA / 2013 / 5’

When Mi’kmaq protestors clashed with RCMP o≈cers over a First Nations’ blockade against American oil-fracking prospectors near Miramichi, New Brunswick, the protestors documented the event with their own reporters and refused to allow mainstream news outlets to the scene of the struggle. This inside look at the abuses heaped upon the protestors by the RCMP and at the protester’s stalwart resistance eΩorts challenges the glossy “objectivity” of national news broadcasting, and the government’s complicity in corporate greed and environmental destruction.

THE TIBET WITHIN: THE TIBETAN STRUGGLE IN EXILE

EVA CIRNU / CA / 2013 / 65’

Cirnu’s film investigates Tibetan refugee communities in India, including the Tibetan government-in-exile that is supported by India in solidarity, and the preservation of traditional artforms and cultural practices. The urgency, detail and care demonstrated by exiled Tibetan artists-in-training a new generation in the traditional crafts, based primarily on the child’s interests, exemplifies a poignant yet peaceful resistance, even in diaspora and during exile.

WHITE WATER, BLACK GOLDDAVID LAVALLEE / CA / 2011 / 65’

Lavallee’s film traces the flow of fresh water from Rocky Mountain glaciers to the Alberta tar sands, where the industrial processes use fresh water to separate oil from sand but ultimately creates fields of toxic black sludge. By combining scientific, activist and industrial commentaries, White Water, Black Gold presents a comprehensive picture of the politics of the environmental destruction and water scarcity toward which Alberta, Canada and North America as a whole appear to be headed.

28 / 29

FILM PROFILE

HANDS ON: WOMEN,

CLIMATE, CHANGE

30 / 31

Programming political documentary isn’t always the most positive experience. So many films deal with dark, depressing and awful subjects, it can start to weigh a programmer down to be sure. But every once in a while a film comes along that lifts our spirits in its positive perspective and solution-oriented design. Such is the case with Hands-On: Women, Climate, Change, which departs from the doom-and-gloom narrative of climate disaster and focuses instead on inspiring individuals, all of them women, who are working passionately and vigorously toward positive change. Despite its relatively short length this powerful documentary communicates monumental change, as it showcases the human will, perseverance and drive required to not only address climate disaster, but to ensure climate justice is carried out in real, tangible ways across the globe. We’re very pleased to have recently acquired this title for our network and look forward to the impact this film will inevitably have on audiences throughout the land.

Here, you can read more about the film, courtesy of the filmmakers.

SYNOPSISHands-On profiles five women from four continents tackling climate change through policy, protest, education and innovation. The film powerfully demonstrates how women are transferring knowledge and local networks into hands-on strategies. This 48-minute collaborative documentary offers unique perspectives across cultures and generations; a young woman challenges the expansion of oil rigs in the North Sea while a seasoned community organizer interprets satellite weather reports for fisherman struggling to survive on India’s increasingly volatile coast.

ABOUT THE PRODUCTIONHands-On is an IAWRT project. The International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT), is a vibrant international network of women working in television, film, radio and web-based journalism. Every two years we host an international conference that involves workshops, screenings and professional networking. Our prestigious international documentary competition helps promote exceptional work made by and about women and we also offer scholarship opportunities to our members.

IAWRT was founded in 1951 and has consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. From: WWW.IAWRT.ORG/

FILM CREDITSCOLLABORATING DIRECTORS: Iphigénie Marcoux-Fortier, Nupur Basu, Mary Kiio, Liz Miller and Karen Winther

PROJECT EDITOR AND POST PRODUCTION COORDINATOR: Rebecca Lessard

ANIMATION AND MAP DESIGN: Eva Cvijanovic

ORIGINAL MUSIC: Rebecca Lessard, Jacob Lessard and Carl Spidla

SOUND MIX AND DESIGN: Kyle Stanfield

COLOURIST: Tony Manolikakis

For more information, visit: REDLIZARDMEDIA.COM/CLIMATEANDGENDER/

ADOPT–A–DOC PROFILE

ANOTHER WORDFOR LEARNING

32 / 33

IN 2010 CINEMA POLITICA initiated a program to support independent Canadian documentaries during the production stage, when struggling independent political filmmakers face many challenges with funding and support. With the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, we started Adopt-a-Doc to offer our support to independent films struggling to get made in the very tough climate of documentary production in Canada. To date we have taken on four films, and Another Word for Learning is our most recent adopted doc. You can read up on the film’s in-production portfolio here.

FILM TITLEAnother Word for Learning (working title) TIMELINEDevelopment: November 2012–November 2013Production: February–October 2014Post-Production: October 2014–July 2015 SYNOPSISThis feature-length documentary film follows three Vancouver-based Indigenous youth who are struggling to define the meaning of education in their lives. Through their quest, some of them have encountered “unschooling,” which has a particularly vibrant community in Vancouver. Unschooling is learning that happens completely outside the school system, but also outside of the schooling mentality. It’s the belief that learning happens through life,

through play, through relationships; that living and learning are inseparable. Mahto, 11, has been unschooled his whole life. His Lakota father and his Sikh mother chose to give their son an education that included their cultural knowledge, which public school didn’t offer—but Mahto wants to be with kids, and all the kids are in school. He has decided to join them this year, which his parents find hard to accept. How will his decision impact his relationship with his family and his culture? Johanna is 17 and has had a hard time all her life in public school. She only has a year left to go, but she just has had enough—what she really wants to do is paint and draw, and she might quit school to do it. But she is facing the pressures of a family and a society, who think that “dropping out” inevitably leads to failure in life.

Khelsilem is 23. Like Johanna, he had a hard time in school. He left when he was 17, when he discovered unschooling. Today, he is striving to gain the respect of his community by working tirelessly to revitalize Squamish culture. Concerned by the lack of Aboriginal language resources in the public school system, he has been learning Indigenous languages from Elders, and now he wants to teach them to other kids. Will he manage to inspire other youth to connect with their culture in ways school couldn’t offer? These people are connected because colonialism in Canada is standing in the way of their education. The public school system does not reflect Native kids' traditional culture, language, let alone sense of identity. However, leaving it can mean losing important social opportunities to connect and succeed. With this film we aim to show how unschooling can be a way towards building children's autonomy and confidence, while reconnecting with their Native culture in more positive learning environments.

FILMMAKER'S STATEMENTTwo summers ago, we were in Vancouver learning from various Indigenous families who were questioning public education in reaction to their kids’ negative experiences in the system. Some of them, even if they had very little means, were taking on the task of unschooling their kids, because school just wasn’t working out. We heard stories of bullying and racism. We heard stories of resilience and dedication to children’s right to learn. We were soon approached by an Indigenous mother to document her family’s journey and along the way we met other people who would bring more perspectives towards this question of education. With this film, we will show that unschooling is a real educational option, but that it’s not always an easy one to choose. As different people will show us, not everyone has the resources or the self-confidence to take on their kids’ education. We have come to this film as settlers aiming to detach ourselves from the colonial mindset that school still transmits today in order to allow ourselves and others to decide what role we wish to play in changing this mindset. We feel that it is of utmost importance that we do not pretend colonialism only existed in the past. If we are willing to denounce

the cruelties of the past, we should have the courage to confront those of today, as our film’s participants uniquely illustrate. FILMMAKER BIOSSTÉFANIE CLERMONTStéfanie is a traveller and post-secondary unschooler. She has reported for the Montreal Media Co-op, Free Speech Radio News and CKUT radio in Montreal, covering the 2012 student strike, Indigenous resistance stories and regularly hosting the news show Off the Hour. JADIS DUMASNow attending the school of life, Jadis formerly studied animation and film at Capilano University before realizing the possibilities of de-schooling through documentary. She has been working as a freelance editor, videographer and journalist for the past four years.

34 / 35

NEWACQUISITIONS

AYITI TOMA, IN THE LAND OF THE LIVINGJOSEPH HILLEL / CA / 2013 / 81’

Rejecting the tired tropes and standard portrayal of Haiti as a basket-case country in need of saving, Hillel’s portrait of the small island nation foregrounds political and cultural vibrancy and independence. Through the returning thread of the country’s unique voodoo beliefs and practices, “another Haiti” is presented as one that is besieged with problems, yes, but also one that is resilient and resourceful. Haiti has resisted imperialism, overcome slavery and has been pounded with natural disasters and economic-based neocolonial projects that would be difficult for any nation to face head-on. In Ayiti Toma the country’s residents are represented in resplendent cinematography and at times through poetic storytelling—and this in itself is such a radical break from the scores of other documentaries that it deserves a special place in the oeuvre.

36 / 37

CARRÉ ROUGE SUR FOND NOIR (RED SQUARE ON A BLACKBOARD)SANTIAGO BERTOLINO AND HUGO SAMSON / CA / 2013 / 110’

Red Square on a Blackboard follows some of the key players of the 2012 student uprising in Quebec. With access to behind-the-scenes politicking and strategizing, this riveting documentary keeps pace with the frenetic and turbulent days and weeks that led to the largest student protest in Quebec history, followed by the massive civil society participation in that summer’s Maple Spring (printemps érable). This film offers an important and moving documentation of one of Canada’s and Quebec’s most important socio-political moments, and by providing the often tired, but always driven, voices of the student leaders on the inside, Red Square steers clear of the shameful two-dimensional mainstream news coverage of the time and brings us a full, dynamic and unique perspective on this explosive social movement.

L’ENCERCLEMENT: LA DÉMOCRATIE DANS LES RETS DU NÉOLIBÉRALISME (ENCIRCLEMENT: NEOLIBERALISM ENSNARES DEMOCRACY)RICHARD BROUILLETTE / CA / 2008 / 160’

This history of neoliberal thought and policy proposes that contemporary democracies are capitalist multi-party versions of the totalitarian regimes of the early twentieth century: your vote is always for a version of pervasive and pernicious capitalism, regardless of the ballot’s contents. Brouillette’s collection of substantial interviews with prominent historians and economists presents a thorough outline of the intellectual foundations and activities of the global neoliberal movement. Loaded with critical scrutiny of “invisible hand” economics, institutions like the International Monetary Fund and contemporary libertarianism, Encirclement proposes that the humanistic façade of economic conquest must be revealed as an insidious legitimization of neocolonialism.

38 / 39

GENTLY WHISPERING THE CIRCLE BACKBETH WISHART MACKENZIE AND BLUE QUILLS FIRST NATIONS COLLEGE / CA / 2013 / 49’

First Nations communities in northern Alberta revive nearly lost communal and spiritual traditions as a means of healing the cultural and personal scars left by the residential school system in this moving documentary. MacKenzie’s film was commissioned by Blue Quills First Nations College, the former residential school that many of the film’s participants once attended, which has now been transformed into a community centre and college. Gently Whispering the Circle Back depicts the power of a community’s solidarity in not only drawing out the poisons of its destroyed past, but in conscientiously administering a treatment to ensure its future.

THEY WERE PROMISED THE SEAKATHY WAZANA / CA / 2013 / 74’

The exodus of many Moroccan Jews to Israel in the 1970s led to spiritual and cultural internal conflicts for the Arab Jews who arrived in a place where their identity was considered an oxymoron. Wazana’s attentive and compassionate film considers the lives of not only those who left Morocco, but those who remained in the suddenly depleted communities. The inclusion of multi-lingual Judeo-Andalusian music reinforces the complicated identity politics of this photogenic anti-travelogue. The film offers a sociopolitical analysis of the historical powers that compelled this unique reworking of demographics for political goals.

40 / 41

UPROOTED GENERATIONRÉAL JUNIOR LEBLANC / CA / 2013 / 7’

An Innu survivor of the Quebec residential school system recounts the physical and sexual abuses she endured as a child in this short documentary. Leblanc’s combination of archival footage and modern recordings reinforces the ongoing impact of the cultural genocide committed against First Nations and Indigenous peoples across Canada. The cathartic final shot of a residential school cabin, once known as the place where that school’s administrators would sexually assault their students, set ablaze by cheering residential school alumni, demonstrates the first necessary steps in both purging and reclaiming a horrific past.

42 / 43

PARTING THOUGHTS

Recently we have lost two dear friends and supporters of Cinema Politica, and we would like to use this space to express our gratitude toward Magnus Isacsson (1948–2012) and Peter Wintonick (1953–2013). Both Magnus and Peter were doc titans in the art and activist communities that our project continues to balance between. Both advanced the genre politically, aesthetically and communicatively. We feel blessed to have known both these fine filmmakers and advocates for the years we did, and are grateful in particular for their support for Cinema Politica, and for their input, which never came dressed up in kid gloves. Magnus and Peter were one-of-a-kinds, and through their filmmaking, dialogues, discourse and fierce politicking, Cinema Politica became and remains a more robust, enriched and committed organization. We will miss you both.

INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT

This publication was produced with support from the Canada Council for the Arts. WWW.CANADACOUNCIL.CA

MEMBERSHIPCinema Politica consists of nearly a hundred screening locals who sustain the network through annual membership depending on how many screenings they organise per year. If you’re interested in starting up a local in your community or on your campus, contact us at: INFO@CINEMAPOLITICA.ORG

DONATIONSDonate to Cinema Politica and support independent documentary cinema and artists. We rely on generous support from people like you—any donation, no matter how small, helps sustain our grassroots project.CINEMAPOLITICA.ORG/SUPPORT-CINEMA-POLITICA

CINEMA POLITICA PO Box 55097 (Mackay) Montréal, QuébecH3G 2W5WWW.CINEMAPOLITICA.ORG SVETLA TURNINExecutive DirectorSVETLA@CINEMAPOLITICA.ORG

EZRA WINTONDirector of ProgrammingEZRA@CINEMAPOLITICA.ORG

Film Synopses by DAN LEBERG

Designed by LOKI

Printed by KATASOHO

CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS

CREDITS

44 / 45

T O P O W E R