TENTATIVE FILM LIST – ReFrame 2017 – for use of sponsorship selection only
Please note: These films have been selected by our programming committee but are not yet
confirmed, as we are still in the process of obtaining the rights and scheduling the festival. Also
note that these descriptions are the ones submitted to us, not necessarily what will appear in
the festival program.
Please contact us if you need help selecting a film. [email protected] or 705-745-3238
x400.
A Cerebral Game
Director: Reid Davenport
Minutes: 7 min.
A filmmaker ponders his changing identity through the lens of baseball.
A Plastic Ocean
Director: Craig Leeson
Minutes: 99 min
A PLASTIC OCEAN begins when journalist Craig Leeson, searching for the elusive blue whale,
discovers plastic waste in what should be pristine ocean. In this adventure documentary, Craig teams
up with free diver Tanya Streeter and an international team of scientists and researchers, and they
travel to twenty locations around the world over the next four years to explore the fragile state of our
oceans, uncover alarming truths about plastic pollution, and reveal working solutions that can be put
into immediate effect.
Angry Inuk (not available for sponsorship – special event/ partnership in the works!)
Director: Alethea Arnaquq-Baril
Minutes: 85 min.
Anti–seal hunting campaigns have attracted high profile supporters, and with them, hefty financial
contributions. From Pamela Anderson to Paul McCartney, celebrities have voiced their outrage about
an issue they seem keenly unqualified to discuss. Meanwhile, seal hunters are unjustly targeted for
traditional practices that have supported them for centuries. With a way of life on the cusp of extinction,
who's really at fault? How does a culture that exercises understated anger and finds peaceful ways to
resolve conflict compete with animal activist groups that rely on anti-sealing sentiment they
aggressively cultivate to underwrite their other causes? Alethea Arnaquq-Baril uses her filmmaking
skills to organize and embolden a new tech-savvy generation of Inuit to stand up for their rights.
Establishing #sealfie on Instagram and skillfully employing social media, they lobby legislators and
expose misinformation while staying true to their values in their fight for survival. Alexander Rogalski
Alanis Obomsawin Best Documentary Award, Imagine Native Film + Media Arts Festival 2016;
Canadian Documentary Promotion Award, Hot Docs 2016; Vimeo On Demand Audience Award, Hot
Docs 2016
At the Beach
Director: Jeremy Peter Allen
Minutes: 5 min
In this short documentary, burn victims get to enjoy a family day at the beach thanks to an outing
organized by the Association des grands brûlés. Enduring the curious stares of strangers isn't easy, but
the desire to lead a full life, especially on such a beautiful summer day, is simply too strong. By sharing
the inspiring stories of these men and women, Jeremy Peter Allen's At the Beach invites us to
embrace our differences.
This film is part of the 2014 edition of the 5 Shorts Project, created by the National Film Board of
Canada and produced in conjunction with Spirafilm, a Quebec cooperative dedicated to independent
cinema.
Atlantic
Director: Risteárd Ó Domhnaill
Minutes: 90 min.
As the oil majors drive deeper into their fragile seas, and the world’s largest fishing companies push
fish stocks to the brink, coastal communities and the resources they rely on are fast approaching a
point of no return.Filmed in some of the most remote and breathtaking locations in the North Atlantic,
and at close quarters with some of the sea’s most captivating characters, Atlantic brings to the fore
three very intimate stories from the global resource debate. It explores how modern day communities
must learn from the past, in order to secure a brighter future.
Black Code
Director: Nicholas de Pencier
Minutes: 90 min.
Nicholas de Pencier's expansive documentary Black Code examines the complex impact the internet
has had on free speech and privacy. On the one hand, it has exponentially increased governments'
abilities to spy on their citizens, and allowed businesses to do the same; on the other, the fact that the
web is largely unpoliced has made it a godsend for protest movements, allowing them a channel to
counteract government and corporate propaganda.
de Pencier evokes the shadow-realm aspects of the web while also chronicling those who have made
the web into a weapon of the powerless. What emerges is a complex portrait, both scary and
invigorating, of a phenomenon that we still don't truly comprehend but which has transformed the way
we live — perhaps permanently.
Cecil & Carl
Director: Elvis León & Gastòn Yvorra
Minutes: 14.35 min.
Cecil has lived alone in a giant house ever since Carl, his partner of 43 years, was diagnosed with
advanced dementia and admitted to a nursing home. Not about grand gestures of love or being gay,
this story focuses on commitment and the duties that come with it.
Circus Without Borders
Director: Susan Gray, Linda Matchan
Minutes: 70 min.
CIRCUS WITHOUT BORDERS is a documentary about Guillaume Saladin and Yamoussa Bangoura,
best friends and world-class acrobats from remote corners of the globe who share the same dream: To
bring hope and change to their struggling communities through circus. Their dream unfolds in the
Canadian Arctic and Guinea, West Africa, where they help Inuit and Guinean youth achieve
unimaginable success while confronting suicide, poverty and despair.
Seven years in the making, this tale of two circuses — Artcirq and Kalabante — is a culture-crossing
performance piece that offers a portal into two remote communities, and an inspiring story of resilience
and joy.
Clínica de Migrantes: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
Director: Maxim Pozdorovkin
Minutes: 39 min.
'Clinica de Migrantes' is a medical drama about a year in the life of Puentes, one of the only health
clinics in the U.S. involved in the politically controversial practice of providing health care to
undocumented immigrants. By law, illegal immigrants cannot obtain health insurance, and receive no
regular medical treatment. At Puentes, a team of volunteers led by Dr. Steve Larson attend to an evergrowing population of housekeepers, prep cooks, and construction workers. Many come to Puentes
after being turned away at other hospitals. Full of unforgettable patient-doctor interactions and human
portraits, 'Clínica de Migrantes' tells the story of America’s true untouchable class and of the heroic few
who reach out to help them.
Jury Award Best Short, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2016; Norman Vaughan Indomitable
Spirit Award Telluride Mountain Film 2016; Jury Award for Best Documentary Short, Palm Springs
International ShortFest 2016
Colonization Road
Director: Michelle St. John
Minutes: 50 min
In towns throughout Ontario, there are startling reminders of the colonization of Indigenous territories
and the displacement of First Nations people. Anishinaabe comedian and activist Ryan McMahon takes
us to his hometown of Fort Francis and down its main drag, which is called Colonization Road. Similar
streets have similar names in towns and cities across the province, direct reminders of the little-known
Colonization Roads Act of 1872 and its severe impact on First Nations, their treaties and their land in
the name of “Canadian settlement.” On his journey through Ontario, McMahon explores the history of
these roads, meets with settlers in solidarity and raises significant questions about “reconciliation” and
what it means to “decolonize.”
Debris
Director: John Bolton
Minutes: 14 min
This short film is a portrait of Tofino, BC intertidal artist Pete Clarkson as he crafts his most ambitious
and personal project to date: a memorial to the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami. He,
like so many of us around the world, was deeply affected by the disaster. Years later, as splintered and
mangled timber and other objects started to wash ashore, the disaster hit home again for Clarkson, and
the inspiration for his memorial was born. In Clarkson’s caring hands, the remnants from the Tohoku
region take on a life of their own as he shapes them into a unique public sculpture. The result is an
evocative memorial that is a site of remembrance and contemplation, and an emotional bridge
connecting an artist, his community and a people an ocean away.
Dreams of the Electric City
Director: Daniel Crawford
Minutes: 4 min.
Dreams of the Electric City creates an open form of storytelling by uniting moments of chance and
discovery within a framework of careful composition. Shot entirely on location in Peterborough Ontario,
each scene was created using found spaces and objects loaded with symbolic possibility. These found
materials were then arranged into sequences of animation to reveal tangled webs of narrative potential,
evoking a sense of the city's dreams. The stop-motion process brings inanimate objects to life and also
enables extremely long photography exposures, condensing time to create uncanny, dreamlike
illuminations of a living landscape. The medium of stop-motion allows for a layered form of story-telling
that illustrates our own relationship to a layered environment. Just as our community grows out of its
unique situation of overlapping urban and natural spaces, this project evolved out of its interaction with
both natural and artificial materials.
EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE
Director: ORHAN TEKEOGLU
Minutes 45 min.
In the deep valleys crossing the regions to the east of the Black Sea, a group of extraordinary people
maintain traditions and carry out a series of projects going from the construction of zero impact
cableways to the building of retreats clinging to the edge of a precipice. All these people share a
background of common traditions that have continued without interruption over the course of the years.
European Sustainability Award, Terra Di Tutti Film Festival 2016
Freightened: The Real Price of Shipping
Director: Denis Delestrac
Minutes: 90 min.
90% of the goods we consume in the West are manufactured in far-off lands and brought to us by ship.
The cargo shipping industry is a key player in world economy and forms the basis of our very model of
modern civilization; without it, it would be impossible to fulfil the ever-increasing demands of our
societies. Yet the functioning and regulations of this business remain largely obscure to many, and its
hidden costs affect us all. Due to their size, freight ships no longer fit in traditional city harbours; they
have moved out of the public’s eye, behind barriers and check points. The film answers questions such
as: Who pulls the strings in this multi-billion dollar business? To what extent does the industry control
our policy makers? How does it affect the environment above and below the water-line? And what’s life
like for modern seafarers? Taking us on a journey over seas and oceans, FREIGHTENED reveals in an
audacious investigation the many faces of world-wide freight shipping and sheds light on the
consequences of an all-but-visible industry.
Grandma Learns to Drive
Director: Dominique Keller
Minutes 12 min.
Thérèse has one big life regret — she never got her driver's license. Now she really wants to get
behind the wheel. But is it a good idea to become a new driver at eighty-six? In addition to her
advanced age, there are other barriers standing between Thérèse and her license. She has limited
English skills, only a grade eight education, doesn’t know how to use a computer, and has a husband
who is unwilling to take the passenger seat.
Helped by her granddaughter and filmmaker Dominique, a determined Thérèse goes all in and works
harder than she’s ever worked before in one, last, bold attempt to obtain her Alberta Class 5 Driver’s
permit. Follow Thérèse on her bumpy road to independence — and if you don't like the way she drives,
get off the sidewalk!
Great Unsung Women of Computing
Director: Kathy Kleiman, Jon Palfreman and Kate McMahon
Minutes: 48 min.
In the United States, women are vastly underrepresented in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering
& Math) fields, holding under 25% of STEM jobs and a disproportionately low share of STEM
undergraduate degrees. Great Unsung Women of Computing is a series of three remarkable
documentary films that show how women revolutionized the computing and Internet technology we use
today, inspiring female students to believe that programming careers lie within their grasp.
The Computers features six young women who programmed the world’s first modern, programmable
computer, ENIAC, as part of a secret WWII project. The Coders tells the story of two extraordinary
women who invented technologies (Java and Flash) that revolutionized the Internet. And The Future
Makers shares the innovations of a young MIT PhD, who invented the 3D “gestural recognition
technology” that allows us to interact with smart devices using natural hand gestures instead of static
keyboards or touchpads.
Gun Runners
Director: Anjali Nayar
Minutes: 90 min.
This touching and poignant film follows two of the most notorious warriors and cattle rustlers in
Northern Kenya who trade in their weapons for sneakers, as part of a government-sponsored program,
to pursue their dream of becoming professional marathon runners. Filmed over eight years, Matanda
and Arile face financial challenges, fierce competition and family pressure as they struggle to put their
violent pasts behind them. A lot is at stake for both of them, and the whole world is watching. Set in
Kenya's astoundingly beautiful Great Rift Valley, an area famous for both its international arms trade
and its champion runners, and told entirely from Matanda's and Arile's points of view, Gun
Runners puts a face on a nation's valiant attempts to embrace both tradition and modernity. Lynne
Fernie
HAND. LINE. COD.
Director: Justin Simms
Minutes: 14 min.
A short film about the renewed line caught cod movement happening on the remote, ruggedly beautiful
Fogo Island, Newfoundland. Local fishers, engaging in a modern experiment to deliver directly to
commercial markets, are harvesting its natural resources in creative ways. Hand. Line. Cod. introduces
the provocative “economic nutrition label” and exposes where the money goes…
Handsome & Majestic
Director: Handsome & Majestic
Minutes: 12 min.
"Handsome & Majestic" follows the story of Milan Halikowski, a teenager from the rural city of Prince
George, BC. As a recently transitioned transgender boy, Milan deals with discrimination and abuse
from his peers and teachers at school, as he seeks to find other kids like himself. Throughout these
hardships, he becomes a role model and an advocate for trans people in his small community and
beyond.
OUTTV People’s Choice Award for Best Short 2016, Best Canadian Film, Queer North Film Festival
2016
Hooligan Sparrow
Director: Nangfu Wang
Minutes 84 min.
The danger is palpable as intrepid young filmmaker Nanfu Wang follows maverick activist Ye Haiyan
(a.k.a Hooligan Sparrow) to southern China to protest the case of six elementary school girls who were
sexually abused by their principal.
Marked as enemies of the state, the activists are under constant
government surveillance and face interrogation, harassment, and imprisonment. Sparrow, who
gained notoriety with her advocacy work for sex workers’ rights, continues to champion girls’ and
women’s rights and arms herself with the power and reach of social media.
Best Social Impact Film, Documentary Feature Greenwich International Film Festival 2016
How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can't Change
Director: Josh Fox
Minutes: 127 min.
In How to Let Go of the World and Love All The Things Climate Can't Change, Oscar Nominated
director Josh Fox (GASLAND) continues in his deeply personal style, investigating climate change –
the greatest threat our world has ever known. Traveling to 12 countries on 6 continents, the film
acknowledges that it may be too late to stop some of the worst consequences and asks, what is it that
climate change can’t destroy? What is so deep within us that no calamity can take it away?
Documentary Award for Environmental Advocacy, Environmental Film Festival in the National’s Capital
2016
Jordan Stories -Ka’ek
Director: Hamdi Alayed
Minutes: 4 min.
Khaled finds that roaming the streets of Amman selling bread brings him in contact with poor and rich
customers, every night this bread philosopher climbs the rooftops of Amman to talk to his pigeons.
Mabel
Director: Teresa MacInnes
Minutes: 21 min.
Feisty and fiercely independent 89 year-old hairdresser Mabel was the first woman in her rural Nova
Scotia community to be a wife, mother and small business owner.
MAJOR!
Director: Annalise Ophelian
Minutes: 91 min.
Before there were high-profile advocates such as Laverne Cox and Janet Mock, many transgender
women of colour fought tirelessly for the rights of their sisters. One of the extraordinary women at the
forefront of the movement is the passionate subject of this documentary.
MAJOR! documents the ways in which Miss Major Griffin-Gracy's fascinating life has touched on many
vital issues, from her participation in the Stonewall riots, her phenomenal HIV outreach in the 1990s,
her outspokenness on the daily threat of violence for transgender women, and her support and
advocacy, through the transgender Gender Variant and Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP), for
transgender women who are incarcerated. MAJOR! underscores the profound love that Miss Major
gives and receives from those around her, proving the enduring and lifesaving power of community.
Winner, Jury Award Best Documentary, Kaleidoscope LGBT Film Festival 2016
Maya Angelou and Still I Rise
Director: Bob Hercules, Rita Coburn Whack
Minutes: 114
The first documentary about the iconic writer, poet, performer and activist who overcame racism and
devastating abuse to become one of our culture’s greatest voices. Rare footage and photos unveil an
intimate and often unknown view of her public and personal life with the power of her own words.
Skillfully crafted with heart and ease, this film reflects the vibrant spirit of an American civil rights legend
who was determined to live her philosophies and fought for what she believed in.
Audience Award, AFI Docs 2016; Best Documentary, Boulder International Film Festival 2016
Microworld in a balcony
Director: Lina Crespo and Gabriel Escobar
Minutes: 7 min.
Even in the middle of a city there is so much to explore that is worth to stop and contemplate.
Many beings in constant motion with an infinite range of textures, shapes and colors.
This is a closely look at some fantastic beings with whom we live every day and many times we pass
unnoticed.
Moving Towns'
Director: Megan Murphy
Minutes: 23 min.
For 124 years PG Towns & Sons General Store has stood at one of the 4 corners of the village of
Douro Ontario. Four generations of the Towns family have run the shop, from the day of trading eggs
for store credit to creating savvy social media campaigns to stay relevant, the store has remained a
vibrant part of the community. But the times they are a-changing. Subdivisions and big box stores are
making it impossible for small independent, family run shops to survive. After more than a century in
business, PG Towns has been forced to close its doors for good. What will happen to this community
now that the heartbeat of the village is gone? And, in the battle between ever expanding corporate
superstores versus locally run family businesses, the question remains; what do we really value?
My Grandma Learns to Drive
Director: Dominique Keller
Minutes 12 min.
Thérèse has one big life regret — she never got her driver's license. Now she really wants to get
behind the wheel. But is it a good idea to become a new driver at eighty-six? In addition to her
advanced age, there are other barriers standing between Thérèse and her license. Originally, from
Quebec, she has limited English skills and only a grade eight education. To make matters worse, all of
the tests in Alberta are run on computers and Thérèse doesn't even know how to turn one on.
But these challenges pale in comparison to Thérèse's biggest obstacle of all: her husband Yvon. Yvon
has spent the last sixty-five years ruling their marriage and he really does not want to get into the
passenger seat anytime soon. But Thérèse is determined. She says this must be the last thing she
accomplishes on earth. Helped by her granddaughter and filmmaker Dominique, Thérèse goes all in
and works harder than she’s ever worked before in one, last, bold attempt to obtain her Alberta Class 5
Driver’s permit. Follow Thérèse on her bumpy road to independence — and if you don't like the way
she drives, get off the sidewalk!
National Bird
Director: Sonia Kennebeck
Minutes: 92 min.
National Bird follows the dramatic journey of three whistleblowers who are determined to break the
silence around one of the most controversial current affairs issues of our time: The secret U.S. drone
war.
At the centre of the film are three U.S. military veterans. Tortured by guilt over participating in the killing
of faceless people in foreign countries, they decide to speak out publicly, despite the possible
consequences. Their stories take dramatic turns, leading one of the protagonists to Afghanistan where
she learns about a horrendous incident. But her journey also gives hope for peace and redemption.
National Bird gives rare insight into the U.S. drone program through the eyes of veterans and survivors,
connecting their stories as never seen before in a documentary. Its images haunt the audience and
bring a faraway issue close to home.
Official Selection, Tribeca Film Festival 2016
Nowhere Land
Director: Nowhere Land
Minutes: 15 min.
This short documentary is a quiet elegy for the ancestral Inuit way of life, which exists now only in the
memories of those who experienced it. Bonnie Ammaaq and her family remember it vividly. When
Bonnie was a little girl, her parents packed up their essentials, bundled her and her younger brother
onto a long, fur-lined sled called a qamutik, and left the government-manufactured community of
Igloolik to live off the land as had generations of Inuit before them. For 11 years their home was not just
the small shack called “Outpost Camp” but the entire vast and beautiful territory that lay outside its
door. For them, the wild open tundra wasn’t just somewhere to live, it was somewhere -- whereas the
settlement of Igloolik, with its raucous snowmobiles, flat and snowy landscapes and relative hustlebustle, is unquestionably nowhere.
Obit
Director: Vanessa Gould
Minutes: 93 min.
Every day, obituary writers sit down to document the lives of the recently deceased—constrained by
pressing deadlines, stingy word counts and often insufficient information. Plunge into the world of New
York Timesobituary writers who record the lives of everyone from the inventor of the Slinky to the man
who dropped the first atomic bomb. These writers face the difficult task of separating truth from fiction
to provide impartial accounts for the historical record. Step inside "the morgue": the paper's catacomblike archive of meticulously ordered files and photographs, serving as a stellar resource for the best
obituaries in the business, including those written in advance. This engrossing profile brings you face to
face with those who toil at the juncture of past and present, and who insist that while the job may seem
morbid, they are ultimately reporting on life
Ohero:kon - Under the Husk
Director: Katsitsionni Melissa Fox
Minutes:
"Ohero:kon - Under the Husk" is a 27-minute documentary that follows the challenging journey of two
Mohawk girls as they take part in their traditional passage rites to becoming Mohawk Women.
Kaienkwinehtha and Kasennakohe are childhood friends from traditional families living in the Mohawk
Community of Akwesasne that straddles the U.S./Canada border. They both take part in a four-year
adolescent passage rites ceremony called ohero:kon "under the Husk" that has been revived in their
community. This ceremony challenges them spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically. It shapes
the women they become.
OSHKIGMONG: A Place Where I Belong
Director: Yvonne Drebert
Minutes: 32 min.
This documentary looks at the unique history of the Michi Saagiig (Mississauga) of Curve Lake First
Nation (Oshkigmong), a small reserve nestled on a peninsula 25 Kilometres northeast of Peterborough,
Ontario.
Examine our Proud history - from the early stories of the Michi Saagiig, through the treaty process and
the residual impacts from the controversial 1923 Williams Treaties (which covers approximately 13
million acres of present day Ontario), to the early years of the community, up to the current day - as told
by our Elders and knowledge holders.
Ovarian Psycos
Director: Kate Trumbull-LaValle and Joanna Sokolowski
Minutes: 72 min.
By the light of the full moon ride the Ovarian Psycos, an Eastside Los Angeles bicycle brigade founded
by and for young womxn of colour. Fierce and strong, this unapologetic bike crew rides the streets,
fostering connections to heal from their broken homes and providing protection for other womxn facing
violence in their neighborhoods. Leading the crew is founder Xela de la X, a single mother and poet MC
who struggles to find a balance between her activism and dedication to the group and parenting her
young daughter. While street artist Andi, estranged from her family, prepares herself to one day
become the crew's leader, a poverty-stricken Evie battles against her overprotective mother. With a
credo born of feminist ideals, Indigenous understanding and an urban/hood mentality, these guardians
for womxn are taking back the streets one bike ride at a time. Heather Haynes
Audience Award, Portland Film Festival 2016; People’s Choice Award, Rueda Film Festival 2016
Random Acts of Legacy
Director: Ali Kazimi
Minutes: 77 min.
For many visible minorities, home movies used to be a luxury, and their rare existence lends insight into
personal lives otherwise omitted from moving image history. Increasingly, these original celluloid
documents have replaced other media as a key to family histories. Director Ali Kazimi has been
rescuing these orphaned home movies, left to decay over decades. A random lot he acquired reveals
the middle class lives of a Chinese-American family from the Great Depression to post-war middle
America. The films were the work of Silas Fung, a commercial artist who was fascinated with the
Chicago World's Fair and was supported by his trailblazing wife who held a high position at an
insurance company. Kazimi unspools a touching memoir through Fung's films by contacting surviving
descendants. As they watch the films and witness youthful images once thought lost, a profoundly
different perspective on a Midwest family of colour graciously takes form.
Real Boy
Director: Shaleece Haas
Minutes: 72 min.
REAL BOY is an intimate story of a family in transition. As 19-year-old Bennett Wallace navigates early
sobriety, late adolescence, and the evolution of his gender identity, his mother makes her own
transformation from resistance to acceptance of her trans son. Along the way, both mother and son find
support in their communities, reminding us that families are not only given, but chosen.
Audience Award, Best Documentary, Frameline Film Festival 2016; Jury Prize, Best Feature, Iris Prize
Film Festival 2016; Jury Prize, Best Documentary, OUT at the Movies 2016; Jury Prize, Best
Documentary Feature, Tampa Bay International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival 2016; Audience Award,
Best Documentary, ReelQ 2016; Queer Youth Jury Prize, Oslo/Fusion 2016
Revolution Begins at Home
Director: Clarke Mackey
Minutes: 90 min.
When Canadian filmmaker Clarke Mackey was eighteen, his mother gave up a promising career as an
abstract expressionist painter to become a full-time political activist in Toronto. The year was 1969.
Eleanor Mackey joined the Maoist group called The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist).
This group advocated for the overthrow of capitalism and the imperialist state. It was headed by a
charismatic ideologue and his even more dogmatic disciples. Clarke’s brother Paul (aged 13) and sister
Eva (aged 11) both joined the movement along with his mother. No one was prepared for the danger
and turmoil that followed. In this new documentary, Mackey digs deep into the visual and audio
archives to tell a tale filled with youthful idealism, hubris, slapstick comedy and police brutality. Through
the story of his family and other activists, Mackey explores the political upheavals of the late 1960s in
Canada and what lessons they might provide for today.
River Song
Directors: Amro Khito & Sarah Decarlo
Minutes 7 min.
Exploring the emerging relationships between newcomer and Indigenous communities, this short film is
based on the first conversations between two youths, one First Nations and one Syrian, as they embark
on a canoe ride across our shared waters (Nibi / Maa’).
Rolling in Havana: Bicycle Stories (Rodando en La Habana: bicycle stories)
Director: Jaime Santos and Jennifer Hosek
Minutes: 30 min.
Rodando en La Habana: bicycle stories (Santos and Hosek; 29 min; Spanish w/ English subs)
premiered to riveted audiences and media at the 2015 Latin American Film Festival. It tells of pedalpower and community in Havana today, 20 years after the height of the Special Period, when over 1
million Chinese bicycles were imported to aid survival in a Cuba suddenly without Soviet petroleum.
Seven Songs for a Long Life
Director: Amie Hardie
Minutes: 82 min.
From the moment Tosh refuses to fill in his assessment form and serenades us with a remarkably good
Sinatra song, this documentary grabs life through song. Six hospice patients allow us into tender,
vulnerable and funny moments of their lives. Singing unlocks the patients' pasts, guides their dreams
and their futures. Encouraged by one nurse who loves to sing, and a collaborative filming process, they
wrestle with the new insecurity facing us all: recent advances in biomedicine mean we can now live for
years rather than months after a terminal diagnosis. Sometimes. But not every time. How do we cope
with this uncertainty?
Honourable Mention Best Canadian Feature Documentary Award, Hot Docs 2016
Shadow Girl
Director: Maria Teresa Larrain
Minutes: 80 min.
In a moving first-person documentary, a Chilean filmmaker confronts her impending blindness by
chronicling her struggles and her return home, where she reunites with family and befriends a group of
street vendors who teach her how to be blind.
Shadow World
Director: Johan Grimonprez
Minutes: 94 min.
Haliburton may be the shining example of an out of control arms industry, where the profit is billions of
dollars and the loss is human lives. In Shadow World, based upon the 2011 book by Andrew
Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade, there are other weapons manufacturers,
world leaders, arms dealers, military leaders, and behind-the-scenes movers that come under director
Johan Grimonprez's (Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y) scrutiny in an eye-popping assemblage of news and archival
footage. Accompanying the images are comments from Feinstein, a slippery arms dealer, former New
York Times writer Chris Hedges, and New Yorker investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, retired US
Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, and other once-willing participants in the business who decided to
speak out. Grimonprez spares no one to expose a shadow world of corruption, slush funds, drones,
illicit bed partners, and a whole lot of lies and greed from the early 80s up to the present. The aim is to
perpetuate war in order to generate more cash, no matter what the expense.
Best Documentary Feature Film, Edinburgh International Film Festival 2016
Someone is Weaving
Director: Leila khalilzadeh
Minutes: 21 min.
This film is a fictional documentary about an old woman, who dedicates her life, knitting traditional
shoes called "Geaveh". The story happens in a small village called Nashalj.
Sonita
Director: Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami
Minutes: 90 min
Sonita is about a determined and animated Afghan teen living in Tehran, who dreams of being a
famous rapper. But in Iran, the government doesn’t let girls sing solo. And in her Afghan home she is
expected to become a teenage bride. With her family keen to marry her off to receive her dowry,
tradition bears down on Sonita. Armed with nothing but passion and persistence, she must turn
obstacle into opportunity.
Audience Award, Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival 2015, Audience Award, Camden
International Film Festival 2016; World Cinema Award, Documentary Edge Festival 2016; Best
Documentary, East End Film Festival 2016; Center for Documentary Studies Filmmaker Award, Full
Frame Documentary Film Festival 2016
Surfacing
Director: Frank Flynn
Minutes: 13 min.
This piece proposes the notion that mental health (and suicide in particular) affects families in the same
way as any other illness. The end goal of depicting mental illness as a component of family life is to
destigmatize the subject and to generate discussion and empathy for people and families struggling
with mental health issues.
Syrian Eagles
Director: Aisha Jamal
Minutes: 12 min
The film is a portrait of Abdo, the coach of a team of Syrian refugee soccer players in Toronto. It covers
his days in Syria and re-establishing himself in Canada.
The Apology
Director: Tiffany Hsiung
Director: 104
The Apology follows the personal journeys of three former “comfort women” who were among the
200,000 girls and young women kidnapped and forced into military sexual slavery by the Imperial
Japanese Army during World War II. Some 70 years after their imprisonment in so-called “comfort
stations,” the three “grandmothers”– Grandma Gil in South Korea, Grandma Cao in China,
and Grandma Adela in the Philippines – face their twilight years in fading health. After decades of living
in silence and shame about their past, they know that time is running out to give a first-hand account of
the truth and ensure that this horrific chapter of history is not forgotten. Whether they are seeking a
formal apology from the Japanese government or summoning the courage to finally share their secret
with loved ones, their resolve moves them forward as they seize this last chance to set future
generations on a course for reconciliation, healing, and justice.
Cinephile Award for Best Documentary, 21st Busan International Film Festival 2016
The Bad Kids
Director Keith Fulton, Lou Pepe
Minutes: 101 min.
But THE BAD KIDS is more than just a story of one teacher making a difference. It is a look at a
practical model for how public education can address and combat the crippling effects of poverty in the
lives of American schoolchildren. Parallel to the conflicts of the three main characters, Black Rock’s
day-to-day life reveals Viland’s philosophies in constant application: through the customs of the school,
through her attentions to other teens and their crises, and through her tireless efforts to promote the
school’s mission both within the district and at the state level.
USA Documentary Special Jury Award for
VÉRITÉ Filmmaking, Sundance 2016
The Eagle Huntress
Director: Otto Bell
Minutes: 87 min.
Aishol-pan, a 13-year-old girl, trains to become the first female in 12 generations of her Kazakh family
to become an eagle hunter and rises to the pinnacle of a tradition that has been handed down from
father to son for centuries. While there are many old Kazakh eagle hunters who vehemently reject the
idea of any female taking part in their ancient tradition, Aisholpan's father, Nurgaiv, believes that a girl
can do anything a boy can, as long as she's determined.
Audience Award at the Middleburg Film Festival 2016; Best Documentary Feature Film, Hampton
International Film Festival 2016
The Stairs
Director: Hugh Gibson
Minutes: 95 min.
The Stairs tells the story of Marty, Greg and Roxanne, each of whom survived decades of streetinvolvement in Toronto's Regent Park. Using their experiences to ease the paths of others, each works
in public health in their old neighbourhood while struggling to maintain their newly-found stability. Told
over five years, The Stairs defies stereotypes about drug use, sex work and homelessness through an
intimate portrait that is by turns funny, surprising and moving.
The War Show
Director: Andreas Dalsgaard and Obaidah Zytoon
Minutes: 100 min.
Syrian radio host Obaidah Zytoon’s dreams of liberation give way to the grim realities of repression,
forced emigration and extremism in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring. Camera in hand, Zytoon joins
her artist and activist friends in the streets to protest Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and record their
experiences. They talk about art and relationships as much as politics. But as they film themselves over
the next several years, their hopes for a better future are tested by violence, imprisonment, and death.
Venice Days Award 2016
Things Arab Men Say
Director: Nisreen Baker
Minutes: 54 min.
Join Jay, Ghassan, Faisal and their friends as they gather at Jamal’s Eden Barber Shop for a haircut, a
shave, and a lively discussion on politics, religion, and identity. Although located in Edmonton, Jamal’s
shop could be anywhere, serving as a microcosm of the Arab community.
At times serious, but laced with deft humour, the group debates the issues at hand, offering oftensurprising views that bring us closer to changing the narrative that surrounds their community. The
group includes Christians, Druze, Muslims, both Shia and Sunni, along with secular types. While most
are recent immigrants —from Lebanon, Iraq, Sudan and Egypt — one man, Faisal, has family roots in
Canada that go back over a century.
Tomorrow's Power
Director: Amy Miller
Minutes: 76
TOMORROW’S POWER presents three stories from Gaza, Germany and Colombia, of people
challenging current power structures, leading to possibilities of a future with greater social and climate
justice. In the war-torn, oil-rich Arauca province in Colombia, communities have been building a peace
process from the bottom up. In Germany, activists are pushing the country to fully leave behind the
extraction of fossil fuels and complete its transition to renewable energy. And in Gaza, the problem of
daily energy blackouts, born out of the 10-year siege, is being tackled by health practitioners through
solar power in order to provide adequate care in hospitals.
Two Soft Things, Two Hard Things
Director: Mark Kenneth Woods and Michael Yerxa
Minutes: 71 min
As a small group in Nunavut, Canada prepare for a seminal LGBTQ Pride celebration in the Arctic, the
film explores how colonization and religion have shamed and erased traditional Inuit beliefs about
sexuality and family structure and how, 60 years later, a new generation of Inuit are actively
‘unshaming’ their past.
Best Documentary, Fargo-Moorhead LGBT Film Festival 2016; Best Two-Spirited Film, Audience Choice
Award, Queer North Film Festival 2016
Uncle Howard
Director: Aaron Brookner
Minutes: 96 min.
Director Howard Brookner died of AIDS in NYC in 1989 while in post-production on his breakthrough
Hollywood movie. His body of work has been buried for 30 years in William Burroughs’ bunker until his
nephew Aaron unearths his uncle's story and the memory of everything he was.
Uyway
Director: Santiago Torres
Minutes: 12 min.
In the Potato Park, a small group of Andean communities struggle to preserve their potato seeds.
Global change and extreme climatic events threaten the potato diversity necessary for a resilient
agriculture and a food secure future. To save this rich bio-cultural heritage, the Quechua people will
embark on a journey of spiritual significance. They will journey to the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard,
Norway at the North Pole. The seed will be held as a life insurance, so that in case that the seed is lost
in the future they might bring it back. And then returning to their land of legends, where seeds, humans,
the wild and the sacred live in reciprocity knowing that their potato diversity is safe and their struggle is
helping to make the world agriculture viable.
When Two Worlds Collide
Director: Heidi Brandenburg and Mathew Orzel
Minutes: 100 min
Step inside a tense and deeply controversial battle between Peruvian leaders who will stop at nothing
to extract natural resources from the Amazon, and Indigenous protectors who return the fight in full
force to protect their homes and fragile ecosystem. As the Peruvian government passes new legislation
that opens the rainforests to destruction, famed Indigenous leader Alberto Pizango makes an
impassioned plea to stop the extraction of oil, minerals and gas from untouched Amazonian land.
Brewing tensions spark one of the largest Indigenous protests in Peruvian history, and despite no
involvement, Pizango is exiled, accused of inciting violence. With an unflinching camera, this immersive
tour de force drops us in the middle of two colliding worlds. With guilty parties on both sides, tragedy
and destruction tear paradise apart. Heather Haynes
Winner Special Jury Best Debut Feature, Sundance Film Festival 2016; Grand Jury Prize, Documenta
Madrid 2016; Top 10 Favorite, Hot Docs Film Festival 2016
White Walls Say Nothing
Director: Jonny Robson and Gates Bradley
Minutes: 117 min.
White Walls Say Nothing is a feature-length documentary about art and activism in the streets of
Buenos Aires.
Buenos Aires is a complex, chaotic city. It has European style and a Latin American heart. It has
oscillated between dictatorship and democracy for over a century, and its citizens have barely known
political or economic stability.
Throughout Buenos Aires’ turbulent history, successive generations of activists and artists have taken
to the streets to express themselves, through words and through art. This has given the walls a
powerful and symbolic role. They have become the city’s voice.
This powerful tradition of expression in public space; of art and activism, has made the streets of
Buenos Aires into a riot of colour and communication.