CINEMA POLITICA

SELECTIONS
20132014

SC R E E NING

T R UTH

TABLE OF
CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

SCREENING TRUTH TO POWER

OUR LOCALS

14

INTERVIEW: PARAMITA NATH

19

HOME MOVIES 2013-2014

29

FILM PROFILE: HANDS ON: WOMEN,

CLIMATE, CHANGE

32

ADOPT-A-DOC PROFILE:
ANOTHER WORD FOR LEARNING

35

NEW ACQUISITIONS

42

PARTING THOUGHTS

44

CREDITS

INTRODUCTION

2/3

ABOUT CINEMA POLITICA

In case weve 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, weve earned bragging
rights as the largest grassroots communityand campus-based documentary screening
network around. With a headquarters in
Montreal staed by a small but erce crew
of ve, 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 lms available to our local organizers

throughout the lands. They in turn put together

programs, organize around screenings and
invite lmmakers, 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 artistsespecially
Indigenous, underrepresented and less-visible
artistsworking in lm 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) visibilityto
ensure and increase visibility for independent
Canadian media artists; (2) circulationto
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.

create a space where independent artistic

expression co-mingles with political
conviction.

WHAT WE DO

Cinema Politica has been around for 11 years

running, and in that time weve held over
3,000 screenings of around 700 independent
political lms throughout our dynamic network
of local screening sites. We pay screening fees
to lmmakers 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 were 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 res under seats and

ABOUT THIS PUBLICATION

CP doesnt just show lms, 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 rst
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 proles. We hope you enjoy this
eort to share some of our ideas, lms and
perspectives, and if you want to learn more or
get involved visit CINEMAPOLITICA.ORG today.

4/5

EXCERPT

SCREENING
TRUTH TO POWER
A PASSAGE FROM THE NEW BOOK PUBLISHED BY CINEMA POLITICA

ENCOUNTERS WITH
DOCUMENTARY ACTIVISM
by Svetla Turnin and Ezra Winton

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.

A lmmaker 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 lmmaker and subjects, the screen
and the audience, and event organizers and
collaborators come together. It is an impulse
that combines the aective and eective
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 diuses 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 nd 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 lmmaking process, it is re-activated
during screenings, and it extends beyond
the projections into the everyday lives of
audiences, subjects and lmmakers. 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, lmmakers interacting with real
people, coming to certain ideas and conclusions
and experiences, events, whatever it might
be. A lm has to stop, it has to end, but the
conversation has to continue. Each lm 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 eect.

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 documentarys recent
ascension in the popular imagination and
across corporate media platforms, we are
determined to not only acknowledge but
nurture the ties and associations nonction
cinema has with its history of speaking truth
to powerof upsetting the power balance,
confronting the status quo and tackling dicult
issues head on. Untethered from this history
and embedded in entertainmentconsumer
regimes like megaplexes, Netflix and many
commercial lm festivals, documentary loses
some of its transformative power. That is to
say, the imagecomplex 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
POLITICA
LOCALS
SNAPSHOTS FROM SOME OF OUR 90+
LOCALS ACROSS THE GLOBE

Audience at Cinema Politica Berlin screening,

Germany, winter 2014.

8/9

Filmmaker Paul mile dEntremont 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.

Cinema Politica Gothenburg organizers,

Sweden, winter 2014.

Filmmaker Catherine Hbert at Cinema Politica

UQAM screening, Montreal, fall 2013.

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

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

12/13

Audience at Cinema Politica Oslo screening,

Norway, fall 2013.

Cinema Politica UBC organizers, Vancouver,

winter 2014.

Cinema Politica UBC interview with CiTR, Vancouver,

winter 2014.

Cinema Politica Ridge Meadows organizer with

participants from their Youth Vision Film Festival,
BC, spring 2014.

INTERVIEW

PARAMITA
NATH

14/15

INTERVIEW BY LIZ MILLER

PARAMITA NATH, born and raised in India,

moved to Canada in 1996 to study music and
is now based in Toronto. As an independent
lmmaker 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 dierent genres,
platforms, peoples, identities and truth from
ction. In 2012 she founded Chitra Film &
Media Inc. to support her creative vision.

Paramitas first short, Found (2009),
has been described as visually remarkable
(Hungton Post) like a poema cinematic
gem (DOK Leipzig). Following its premiere
at TIFF, the lm received multiple awards and
travelled to over 30 festivals worldwide. Her
second short, Durga (BravoFACT), won the

prestigious 2011 Ban 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-ction, nationally and
internationally.

In 2012/13, Paramita worked as lead
Interactive Producer for the experimental
web-doc 17.000 Islands (CPH:DOXs
DOX:Lab and Norwegian Film Institute)
in collaboration with award-winning
Norwegian documentarian Thomas stbye
and Indonesian lmmaker 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 Dwyers 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 lmmaker, teacher and
CP Board Member Liz Miller.

LIZ MILLER: What was your motivation for

making this lm 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
ve. 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 dierently 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. Its 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 lm about this particular
control over the representation of women?
PN: The lm was really dicult to make.
I really felt overwhelmed when doing the
project. I had a grant from BravoFACT to make
a short lm and I spent time in a womens
shelter in Kolkata where all the women were
victims of domestic violence. I wept because
I felt that what I was doing was so selfindulgent. 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 lm and the purpose it would serve. It

took me a long time to accept the scope of the
lm. It is a short lm, it is trying to address
an idea or make a connection between two
worlds that contradict each other but co-exist.
Its an essay lm, a visual poem, and I felt
a real struggle in making the lm because I
wasnt 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 ngers at any
one person or gure, 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 makingthe soil that is found
in front of a brothel entrance is considered
most pure because it is believed that before a

16/17
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?

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 rst 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

nding comfort with the silences and
not feeling the need to put down too many
words, and this process was dicult. It feels
very personal but it isnt 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

PN: It wasnt 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 its 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 ve or six commissions, and others are
star-artisans who are commissioned by auent
neighbourhoods with huge sponsors.

Its unbelievablethat 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 darshanto
see with your eyes the face of God, which has
special signicance. In these more middle-class

festival tents, people forget about eye contact

because they would line up and take photos
with their mobile phonesthere was no
praying or looking. So when we went to the
smaller slum festivals it was interesting to see
the dierence and how open people were to
us. With the bigger ones, there was concern,
like You cant go beyond this line. There were
more restrictions, so that was more of an issue.

translate that to their lives. I dont believe that

my eleven-minute lm 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 dont 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 dierences.

LM: Did you make the lm to instigate some

form of social change?

LM: What is your next project?

PN: I have sent the lm to India and given it

to the communities where we lmed. I am
interested in going beyond black and white
when it comes to political subjects. Its easy to
look at victims and perpetrators, but I nd 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 lm 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 dicult to

PN: I am in production with an arts Councilsupported 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 lm
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 ratications 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 lm 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 nd 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.
Thats 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 its 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 lm. This is a constant goal of mine.

18/19

HOME MOVIES

20132014
A SELECTION OF CANADIAN

TITLES THAT OUR LOCALS SCREENED

IN THE PAST YEAR

ANARCHRONIQUES
FERNANDO GARCIA BLANES, KARINE
ROSSO / CA / 2011 / 85

CAPITALISM IS THE CRISIS: RADICAL

POLITICS IN THE AGE OF AUSTERITY
MICHAEL TRUSCELLO / CA / 2011 / 100

DEFENSORA
RACHEL SCHMIDT, JESSE FRIESTOR /
CAUSAGUATEMALA / 2013 / 41

Blanes and Rossos lm presents contemporary

Quebecois anarchist politics as a viable alternative to
an ineective 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 lmmakers also question the
personal ramications 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.

Truscellos searing indictment of neoliberal

capitalisms 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 lms call
for revolution by showcasing various interpretations
of direct action and eective activism, which
includes both violent and non-violent protest.

The story of Guatemalas Mayan, or Qeqchi, and

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

20/21

EAST HASTINGS PHARMACY

ANTOINE BOURGES / CA / 2012 / 43
This unique and unflinching look at the day-today 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 clinics clientele within the lm are
methadone patients, Bourges oers 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 lms participants are
able to ensure their stories are told on their own
terms. As a captivating documentary/ction hybrid,
East Hastings Pharmacy challenges and reies
documentary cinemas precarious presumption of
truthful representation by entrusting social actors
with their own improvised self-depiction.

HERMANS HOUSE
ANGAD 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 dees the staid talking head tradition found in so
many documentaries. The lm chronicles art student
Jackie Sumells unstoppable resolve to realize former
Black Panther Herman Wallaces dream of his ideal
house, to be built outside the connes 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 connement, 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 Bhallas brilliant lm 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 WORD

MARTHA STIEGMAN / CA / 2013 / 59

THE INMATES ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM

MEGAN DAVIES / CA / 2013 / 36

INSIDE LARA ROXX

MIA DONOVAN / CA / 2011 / 81

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
stando with a well-armed police force opens
Stiegmans 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.

Combining interviews, archives and animation,

this collectively written history of the Mental
Patients 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 groups 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 womens rights and gay rights
movements.

When Lara, an aspiring pornographic actor, makes

history by contracting HIV during a lm shoot,
her physical and psychiatric recovery inspires
her to return to Los Angeles to stand up for sex
workers labour conditions. Laras activist work with
Protecting Adult Welfare, her changing relationship
with her family, and the challenges of her ongoing
living conditions frame Donovans expos of the porn
industrys oscillating disinterest and compassion
towards its performers well-being. Laras tumultuous
recovery process lends a sympathetic face to the
harsh realities of sexual exploitation, addiction,
terminal illness and the stubbornness of hope.

22/23

JOY! PORTRAIT OF A NUN

JOE BALASS / CA / 2012 / 70

INSURGENCE
GROUPE DACTION EN CINMA POPE / CA / 2013 / 137
A collective art piece in the true sense, this lm was
produced by the Montreal-based pope 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 lms, 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 lm wash over the

audience and the politics insinuate a hold in each

viewers 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 persons intellect, and as a cinematic
experience, is as far from a watchable product
as documentary can get.

Queer faeries, gay nuns and a cosmic order of

transgression and deance of all that is heteronormative 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 unied by a missionary
philosophy of promulgating joy and expiating
stigmatic guilt. Balasss lm tours the unocial and
gloriously cluttered archives of the San Francisco
convent, which reflects the non-structured
organization of their community. This ethnographic
account of the Sisters dees any easy analysis or
explanation, and must be seen to be appreciated.

KANAWAYANDAN DAAKI
PROTECTING OUR LAND
ALLAN LISSNER / CA / 2012 / 13
The resistance of northern Ontarios
Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) community
against environmental compromise and the mining
and natural resource industries exemplies the
ongoing struggle of First Nations communities to
hold colonial governments accountable to their own
treaties. Lissners dignied interviews and majestic
photography of the landscape the KI elders intend to
preserve conveys both the sincerity and the urgency
of their cause.

OCCUPY LOVE
VELCROW RIPPER / CA / 2012 / 95
Winner of Cinema Politicas 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 Rippers lm 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 tting
antagonist: a headless, oblique, greedy and pervasive
verticality that must be overthrown to put the
nancial markets at the service of people and the
earth, not the other way around.

PEOPLE OF A FEATHER
JOEL HEATH AND THE COMMUNITY OF
SANIKILUAQ / CA / 2011 / 90
The Sanikiluaq community of Hudson Bay responds
to lost footage from Robert Flahertys 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 eorts, 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. Yegers comprehensive
account of Roma communities across central and
eastern Europe delves into the devastating impact
of the Nazi Holocaust on Europes 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 RESISTANCE
ROZ OWEN & JIM MILLER / CA / 2011 / 72
Toronto-based Carole Cond 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, Cond and Beveridge

champion the unheard and the disadvantaged by

inviting capitalisms subalterns to be part of their
art. Owen and Millers lm 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 PROJECT

RYAN 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
eorts in the aected area. As the oil industry
attempts to push its plans to fruition, without valuing
the pristine northern landscape or meaningfully
consulting the aected Indigenous communities,
Vandecasteyen and Des Rochess lm 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 SPLENDOUR

RICHARD 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, Boyces 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 lmmaker to take personal pulley-and-harness
shots to avoid damaging the trees by climbing them
with lmmaking equipment. These images, in turn,
are juxtaposed with the cables and machinery of
the modern logging industry, thereby contrasting
environmentalist and industrial views ofand
fromthe 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 lmmaking
follows the investigation of the outbreak of salmon
leukemia in British Columbias Fraser River in 2010.
When scientic ndings conrmed that Canadian
salmon farms were hotbeds for an industrydestroying virus, the federal inquiry attempted to
discredit the research rather than adequately verify
the ndings. Roscovichs lm is a searing indictment
of the politics of inconvenient research, and the
Canadian governments 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. Hegges lm 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 134

FRANKLIN LPEZ / CA / 2013 / 5
When Mikmaq protestors clashed with RCMP
ocers 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 protesters
stalwart resistance eorts challenges the glossy
objectivity of national news broadcasting, and the
governments complicity in corporate greed and
environmental destruction.

THE TIBET WITHIN: THE TIBETAN

STRUGGLE IN EXILE
EVA CIRNU / CA / 2013 / 65
Cirnus lm 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 childs
interests, exemplies a poignant yet peaceful
resistance, even in diaspora and during exile.

WHITE WATER, BLACK GOLD

DAVID LAVALLEE / CA / 2011 / 65
Lavallees lm 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 elds of
toxic black sludge. By combining scientic, 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 isnt 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-andgloom 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. Were 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.

SYNOPSIS

Hands-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 Indias increasingly volatile coast.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

Hands-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 CREDITS
COLLABORATING DIRECTORS:

Iphignie 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/

ADOPTADOC PROFILE

ANOTHER
WORD
FOR 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 films
in-production portfolio here.

FILM TITLE

Another Word for Learning (working title)

TIMELINE

Development: November 2012November 2013

Production: FebruaryOctober 2014
Post-Production: October 2014July 2015
SYNOPSIS

This 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. Its
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 didnt offerbut 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 enoughwhat 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 couldnt 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 STATEMENT

Two 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 wasnt working out. We heard stories
of bullying and racism. We heard stories of
resilience and dedication to childrens right
to learn. We were soon approached by an
Indigenous mother to document her familys
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 its not always an easy one
to choose. As different people will show us,
not everyone has the resources or the selfconfidence 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 films
participants uniquely illustrate.
FILMMAKER BIOS
STFANIE CLERMONT

Stfanie 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 DUMAS

Now 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

NEW
ACQUISITIONS

AYITI TOMA, IN THE LAND OF THE LIVING

JOSEPH HILLEL / CA / 2013 / 81
Rejecting the tired tropes and standard portrayal of Haiti as a basket-case
country in need of saving, Hillels portrait of the small island nation
foregrounds political and cultural vibrancy and independence. Through
the returning thread of the countrys 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 countrys residents are represented in
resplendent cinematography and at times through poetic storytellingand
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

CARR 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 summers Maple Spring (printemps rable). This film offers an
important and moving documentation of one of Canadas and Quebecs
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.

LENCERCLEMENT: LA DMOCRATIE
DANS LES RETS DU NOLIBRALISME
(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 ballots contents.
Brouillettes 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 faade of economic conquest must be revealed as an
insidious legitimization of neocolonialism.

38/39

GENTLY WHISPERING THE CIRCLE BACK

BETH 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. MacKenzies film was commissioned by Blue Quills First
Nations College, the former residential school that many of the films
participants once attended, which has now been transformed into a
community centre and college. Gently Whispering the Circle Back depicts
the power of a communitys 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 SEA

KATHY 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. Wazanas 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 GENERATION
RAL 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. Leblancs 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 schools 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 (19482012) and Peter Wintonick (19532013). 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

CREDITS

CINEMA POLITICA

PO Box 55097 (Mackay)

Montral, Qubec
H3G 2W5
This publication was produced with support
from the Canada Council for the Arts.
WWW.CANADACOUNCIL.CA

WWW.CINEMAPOLITICA.ORG

SVETLA TURNIN

Executive Director
MEMBERSHIP

Cinema 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
youre interested in starting up a local in your
community or on your campus, contact us at:

SVETLA@CINEMAPOLITICA.ORG

EZRA WINTON

Director of Programming
EZRA@CINEMAPOLITICA.ORG

INFO@CINEMAPOLITICA.ORG

Film Synopses by DAN LEBERG

Designed by LOKI
Printed by KATASOHO

DONATIONS

CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS

Donate to Cinema Politica and support

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

44/45

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P OWE R