2015 DOXA Documentary Film Festival Program Book by DOXA Documentary Film Festival

Apr 30 - May 10

CONTENTS Tickets and General Festival Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 The Documentary Media Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Greetings from our Funders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Welcome from DOXA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Awards and Juries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Special Programs: Justice Forum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Spotlight: Satire & Subversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Special Program: Rated Y for Youth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Rated Screenings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Nigel Moore Award . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Industry Panels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Curated Program: French French . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Curated Program: Wild Grass: New Chinese Images . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Essay: French French by Thierry Garrel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Essay: Chinese Independent Film from a Modernist Perspective by Zhang Yaxuan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Screenings #chicagoGirl: The Social Network Takes on a Dictator . . . . . . . 72 A Rock and a Hard Place (w/ E&N) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 After the Last River . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 The Age of Love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Alain Cavalier, 7 chapitres, 5 jours, 2 pièces-cuisine (7 Chapters, 5 days, 2 Rooms with a Kitchen) . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Austerlitz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Caged Birds: Shorts Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Cain’s Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Canadian Hobbies: Shorts Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Censored Voices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 The Ceremony (w/ Max Dean) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Cincinnati Goddamn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Le cose belle (The Good Things) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 The Creeping Garden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Cut Out the Eyes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Dark Star: H.R. Giger’s World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Deep Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll . . . 57 Drone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Éric Rohmer, preuves à l’appui (Evidence) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Even Though the Whole World is Burning (w/ City Centre) . . . 45 Florence, Arizona . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 The Forecaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 La France est notre patrie (France is Our Mother Country) . . 49 From My Syrian Room . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Géographie humaine (Human Geography) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Georges Franju, le visionnaire (The Visionary) (w/ La Photo) . . . 41 Good Things Await . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 GTFO: Get the F&#% Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Guidelines (La Marche à suivre) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Haze and Fog (w/ i.Mirror by China Tracy) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Heaven Adores You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Hit 2 Pass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 How to Change the World (Opening Night Film) . . . . . . . . . . . 29 I Think You’re Totally Wrong: A Quarrel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Iris (Closing Night Film) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Jacques Rivette le veilleur I: Le Jour (Jacques Rivette The Watchman I: The Day) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Jean Renoir le patron, La Règle et l’exception (The Boss: The Rule and the Exception) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Je suis le people (I Am the People) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Karst Elegies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Kings of Nowhere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Li Wen at East Lake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Madame Phung’s Last Journey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Monsterman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Mosso, Mosso (Jean Rouch comme si…), (As If) . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Le Nez (The Empire of Scents) (w/ Sniff! The Art of Air Tasting) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Of Men and War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 On the Ground: Shorts Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 On the Trail of the Far Fur Country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Orion: The Man Who Would Be King . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Où gît votre sourire enfoui? (Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie?) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Le Paradis (Paradise) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Running on Climate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Seth’s Dominion (w/ I Thought I Told You to Shut Up!!) . . . . . . 35 Seven Digital Deadly Sins Live . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry (w/ Newborns) . . . . . . . . . . 69 Spartacus & Cassandra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 The Special Need . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Stories of Our Lives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Sugar Coated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Sunday Ball . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Tab Hunter Confidential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Tea Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Tell Spring Not To Come This Year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Theory of Obscurity: a film about The Residents . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Transatlantique (w/ Island & Flight) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Unearthed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Uyghurs: Prisoners of the Absurd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 The Yes Men Are Revolting (Special Presentation) . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Tickets AND General Festival Information Tickets General Admission Tickets: $13

Weekday evenings and weekends

Student/Senior Tickets: $11

Any screening except the opening and closing night film Seniors 65+ and Students must show valid ID at door

Weekday Matinee Tickets: 11 $

Weekday films starting at 5:30pm or earlier

Opening Night Film: $17 Membership: $3 Festival Pass: $175

Includes $3 membership Not valid for opening or closing night films or receptions

Festival 5-ticket pack: $60* (online only) Festival 10-ticket pack: $110* (online only)

* Festival 5 and 10 Ticket Packs are only available online. Packs valid for one ticket each for 5 or 10 films. All films must be chosen at time of purchase. Ticket Packs are NOT valid for Opening and Closing Night films, Festival Receptions, or the $3 membership. PAYMENT METHODS

Online: Mastercard and VISA Vancouver Playhouse: Cash, Mastercard and VISA All other venues: Cash, Mastercard, VISA, and Interac

Rush Tickets

Rush tickets may be available at the door when all advance tickets have been sold. A generous allotment of seats are reserved for passholders. Any unclaimed seats will be released just prior to the screening on a first come, first served basis. Will Call

Will Call opens 60 minutes prior to screenings at the Vancouver Playhouse, and 30 minutes prior for all other screenings. Please arrive in advance to allow time to pick up your order. You must present your ID for pick up. Membership

DOXA presents films that have not been seen by Consumer Protection BC. Under BC law, anyone wishing to see these unclassified films must be a member of The Documentary Media Society and at least 18 years of age, unless otherwise stated. When you purchase a membership for $3, you are entitled to attend screenings, provided you show your membership card and your purchased ticket. For a list of screenings classified for younger audiences, please go to page 16.

REFUND POLICY

Theatre Procedures for Festival Passholders

All sales are final. DOXA only offers refunds in cases of technical failure.

Bring your festival pass and membership to Will Call at least 10 minutes prior to the screening you wish to attend. Festival passholders will receive priority seating. A festival pass does not guarantee you seating to sold-out shows. Your festival pass gives you access to all screenings except Opening and Closing Night films, and receptions. All passes are strictly non-transferable and passholders are required to show ID.

EXCHANGE POLICY

Tickets may be exchanged for a $3 service fee for each ticket exchanged. This must be done in person at a DOXA Box Office at least one hour before screening time. Exchanges can only be issued to the original purchaser with a valid picture ID. Complimentary or contest tickets cannot be exchanged.

Venues

To inquire about group bookings of 8 or more people for the same screening, please email boxoffice@doxafestival.ca. Group rates are not eligible for opening or closing night films, or receptions and are subject to availability.

VIFF’s Vancity Theatre • 1181 Seymour Street (@ Davie St) The Cinematheque • 1131 Howe Street (@ Helmcken St) Vancouver Playhouse • 600 Hamilton Street (@ Dunsmuir St) SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts • 149 W Hastings Street (@ Abbott St) The Post at 750 • 110-750 Hamilton Street (@ Robson St)

Advance Tickets

Accessibility

Group Tickets

Online tickets are available for purchase up to two hours in advance of the screening at www.doxafestival.ca. If the screening takes place within two hours, tickets must be purchased at the venue box office. Tickets at the Venues

VIFF’s Vancity Theatre and The Cinematheque (May 1-10) Tickets are available for all festival screenings. Box office opens 30 minutes prior to the first screening of the day at the venue. Vancouver Playhouse (April 30, May 6 and May 10) Tickets are available only for the screening at that venue, on that day. Box office opens 60 minutes prior to the screening. 4

SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts (May 2 and May 4) Tickets are available only for the screenings at that venue, on that day. Box office opens 30 minutes prior to the first ticketed screening of the evening at the venue. The box office will not be open during free screenings and events.

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

DOXA Office: #110 – 750 Hamilton St. | Vancouver, BC | Canada V6B 2R5 604.646.3200

The Documentary Media Society DOXA is presented by The Documentary Media Society, a Vancouver based non-profit, charitable society (incorporated in 1998) devoted to presenting independent and innovative documentaries to Vancouver audiences. The society exists to educate the public about documentary film as an art form through DOXA’s Motion Pictures Film Series and the DOXA Documentary Film Festival, a curated and juried festival comprised of public screenings, panel discussions, public forums and educational programs.

DOXA Staff, Board & Committees Executive Director Kenji Maeda Director of Programming Dorothy Woodend Programming and Education Coordinator Selina Crammond Outreach and Volunteer Manager Gina Garenkooper Finance Coordinator Nancy Loh Sponsorship and Partnership Assistant Daniel Lewis Hospitality Manager Kaen Séguin

Programming Committee Selina Crammond, Nike Hatzidimou, Carson Pfahl, Anant Prabhakar, Dorothy Woodend Screening Committee Jurgen Beerwald, Andrea Bussmann, Layla Cameron, Joe Gin Clark, Amanda Doiron, Mary Fowles, Rami Katz, Brie Koniczek, Anthony Lahaye, Paloma Pacheco, Debra Pentecost, Kris Rothstein, Milena Salazar, Matt Sipple, Maegan Thomas, Cara Urbshott Fundraising Committee Madeleine Davis, Sonia Fraser, Tim Herron, Tariq Jamil, Kenji Maeda, Kaen Séguin Advisory Committee Nova Ami, Kris Anderson, Colin Browne, Szu Burgess, Peg Campbell, Mel D’Souza, Ann Marie Fleming, Cari Green, Colin Low, Duncan Low, Alex Mackenzie, Wendy Oberlander, Carmen Rodriguez, Lauren Weisler, Aerlyn Weissman Guest Curators Thierry Garrel (French French) Zhang Yaxuan (Wild Grass: New Chinese Images)

Writers

Selina Crammond, Chris Dafoe, Thierry Garrel, Joe Gin Clark, Nike Hatzidimou, Paloma Pacheco, Carson Pfahl, Kris Rothstein, Avril Woodend, Dorothy Woodend

STAFF

Print Traffic Coordinator Kathy Evans

Kenji Maeda, Dorothy Woodend, Selina Crammond, Gina Garenkooper

Box Office Michael Battley, Jessica Brudner (Manager)

Nancy Loh, DANIEL LEWIS, Kaen Seguin, Kathy Evans

Venue Managers Martin Alldred, Donna Soares, Teresa Weir Media Relations Marnie Wilson / The Artsbiz Public Relations

Michael Battley, Martin Alldred, Jessica Brudner, Donna Soares

Visual Media Assistant Kevin Fitzgerald Graphic Design steve chow / chowdesign.ca Board of Directors Patrick Carroll (treasurer), Chris Dafoe, Sonia Fraser (chair), Kathryn Hayashi, Roger Holdstock, Yves J. Ma, Nilesh Patel, Debra Pentecost (secretary)

Marnie wilson, Kevin Fitzgerald, steve chow

BOARD Patrick Carroll, Chris Dafoe, Sonia Fraser, Kathryn Hayashi

Roger Holdstock, Yves J. Ma, Nilesh Patel, Debra Pentecost

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Presenting Partner

Funders

Major Partners

SPOTLIGHT SERIES PARTNER

Turn off backgrounds before export

Premiere Media PartnerS

Consulate and Cultural Partners

Consulat général de France à Vancouver

PREMIERE hospitality Partner

hospitality Partners

SOCIAL MEDIA PARTNER media partners

SPECIAL EVENT Partner

PRINT PARTNER

aWARD Partner

DISTRIBUTION Partner

SCREENING PARTNERS

AUDIENCE PARTNERS

ACFC WEST, LOCAL 2020 UNIFOR

THANK YOU We launched DOXA’s Paint By Numbers campaign at the 2014 festival where every donation we received contributed an image from some of the great films that we’ve screened over the years to DOXA’s Open for Discussion poster. Make a donation to any of DOXA’s current campaigns, including our newly established Holdstock Fund for Documentary Engagement (see page 64) and for a minimum donation of $20 you will receive a printed copy of DOXA’s limited edition poster. Every bit helps! Thank you to those who have already made a generous donation to DOXA!

Tom Adair Dale Aucoin Jason Bailey Peter Ball Nancy Barker Ben Ingram and Associates Douglas Beaton Mary Ellen Belfiore Laura Benna Russel Black Susan Boutwood Nick Brandestini Colin Browne Sherry Burns Chris Burwash Peter Cameron Sheena Campbell & Kris Anderson Patrick Carroll Anna Chmielewski Michael Choy Janice Chutter Joseph Clark Joelene Clarke Catherine Clement Desiree Cooper Melanie Covey Blair Cresswell Elise Drake Simon Edwards Erin Ellis Kathy Evans Pat Feindel Lucinda Flavelle

Ann Marie Fleming Cynthia Flood David Frank Scott Fraser Sonia Fraser Kristi Fuoco Prem Gill Donna Gordon Lynda Griffiths Hilary Henegar Kathryn Hayashi Roger Holdstock Bill Hubbard Suzanne Humphreys Lucy Hyslop Chandra Jade Lynda Jane David Jones Neil Jones-Rodway Harry Killas Bonnie Klein Alpha Lam Fiona T Lam Robert Landy Stacey LeBlanc Jeanne LeSage Stephan Lock Kenji Maeda Make Believe Media Doreen Manuel Melody Mason Moshe Mastai Yuki Matsuno

Kelly Maxwell Mel McElree Karie McKinley & Lauren Weisler Dolina McLay Laura & Rex Moore S. Ti Muntarbhorn Kevin Murawsky Sacha Narine Northbridge Financial Corporation Wendy Oberlander Marlie Oden Mary Anne Pare Janice Pass Nilesh Patel David Pay & Brian Laberge Debra Pentecost Jeanne and Bruce Pentecost Ana Policzer

Nancy Pollak Vibeke Rasmussen Steve Robertson Marina Selezeneva Moira Simpson Jan Smith Robyn Smith Teri Snelgrove Daryl Sturdy Sandra Sundhu Colleen Taylor Telus Corporation Leslie Thompson United Way of the Lower Mainland Shirley Walker Harold Welch Michelle Welygan Silvaine Zimmermann …and our anonymous donors

THANK YOU Thank you to our contributors, supporters, and volunteers: MaryAnn Alteen Kris Anderson Norman Armour Luanne Armstrong Trevor Battye Brian Berry Shane Birley Livia Bloom Michael Boucher Andy Broderick Colin Browne Valerie Cairns Greg Chambers J茅r么me Charbonnet Jeff Chiba Stearns Barbara Chirinos Michael Choy Jen Crothers Adam Cook Ann Coombs Randy Lee Cutler Alec Dawson Elvy Del Bianco Drew Dennis Felipe Diaz John Dippong Fanny Dufour Roxanne Duncan Kate Dunford Katrina Dunn Doug Durand Kevin Eastwood Sherry Ewings Barbara Fairbrother Christine Faron Chan Venay Felton Bryony Flynn Lisa g Nielsen Samir Gandesha Thierry Garrel Ian Gibson Patty Gibson Jeff Grayston Brenda Grunau

Steven Hawkins Anna Hetherington Carolyn Hicks Rob Hillstead Michelle Hoar Jason Hujber Cathy Hunt Julia Ivanova Liesl Jauk Sheryl Jones Rohit Joseph Melissa Kajpust Peter Kendall Mina Khatam Paul Klassen Lisemari Kordoski Denise Kostash Erika Kumar Vanessa Kwan Alberta Lai Roger Larry Cher Lee Mark Leiren-Young Jeanne LeSage Maureen Levitt Kim Linekin Jennifer Lipishan-Gorr Alie Lynch Joanne MacKinnon Justin Mah Chris Martell Michelle Mason Cherryl Masters Kelly Maxwell Carrie MacGregor Kathryn McGuire Allyson McGrane Ross McMillan Connor Meakin Robin Mirsky-Daniels Sirkka Moeller Laura & Rex Moore Rosie Nathani

Kaleim Nathani Jesse Neate Leah Nelson Jana Nixon Benny Nordberg Juanita Odin David Pay Marguerite Pigott Rafael Pont Al Reid Marnie Rice Thea Richmond Judy Robertson Klodyne Rodney Ina Rossow Siobhan Rowe Milena Salazar Jacob Saltzberg Luigi Sarno Minna Schendlinger Daniel Sebal Nik Sheehan Liz Shorten Christian Sida-Valenzuela Marko Simcic Jim Sinclair Victoria Smith Teri Snelgrove Pierre Stolte Karen Truscott Teresa Toews Bill Uhrich Darcy Vermeulen Brittany Vesterback Danielle Viau Alisha Weng Marnie Wilson Tami Wilson Jackie Wong Robert Wong Gillian Wood Ellen Siew Meng Yap Nickolai Zarchukoff

GREETINGS FROM OUR FUNDERS On the road to Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017, we have a wonderful opportunity to celebrate everything that makes this such a remarkable country—including the arts and culture that tell our stories and shape our identity. The art of the documentary has a rich history in Canada, and the annual DOXA Documentary Film Festival highlights our place as a leader in this sector of the film industry. This gathering offers us a chance to see the work of some of the best documentary filmmakers from this country and beyond. On behalf of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Government of Canada, I would like to thank everyone who helped make this year’s DOXA possible. Our Government is proud to support this festival in its efforts to promote excellence in documentaries both at home and abroad.

Whether meant to educate or inspire, inform or entertain, documentary films continue to bring truth and thoughtprovoking ideas to appreciative audiences through cutting-edge cinematography. Since 2000, the DOXA Documentary Film Festival has earned recognition as one of the premier festivals of its kind. From April 30 to May 10, it will again garner well-deserved international attention and accolades. Congratulations to the Documentary Media Society, festival organizers, volunteers and the many talented independent filmmakers for creating this important platform in Vancouver to showcase the best of innovative documentary filmmaking and to celebrate the originality and artistic accomplishment of this everevolving art form. The BC Arts Council, with funding from the Province of British Columbia, is pleased to again support this important festival. Sincere regards,

The Honourable Shelly Glover

Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages

Stan Hamilton

Chair, BC Arts Council

On behalf of the citizens of Vancouver and my colleagues on Vancouver City Council I want to extend my warmest greetings attending the 14th Annual DOXA Documentary Film Festival.

Telefilm Canada is delighted to partner with the 2015 DOXA Documentary Film Festival, an ideal opportunity to discover or rediscover Canadian filmmaking—a cinema brimming with talent!

Film plays an indispensable role is bringing new issues, concerns and human experiences to the public’s attention. By viewing our issues we open the door to education and dialogue and like those in previous years, the DOXA Documentary Film Festival of 2015 brings a remarkable new series of films before viewers. I am proud of our thriving arts community in Vancouver and this festival showcases the talent and innovation that is prominent in this sector of our city. It is a tribute to the organizers and volunteers that this festival has become so popular

Our filmmakers share a rich diversity of stories and characters that surprise, touch and entertain us all as well as make us laugh and think. Their expertise is unique. Their profoundly original stories are appreciated worldwide, as attested by tremendous success at the Oscars, Cannes, Berlin, Shanghai as well as many other major festivals and markets.

Best wishes for a successful and enjoyable festival! Yours truly,

Gregor Robertson

Telefilm hopes that more and more Canadians get to experience their national cinema, now accessible on multiple platforms, and that they identify with its importance for the country. We provide support to dynamic companies as well as to highly talented creators, actors and artisans from all regions. And we also work with the industry and numerous partners to promote Canadian cinema, both at home and abroad. Congratulations to the organizers of DOXA Documentary Film Festival. Enjoy the docs!

Mayor, CITY OF VANCOUVER

Michel Roy

Chair of the Board, Telefilm Canada

THANK YOU

Thank you to the following supporters and donors who contributed so generously to DOXA’s CURIO Fundraiser: Air North Andrea Vescovi Arts Umbrella Authentic Wine & Spirits Merchants Ballet BC Banyen Books BC Lions bed Bone Rattle Music Brad Zimmerman Burrowing Owl Estate Winery Cactus Club Camilo the Magician Campagnolo Roma Caymus wine CBC Vancouver Chan Centre for the Performing Arts Chris Hind Cibo Trattoria The Cinematheque Coal Harbour Brewing Company Coastal Jazz & Blues Society Costco Wholesale Dance House Deep Cove Canoe & Kayak Dunbar Cycles Ecomarine Paddlesport Centres Erik Iversen Electronic Arts Ethical Bean

EXP Restaurant + Bar Fairmont Airport Hotel Float House Forbidden Vancouver Gateway Theatre Georgia Straight Grandview Lanes Gravity Pope Harbour Dance Centre Havana Restaurant Heather Hospitality Group Hotel deLuxe Portland John Fluevog Shoes Kay Meek Centre Kootenay Country Craft Distillery La Mezcaleria Lauren Palidwor Limelight Video Line 21 Media Live Nation Magnet Hardware Marriott Spring Hill Suites Mickey Brazeau Milltown Bar & Grill Mint Records Mitch and Murray Productions Museum of Anthropology at UBC National Film Board of Canada Odd Society Spirits

Open Door Yoga Our Community Bikes Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) Pacific Theatre Paper-Ya Pied-à-Terre Plaza Premium Lounge Prado Cafe PuSh International Performing Arts Festival Rebus Creative Red Cat Records Red Horses Reel to Real International Film Festival for Youth Revelry Import Company Rodney’s Oyster House Sarah May Redmond Science World British Columbia Seattle International Film Festival Sebastien Le Goff Shiatsu and CranioSacral Therapy by Francesca Sons of Vancouver Distillery St. Genève fine bed linens Steamworks Brewery Storm Crow Tavern Susan Jackson Synergy Advanced Laser & Skin Care

Theatre Replacement Thomas Jones Top Table and Blue Water Café Truffles Fine Foods Unity Yoga Van Dusen Botanical Gardens Vancouver Folk Music Festival Vancouver Fringe Festival Vancouver International Film Festival Vancouver International Wine Festival Vancouver Latin American Film Festival Vancouver Opera Vancouver Queer Film Festival Vancouver Symphony Orchestra Vancouver Whitecaps FC Videomatica Sales Vivio Flower Gallery Watermark Beach Resort The Wilder Snail Window Arcades

WELCOME FROM DOXA WELCOME FROM THE CHAIR OF THE BOARD

WELCOME FROM THE DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMMING

Welcome to the 2015 DOXA Documentary Film Festival, proudly brought to you by The Documentary Media Society. Get ready to be moved, challenged and entertained by our stellar lineup of films. As more and more talented filmmakers vie for audiences hungry for information and ideas, our screening and programming committees worked around the clock sourcing a diverse range of documentaries from around the world. I believe their efforts will satisfy your craving for independent and innovative films. We stand by our commitment to bring you the best documentary film festival we can.

We are living in a pretty funny time. Although sometimes it’s not ‘ha ha’ funny but more like “I can’t believe this is happening,” gallowstype humour. In light of the madness of our age, we’ve dedicated our Spotlight program to Satire & Subversion. Finding a way to speak truth to power is serious business, but that doesn’t mean it can’t also be hilarious.

Our DOXA staff is dedicated, passionate and hardworking, and their enthusiasm is shared by our committee members, volunteers and board representatives. We are fortunate to have many partners, funders and donors who generously give us much needed resources to make our annual festival a reality, and for that, I thank them very much. With so many avenues available to watch films we especially applaud you, our audience, for attending the festival because without you we are nothing. Enjoy DOXA!

Sonia Fraser

DOXA Board Chair

WELCOME FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR This year marks a number of significant changes for DOXA. In addition to a new home and an expanded festival, our fourteenth festival marks another milestone in our history as we will hit the 1,000 films screened mark. Since DOXA’s inaugural festival in 2000, we have celebrated the work of Canadian and international documentary filmmakers through our festival and year-round programming. From Long Night’s Journey Into Day, presented on 35mm film (DOXA’s opening night feature on May 12th, 2000) to the current mix of High Definition and digital formats, DOXA has adapted to the changing needs of filmmakers as well as our audience. After calling Commercial Drive our home for ten years, DOXA embarked on a new adventure, and joined with friends at PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, Touchstone Theatre, and Music on Main in the build of the recently christened 8,500 square foot purpose-built co-location arts facility, The Post at 750. Our new home, located in downtown Vancouver, is a game-changer for our organization as we look to the future, not only for DOXA’s sustainability, but also for the broader arts community, which we are deeply connected with and embedded within. One of DOXA’s core values has been our commitment to community — both filmmakers and audience. Documentary has the power to address issues, ideas and stories from the humble to the profound with empathy, intelligence and above all artfulness. Throughout our history, we’ve partnered with hundreds of organizations, companies and individuals to collectively work together to witness, learn, and engage with documentary film. DOXA would not be possible without the tireless dedication of our DOXA staff, board, and festival volunteers. Thanks to our funders, sponsors, and donors for their continued support. I would like to offer a very special thanks to our dedicated and passionate audience members.

Kenji Maeda

Executive Director

Looking over this year’s festival, there is a quality of the subversive in practically every film. Our opening film How to Change the World is a rollicking and heartbreaking reminder that a determined bunch of scrappy humans can change almost everything. In 1971, Vancouver journalist Bob Hunter started one of the world’s foremost environmental movements. If ever we needed a return of that gonzo spirit of defiance and humour in the face of overwhelming odds, it is now. Our spotlight film The Yes Men Are Revolting is the apotheosis of satire and subversion. In their new film, The Men are at the top of their game, holding a funhouse mirror up to Multinationals and Big Government, steadfastly refusing to accept the current state of affairs as anything other than absolutely ludicrous. Whether it’s a film about a car race in Prince George, or an experimental film about Chinese zombies (see Wild Grass: New Chinese Images), the most subversive films are those that refuse to adhere to one definition of documentary. These films go their own way, maybe the wheels occasionally threaten to come off, but that’s okay! It takes guts to make exactly the film you want to a make whether it’s your first film or your 47th. If you enjoy discussions about cinema, expounded in clouds of Gauloises smoke, our curated program French French may be exactly your hunk of oozy Brie and glass of red wine. Renoir, Rivette, Rohmer, and Rouch are joined by the next generation of French filmmakers with a decidedly global outlook. From Rithy Panh’s tour de force, France is Our Mother Country, to the moveable feast that is Claire Simon’s Human Geography — there is so much richness, so much life, so much splendor in this year’s festival! Splendor is the most appropriate word to describe the rare bird that is Iris Apfel. A true original, Iris is captured in all her glory, bedecked with mounds of bracelets, ropes of necklaces and of course, her signature enormous specs. We chose Iris as our closing night film not only as celebration of a true subversive, but also a testimony to Albert Maysles, himself a radical and an iconoclast to the end. I am deeply indebted and insanely thankful to the raggedy band of DOXA weirdos, who make all the hard work of festival preparation worthwhile. Thank you also to our hardworking board of directors, our terrific donors and sponsors, and our team of dedicated volunteers. Whether you want to change the world, or just wear a super cool outfit, let your freak flag fly high. Find a bunch of kindred souls and set sail against the corporate forces and keep our green-blue marvel of a planet the wonder that it is!

Dorothy Woodend

Director of Programming

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

Lisa g Nielsen

Lisa g is a community artist and filmmaker. She enjoys creating media that has historical reference, social relevance, and artistic influence. She leads Our World Language DOXA is very happy to welcome an outstanding group of filmmaking workshops mentoring youth in filmmakers, film critics, and educators to the Awards Juries this remote communities to create films in the First Language. Lisa g is year. Jury members meet during the course of the festival to choose also part of the Iris Film Collective. a winner, as well as award honourable mention to selected films.

DOXA FEATURE DOCUMENTARY AWARD JURORS

Nik Sheehan

Nik Sheehan has made five criticallyacclaimed, award-winning documentaries, Adam Cook including No Sad Songs, The Drawing Master Adam Cook is a film critic, editor, and and FLicKeR. He is currently adapting for programmer for MUBI, an online cinemathe screen historian Modris Eksteins’ Solar theque and home of the acclaimed film Dance: Genius, Forgery and the Crisis of Truth in the Modern Age. journal, Notebook. He is a regular contributor to Cinema Scope, and has also written for a variety of publications, including Cineaste, Film Comment, Filmmaker Magazine, Indiewire, Grolsch Film Works, and others. Adam has been involved in the Vancouver International Film Festival’s programming DOXA SHORT DOCUMENTARY AWARD JURORS in multiple capacities since 2010.

Vanessa Kwan

Randy Lee Cutler Randy Lee Cutler is a Vancouver based writer, artist and educator. In the intersections of gender, art, science, and technology, her practice takes up themes of materiality and sustenance through performance, video and the emergence of new cultural forms. Randy is an associate professor at Emily Carr University.

Roger Evan Larry

Vanessa Kwan is an artist and curator working in Vancouver, Canada. Her work has focused primarily on site-specific and performancebased practices. From 2008 -2014 she was Curator of Performance at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and she is now Curator of Community Engagement with grunt gallery and an active member of Other Sights for Artists’ Projects, a curatorial collective who produce temporary art projects for public spaces.

Jackie Wong

Jackie Wong works as the editor at Roger Larry is a director and producer of Megaphone, a non-profit that publishes a feature documentaries and dramas, as well as monthly magazine sold by homeless and art films. His most recent film, Citizen Marc, low-income vendors. She also teaches about activist Marc Emery had the widest creative writing to undergraduate students domestic theatrical release for any Canadian documentary in 2014. Three of his films, co-authored with Mark at UBC and journalism to adults impacted by poverty, addiction, and homelessness at SFU Woodward’s. She enjoys reading fiction, Lewis, screened at MOMA’s PS1 in 2013. running, and cooking in tiny kitchens. COLIN LOW AWARD FOR CANADIAN DOCUMENTARY JURORS, PRESENTED BY WILLIAM F. WHITE

Mark Leiren-Young

Mark Leiren-Young wrote, directed and produced the doc-style feature, The Green Chain. His CBC Ideas doc, Moby Doll: The Brishkay Ahmed Whale that Changed the World - received Brishkay Ahmed is the writer and co-director the 2014 Webster Award for Best Radio of Afghanistan’s legal drama series Between Documentary. He’s in post on a feature doc about Moby. Mark’s also You and Me. She is in production for the feature an author, playwright, performer and the editor of Reel West. documentary And then there were none: The Kohistan Video Scandal for Super Channel. 13

She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry Unearthed

(w/ Newborns)

(p 69)

Mary Dore, USA, 2014

(p 43)

Jolynn Minnaar, South Africa, 2014

Tues May 5 | 6:00 PM | Cinematheque

Sat May 2 | 3:00 PM | Vancity Theatre

“The personal is political.” These powerful The Karoo in South Africa is a rural area, with words set the stage for second wave 40% unemployment, a sparse population, feminism, and they’re also the driving force and a potentially huge reserve of natural gas. behind Mary Dore’s new film.

Running on Climate

(p 45)

Robert Alstead, Canada, 2015 Sat May 2 | 5:45 PM | Vancity Theatre

Uyghurs: Prisoners of the Absurd (p 73) Patricio Henríquez, Canada, 2014

Running on Climate follows Green Party Wed May 6 | 6:00 PM | Vancity Theatre Candidate Andrew Weaver on the campaign Twenty-two Muslims from China’s Uyghur trail while shining light on one of his biggest minority fled China but were unfortunate concerns — climate change. enough to be rounded up in the months following the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan. Cincinnati Goddamn (p 53) April Martin and Paul Hill, USA, 2015

DOXA is very proud to offer the sixth annual Justice Forum. Since its introduction, the Justice Forum has grown and developed into one of the Festival’s cornerstone programs. The intent of the Justice Forum is to facilitate active and critical engagement, create space for dialogue, and sow the seeds for social change. The 2015 Justice Forum films encompass a broad range of social justice issues, from drone warfare to the dark net. Each screening will be followed by a panel discussion with special guests.

Sun May 3 | 2:45 PM | Cinematheque

From My Syrian Room

(p 77)

Before there was Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, there was Timothy Thomas and Roger Owensby Jr., two unarmed Thurs May 7 | 7:00 PM | Vancity Theatre black men who died at the hand of local law A satirical cartoonist and painter, turned enforcement in Cincinnati. filmmaker, turns the camera on himself to create this modest yet touching portrait of what life was like in Syria before the 2011 Deep Web (p 55) uprising. Alex Winter, USA, 2015 Hazem Alhamwi, France/Syria/Germany/Lebanon/ Qatar, 2014

Sun May 3 | 5:45 PM | Cinematheque

The story of Ross William Ulbricht, a Tell Spring Not To Come This Year 30-year-old entrepreneur who was accused (p 79) of being the creator and operator of the Saeed Taji Farouky and Michael McEvoy, UK, 2015 online black market, Silk Road is the focus of Fri MAY 8 | 6:00 PM | Cinematheque Alex Winters’ film. The War on Terror started with the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. In 2014, NATO pulled out, leaving the fight to the Afghans. Florence, Arizona (p 63) Andrea B. Scott, USA, 2014

Mon May 4 | 6:00 PM | Cinematheque

Drone

(p 81)

Tonje Hessen Schei, Norway, 2014

The town of Florence, Arizona is ringed with a total of nine prisons, with plans for another Sat May 9 | 2:00 PM | Cinematheque mega-prison in the works. An inside look at the secret CIA drone war and the biggest targeted killing program in history.

SPOTLIGHT

Seven Digital Deadly Sins Live

SPOTLIGHT SERIES PARTNER

(p 65)

NFB Digital Studio, The Guardian, Jam3 and Ophira Eisenberg, Canada/UK, 2014 Mon May 4 | 6:30 PM | Vancity Theatre

An interactive comedy game show hosted by Brooklyn based comedian Ophira Eisenberg. From politics to pranksters, and one a really angry milkman, this year’s Spotlight shines a light on those folk who like to upend the established order of things. Even documentary is not immune, with films that Orion: The Man Who Would Be confound established notions of the genre King (p 49) Jeanie Finlay, UK, 2015 itself. Films in Satire & Subversion include:

Sat May 2 | 8:30 PM | Vancity Theatre Sat May 9 | 2:30 PM | Vancity Theatre

Seth’s Dominion

After Elvis died, a Svengali-like promoter created the idea of the King reincarnated as masked man called Orion.

(w/ I Thought I Told You to Shut Up!!) (p 35)

Luc Chamberland, Canada, 2014 Fri May 1 | 7:00 PM | Cinematheque Mon May 4 | 3:30 PM | Vancity Theatre

Deep Web

Theory of Obscurity: a film about The Residents (p 65) Don Hardy, USA, 2015

Mon May 4 | 8:15 PM | Cinematheque

Who are avant-garde rock group The Residents? Look into their eyeballs and find out!

The Yes Men Are Revolting

(p 31)

Laura Nix and The Yes Men, USA, 2014

Wed May 6 | 7:30 PM | Playhouse (p 55)

Alex Winter, USA, 2015 Sun May 3 | 5:45 PM | Cinematheque

The Yes Men rewrite the book on the subject of Satire & Subversion in their new film.

Sometimes cartoons are a better reflection of life — especially if you happen to be Alex Winter’s new film goes deep into the From My Syrian Room (p 77) heart of what is termed the dark net. graphic novelist Seth. Hazem Alhamwi, France/Syria/Germany/Lebanon/

Tab Hunter Confidential

(p 41)

Jeffrey Schwarz, USA, 2015

Sat May 2 | 2:30 PM | CINEMATHEQUE

I Think You’re Totally Wrong: A Quarrel (p 57) James Franco, USA, 2015

Sun May 3 | 6:30 PM | Vancity Theatre

Qatar, 2014

Thurs May 7 | 7:00 PM | Vancity Theatre

A Syrian cartoonist and painter turned filmmaker, turns the camera on himself.

In the 1950s, no one was quite as big, as blond or as blindingly handsome as Tab It’s art versus life in the cinematic adaptation Hit 2 Pass (p 82) of David Shields’ new book from director Hunter. Kurt Walker, Canada, 2014 James Franco.

Sat May 9 | 7:15 PM | Vancity Theatre

A demolition derby race in Prince George smashes headlong into experimental film.

DOXA’s ability to engage young audiences in a conversation about social justice and change is critical to our organization, and we are committed to ensuring that the festival remains open to the principles of accessibility, open dialogue, and media literacy. DOXA uses documentary films to incite discussion, and affect social change.

The 2015 Rated Y for Youth films with discussions include:

DOXA is pleased to present the seventh annual Rated Y for Youth (RYY), our school outreach program. DOXA selects programming specifically for high school students, giving youth an opportunity to attend the festival, view thought-provoking documentaries and participate in lively post-film discussions with filmmakers and community members. This year’s selection includes films about activism, the environment, online bullying, and the sugar industry.

Victoria Lean, Canada, 2015

SCHOOL BOOKINGS:

For information about the Rated Y program or to book your school group tickets, contact Selina Crammond at selina@doxafestival.ca or 604.646.3200 ext. 104.

Sugar Coated (p 59)

Michèle Hozer, Canada, 2015 Mon May 4 | 12:30 PM | Vancity Theatre

After the Last River

(p 59)

Tues May 5 | 12:30 PM | Vancity Theatre

#chicagoGirl: The Social Network Takes On a Dictator (p 72) Joe Piscatella, USA/Syria, 2013

Wed May 6 | 12:30 PM | Vancity Theatre

On the Ground: Shorts Program (p 75)

Various, 2014 Thurs May 7 | 12:30 PM | Vancity Theatre

GTFO: Get the F&#% Out (p 78) Shannon Sun-Higginson, USA, 2014

Fri May 8 | 12:30 PM | Vancity Theatre

ADDITIONAL RATED SCREENINGS AT DOXA The following film programs have been classified for general audiences, are open to all ages, and do not require a festival membership. Please check the DOXA website for specific classifications for each film.

How to Change the World (p 29) Jerry Rothwell, Canada/UK, 2015

ThurS Apr 30 | 7:00 PM | Playhouse Sat May 2 | 12:00 PM | Vancity Theatre

•• Jean Renoir le patron, La Règle et l’exception (The Boss: The Rule and the Exception) (p 39) Jacques Rivette, France, 1967 Sat May 2 | 12:30 PM | SFU-GCA Free Screening

•• Georges Franju, le visionnaire (The Visionary)

(p 41)

André S. Labarthe, France, 1996

(Evidence) (p 61)

André S. Labarthe, France, 1996

Sat May 2 | 2:30 PM | SFU-GCA

Mon May 4 | 3:30 PM | SFU-GCA

Free Screening

•• Alain Cavalier, 7 chapitres, 5 jours, 2 pièces-cuisine

•• Mosso, Mosso (Jean Rouch comme si...) (As If) (p 63)

Jean-Pierre Limosin, France, 1996

Free Screening

(7 Chapters, 5 days, 2 Rooms with a Kitchen) (p 43) Sat May 2 | 4:15 PM | SFU-GCA Free Screening

After the Last River (p 59) Victoria Lean, Canada, 2015

Sun May 3 | 9:00 PM | Vancity Theatre

•• Jacques Rivette le veilleur I: Le Jour (Jacques Rivette The Watchman I: The Day) (p 61) Claire Denis, France, 1990 Mon May 4 | 1:30 PM | SFU-GCA Free Screening

•• éric Rohmer, preuves à l’appui

Jean-André Fieschi, France, 1999

Mon May 4 | 6:15 PM | SFU-GCA

Sugar Coated (p 59)

Michèle Hozer, Canada, 2015 Tues May 5 | 6:00 PM | Vancity Theatre

GTFO: Get the F&#% Out (p 78) Shannon Sun-Higginson, USA, 2014

Sat May 9 | 4:30 PM | Cinematheque

••

These screenings are part of DOXA’s special French French program (please see page 18)

Nigel Moore Award FOR YOUTH PROGRAMMING

DOXA is extremely proud to announce the third edition of the Nigel Moore Award for Youth Programming. Named in memory of Nigel Moore, a young man whose passion for knowledge, exploration, and advocacy found a home in his love for documentary film. For younger audiences, documentary has particular relevance. The world in which they’re growing up is an increasingly complex place. Documentary not only captures this complexity, but also has the capacity to act as a catalyst for social change, and fundamentally alter people’s behaviour. The award will be adjudicated by a Youth Jury, who will choose the film that best exemplifies the qualities of compassion, social engagement, and spirit in which Nigel lived. JURORS

Steven Hawkins Anna Hetherington Jacob Saltzberg

Jacob Saltzberg speaking at the 2014 DOXA Festival awards ceremony

FREE INDUSTRY PANEL DISCUSSIONS @ The Post at 750 |

#110 – 750 Hamilton Street, Vancouver

DOXA and DOC BC are proud to present a series of panel discussions to address the interests of the documentary community, as well as the general public. As the means of accessing films continues to proliferate, what does this mean for the traditional forms of distribution? A panel of people involved in the business of documentary will look at the new playing field, and talk about the future of dissemination. The art of editing for documentary is the focus of our second panel. The ability of a good editor to shape a film cannot be overstated. But increasingly, many filmmakers are cutting their own work. A panel of editors will address the pitfalls and opportunities of this practice. Special Event Partner

Meet the Buyers

Editing for Documentary

Wed May 6 | 1:30 PM - 2:30 PM

Wed May 6 | 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM

The people with the power to get films both made and seen will address the fast moving and variegated environment that is documentary film production and distribution. Traditional broadcasters are competing with new players. The entrance of Netflix, Vimeo and other VoD delivery services have had a massive impact on documentary, opening up films to a potential audience in the millions. A panel comprised of commissioning editors, film distributors, and online content providers will discuss the evolution of documentary distribution.

A good editor can make the difference between a good film and a great one. Looking to other models such as Sundance Documentary Edit and Story Lab, this panel will look at the critical importance of instilling a rigorous approach to story development and editing in nonfiction cinema. The creative lab approach is intended to offer filmmakers advice from experienced editors, as well as support of a community of documentary filmmakers engaged with similar concerns. The panel will focus on story editing, structure and character development. Filmmakers with a work-inprogress are recommended to attend. AUDIENCe PARTNER

Cinéma, de notre temps

Jean Renoir le patron, La Règle et l’exception

(The Boss: The Rule and the Exception) (p 39) Curated by

Thierry Garrel

Jacques Rivette, France, 1967 Sat May 2 | 12:30 PM | SFU-GCA Free Screening

Georges Franju, le visionnaire

Presented in partnership with

Guest curator Thierry Garrel programmed this selection of archival and new French documentaries, and also contributed a lively essay to our program guide this year (see page 21). The gift of French cinema to the world may have launched with the four R’s (Renoir, Rivette, Rohmer, and Rouch) but has expanded to include a new generation of extraordinary filmmakers. As part of French French, we are proud to present a special selection of films drawn from the legendary series Cinéma, de notre temps (Cinema, of Our Time). This group of films traces the evolution of French cinema from Jean Renoir to Alain Cavalier. André S. Labarthe will personally introduce the program on Saturday May 2, 2015 at 11:00 AM with a special talk at SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts.

(The Visionary) (screening with La Photo) (p 41)

Consulat général de France à Vancouver

André S. Labarthe, France, 1996 Mon May 4 | 3:30 PM | SFU-GCA Free Screening

André S. Labarthe, France, 1996

Sat May 2 | 2:30 PM | SFU-GCA Free Screening

Alain Cavalier, 7 chapitres, 5 jours, 2 pièces-cuisine

Mosso, Mosso (Jean Rouch comme si...) (As If)

(p 63)

Jean-André Fieschi, France, 1999 Mon May 4 | 6:15 PM | SFU-GCA

(7 Chapters, 5 days, 2 Rooms with a Kitchen) (p 43)

Free Screening

Jean-Pierre Limosin, France, 1996

Où gît votre sourire enfoui?

Sat May 2 | 4:15 PM | SFU-GCA Free Screening

Jacques Rivette le veilleur I: Le jour

(Jacques Rivette The Watchman I: The Day) (p 61) Claire Denis, France, 1990 Mon May 4 | 1:30 PM | SFU-GCA Free Screening

PRESENTED with the support of

éric Rohmer, preuves à l’appui

(Evidence) (p 61)

(Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie?) (p 73)

Pedro Costa and Theirry Lounas, France, 2001 WEd May 6 | 5:00 PM | CINEMATHEQUE

New Chinese Images

New French Documentary

Curated by

Géographie humaine (Human Geography)

Zhang Yaxuan

(p 47)

Claire Simon, France, 2013 Sat May 2 | 6:00 PM | SFU-GCA

La France est notre patrie

(France is Our Mother Country) (p 49)

Rithy Panh, France/Cambodia, 2014 Sat May 2 | 8:45 PM | SFU-GCA

Spartacus & Cassandra

(p 67)

Ioanis Nuguet, France, 2014

MON May 4 | 8:15 PM | SFU-GCA

Austerlitz (p 74)

Stan Neumann, France, 2014 WED May 6 | 6:45 PM | CINEMATHEQUE

The films in Wild Grass include:

Haze and Fog

(w/ i.Mirror by China Tracy) (p 69) Cao Fei, China, 2013 TUES May 5 | 3:45 PM | Vancity Theatre

Je suis le peuple

(I Am the People) (p 76) Anna Roussillon, France, 2014 THURS May 7 | 6:00 PM | CINEMATHEQUE

Le Paradis

Karst Elegies

(p 71)

Shen Jie, China, 2015 TUES May 5 | 8:45 PM | Cinematheque

Li Wen at East Lake

(Paradise) (p 77)

(p 72)

Li Luo, China, 2015

Alain Cavalier, France, 2014 THURS May 7 | 9:00 PM | CINEMATHEQUE

Of Men and War

This selection of films chosen by our Guest Curator Zhang Yaxaun, provides a revelatory look at cinematic trends emerging out of China. The greater cultural and historical context from which these films spring, like Wild Grass, is given coverage in the program’s accompanying essay (please see page 24), but nothing can prepare you for the sheer invention, curiosity and questioning spirit of these films. Whether it’s zombies, detectives or raunchy folk singers, each is a work of unparalleled individualism.

(p 79)

Laurent Bécue-Renard, France/Switzerland, 2014 FRI May 8 | 6:00 PM | VANCITY theatre

WED May 6 | 3:00 PM | VANCITY THEATRE

Cut Out the Eyes (p 76) Xu Tong, China, 2014

THURS May 7 | 5:00 PM | VANCITY THEATRE

AUSTERLITZ

JE SUIS LE PEUPLE

“As to the Gallic rooster’s proud strut, one can but wonder what Nature meant with it. The rooster himself hasn’t got a clue either,” wrote famed German satirist Lichtenberg in 1787.

As a proud Frenchman, I am happy not only for the invention of cinema, some 120 years ago (Louis Lumière was arguably the first documentarist ever!), but also for the notion of auteur, as defended by the Nouvelle Vague itself. Emphasizing that cinema is a fundamental branch of the poetic arts, and not simply the latest offering thrown out by the entertainment industry. In the spirit of the legendary magazine Cahiers du cinéma, Janine Bazin and André S. Labarthe created the unique collection Cinéastes de notre temps for French TV nearly half a century ago. The series was reborn in the late 80s for ARTE, the European Cultural Channel, as Cinéma, de notre temps (Cinema, of Our Time) with the ambition to produce documentary films with and about cinéastes by cinéastes. Filmmaker on filmmaker, if you will. As of today, this series includes more than 75 films.

Essay by Thierry Garrel

Labarthe himself, now 84, will present seven French titles from this collection at DOXA. Four of these titles portray the famous four ‘Rs’ of French cinema, namely Renoir, Rivette, Rohmer, and Rouch. Firstly, we begin with noblesse oblige, the towering figure of Jean Renoir le patron (Jean Renoir, The Boss) analyzing in great detail his films La Règle du jeu and La Marseillaise (filmed by Jacques Rivette and edited by none other than Jean Eustache!) Then, Jacques Rivette le veilleur I: Le jour (The Watchman), in deep and rich conversation with Serge Daney about the mise en scène in Parisian streets and cafés (filmed by Claire Denis). Next, we have Éric Rohmer, preuves à l’appui (Evidence), a perfect cinema, and a step-by-step instruction of cinematic methodology, where the director opens his personal archives to shrewd film critic Jean Douchet (filmed by André S. Labarthe himself). Lastly, the father of cinéma direct, and mentor of two generations of documentarists: Mosso, Mosso (Jean Rouch, comme si...), (As If), made while Rouch was shooting his final film in Africa with his Nigerien friends (Comme si was filmed by the departed, and still greatly missed Jean-André Fieschi). The programme will furthermore provide an occasion for the rediscovery of a radical documentary précurseur of the 50’s, Georges Franju, Le visionnaire (The Visionary) and his influential films Le Sang des bêtes and La Tête contre les murs (from Mr. Labarthe, once again). Franju actually cofounded, with Henri Langlois, the Cinémathèque française in 1936 — the very first in the world! Franju’s portrait will be preceded by La Photo, a short film in which the crème de la crème of French film critics react to a singular photo of Rossellini, Renoir and Langlois, taken by none other than Man Ray. Mr. Labarthe made the film last year, as a tribute to Langlois upon the 100th anniversary of his birth. And, last but not least, two outsiders: Alain Cavalier, 7 chapitres, 5 jours, 2 pièces-cuisine, made >>

Éric Rohmer, André S. Labarthe, Jean Douchet

le paradis

Géographie Humaine

Austerlitz

GEORGES Franju

je suis le peuple

Spartacus & Cassandra

La France est notre patrie

when Cavalier had just captured the Jury Prize at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival with his film Thérèse. This intimate and deeply personal portrait, filmed by Jean-Pierre Limosin, took place a few years after when Cavalier switched to small video camera and became an intimate pretty jansenist and elegant diarist. Also included, Jean Marie Straub and Daniel Huillet (the rebels), filmed by Pedro Costa in the huis clos of an editing room while cutting version three of their film Sicilia! (Où gît votre sourire enfoui?).

The new younger generation of filmmakers are represented by two brilliant first time directors: Anna Roussillon, who chronicles the Egyptian revolution, as seen from afar by a fellah family in a remote village in the Nile Valley (Je suis le peuple/ I Am the People), and Ioanis Nuguet, whose film Spartacus & Cassandra tells a story of survival and resilience through the experiences of two Roma children, looked after by a young trapeze artist in a circus squat just outside of Paris.

In counterpoint with these accomplished documentary portraits, French French will introduce seven contemporary French documentaries, most of them theatrically released in France in 2014, and already reaping international awards in festivals around the globe.

With these 7 + 7 films, French French has the global ambition to illustrate the ‘French Touch’ and the famous politique des auteurs that remains the main gift of France to world cinema. The phrase is often translated in North America as ‘auteur theory’, although it’s much more about the practice, aesthetics, and ethics.

This is a significant selection of In escaping pedestrian and run-of- Filled with genuine French flavour auteur films by directors, some of the-mill cheap filmmaking, through (with a full blend of croissants, whom I accompanied throughout a real literacy, both in the making cheese and red wine!), French their careers for more than twenty and in the viewing of documentary French also aims to celebrate the years, as the Head of Documentaries cinema, I believe this New World of creativity and genuineness of the at ARTE! Each film possesses cinema is becoming a central art of documentary genre itself. In escaping a creative voice and distinctive pedestrian and run-of-the-mill cheap our time. écriture. The term means more than filmmaking, through a real literacy, signature style, it also implies a certain “cinematic dispositive” and both in the making and in the viewing of documentary cinema, I a “mental framing.” Documentary films are coping in their own way believe this New World of cinema is becoming a central art of our with major topics such as the Holocaust, war, colonization, memory, time. Ultimately, it is a cultural tool with the potential and power to spiritual questing, social and political turmoil. Notwithstanding replace the vanishing humanities of the previous centuries. ordinary people, such as the ones filmed by Claire Simon with her camera in the Gare du Nord, the largest train station in Europe ............... (Géographie humaine/Human Geography). According to Simon: “to The title of this program French French stems from the somewhat shoot documentary is to believe in the revelation of cinema, the surprising question that people in Vancouver enthusiastically ask me simplest and most radical revelation, that the present becomes a when they first notice my French accent. “Are you French?” they ask. presence, that an action becomes a story, that a man becomes a “Yes,” I answer. “But are you French, French?” They insist, meaning are hero, that a place becomes the place.” you from France, and not from Quebec? The statement certainly means Laurent Bécue-Renard spent five years making his film Of Men no harm to our wonderful Canadian cousins of la Belle Province! It and War that intimately captures the experience of twelve soldiers simply strikes me as sweetly funny. with PTSD, back from active combat duty in Iraq, and desperately looking for relief from their anger and obsessions through their group therapy at Pathway Home (a veteran’s facility in Yountville, Thierry Garrel, a French Chevalier des Arts et California). des Lettres, joined the Research Department of

Multiply-awarded for his Red Khmer genocide trilogy, Rithy Panh immersed himself deeply in private and public archives, to assemble silent images that elegantly deconstruct the ideology of the Indochinese Empire in his new film La France est notre patrie (France is Our Mother Country). The ongoing film diary shot by Alain Cavalier, who abandoned his fiction career more than twenty years ago to concentrate on creating splendid and reflexive home videos, is a revelation in the film Le Paradis (Paradise). The daring and personal transposition by Stan Neumann of a famous documentary novel by German writer W.G. Sebald Austerlitz, featuring Carax’s favourite actor, Denis Lavant, as the title character, is equally exquisite!

French Television (ORTF) at the age of twenty and went on to Head of the Documentary and Junior Authors Division at the Institut National de l’Audiovisuel (INA). From 1987 until 2008, he was the Head of the Documentary Film Department of La Sept and ARTE France, European cultural channels. While in this position, he developed many highly regarded programs and the renowned “GRAND FORMAT” collection which has co-produced and aired over 200 international award-winning feature length documentaries. Since 2009, he has worked as a consultant and is devoted to “experience feedback”, by tutoring international seminars and workshops focusing on young documentary creators and professionals.

Chinese Independent Film from a Modernist Perspective Essay by Zhang Yaxuan

ALL IMAGES: HAZE AND FOG

Within China’s film history, there has never been a moment like this: the relationship between the image of the film and the lives of ordinary people has never been so intimate and attached.

In 1927, Lu Xun created his famous imagery of “wild grass”: “Wild grass has no deep roots, no pretty flowers and leaves. But it absorbs dew and water, sucks up the flesh and blood of long dead corpses, wresting its existence from each and everything…” Lu Xun has since been given many titles — the pioneer of the modern Chinese literary revolution, standard-bearer of the May Fourth New Culture Movement, a great revolutionary and thinker, etc. Along with his reputation, the imagery of wild grass has, for generations, been taught to young Chinese from a very tender age. Almost one hundred years on and this image remains immortal. This imagery of the “wild grass” illustrates a stubborn will to live against all odds in the era in which the writer lived. Rather than arguing that its immortality stems from the influence that the classic has had, one might rather say that its power comes from the enduring effectiveness of the imagery throughout decades of social upheaval. Eighty years is no short span of time, which is why today this kind of imagery is still moving: it has retained its significance in the contemporary context — still fresh, still intense. The texture of the independent documentary comes from its inclusion into the strongest creative fields of this era. China’s vast territory has offered sufficient breadth for those works, while their profoundness has arisen from the individual points of view >>

and emotions engraved in their depiction; these points of view have become irreplaceable because they are distinctively different from the official or the mainstream media’s standpoint. They have discovered more details and truth in areas where these have been neglected or obscured. That is the reality of ordinary life at the grassroots level of Chinese society, which is often called “the underclass.” Contemporary independent documentary filmmakers honestly record the difficult paths that these members of the underclass are being coerced to traverse due to the advancing forces of time, and catalogue their ignorance, awareness, pain, frustrations and struggles. Each work is built on the basis of long-term observation and communication between the filmmakers and their subjects. These great works have acquired impressive insights, which often embody profound emotions in addition to struggles for survival and the tough nature of these people’s lives. This is the grassroots nature of Chinese contemporary independent film. It is also the source of its unquestionable moral strength. Within China’s film history, there has never been a moment like this: the relationship between the image of the film and the lives of ordinary people has never been so intimate and attached. The experience accumulated over the last two decades has meant that

independent documentary has been able to present this perspective and played this role. This approach has constructed the relationship between the image and the subject and this naturally shows up in the diversity of the form, methods, and aesthetic significance. The majority of the works correspond to cinéma vérité and direct cinema in world documentary history terms. These forms emphasize the field, intrusive or non-intrusive observations, and the capturing of complete segments of time, so as to represent the changes of the events following the natural flow of life and daily rhythms, attempting to extract a certain essence from within. This kind of work makes up the principal inclinations of the independent documentary of this era. While they touch upon some realistic issues quite strongly, they are inevitably quickly perceived as being politically sensitive. These works take on two dimensions: when the emphasis is on the aesthetical, it forms a realist narrative with film auteur appeal; when the film subject attempts to practice a civic duty by focusing on public incidents and expressing political demands, the camera is transformed into a tool supporting the subject in the pursuit of social participation. At the same time, other filmmakers turn the camera on themselves, dealing with subjects about the individual and the family. Hence, independent documentary has also been developing relationships

ALL IMAGES: HAZE AND FOG

with the private sphere. In these cases the filmmaker and his subject become one, and life in front of and behind the camera cannot be separated. Actually, it’s utilizing the commensurability between the private and public spheres, when personal stories, emotions, experiences, scenes and memories are revealed and addressed, that the individual is transformed into the collective. Such transformations are not only a form of release but also a form of sharing. Other works purposely distance themselves from the regular formats of documentary by elaborating a creative visual language within the text. They emphasize the auteur feature in the documentary following other lines, charging the genre of documentary film with greater aesthetic intent. Roughly speaking, these several orientations cover the main genealogies of contemporary independent documentary filmmaking in China. Independent documentary is building its own traditions, feeding on the nutrition and energy absorbed from the soil of the reality. Even though it echoes classic models such as direct cinema, cinéma vérité, and self-reflexive documentaries, Chinese independent documentary has not been nourished much in terms of its cinematic language and approach by western classics and practices, with the exception of a very limited number of documentary masters and some anecdotal inspiration along the way. Due to limitations in

terms of the channels available to obtain resources, the vast majority of independent filmmakers start their film work by simply picking up a camera and filming... ............... This essay is an excerpt from Zhang Yaxuan’s longer work and is printed with the author’s permission.

Film critic and curator Zhang Yaxuan has been following the development of Chinese independent film since 2000. She has written for magazines as a columnist and has contributed to several publications. In addition to organizing film festivals, and curating programs both in China and internationally, she has participated in the production of several independent films. In 2008, she co-founded CIFA, which focuses on the presentation and preservation of Chinese independent film as a non-profit independent organization; for enriching the local film culture, she also initiates the international film exchange projects.

Three different types of financing. Three different funds. All from one source.

The Rogers Group of Funds offers support to Canadian independent producers with three different types of funding: Rogers Telefund offers loans to Canadian independent producers; Rogers Documentary Fund, Canadaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s premier source of funding for documentary films and Rogers Cable Network Fund, an equity investor in Canadian programs with a first play on a Canadian cable channel. Three different types of financing. Three different funds. All from one source â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Rogers. For more information contact Robin Mirsky, Executive Director, at (416) 935-2526. Application deadlines for the Rogers Documentary Fund are Wednesday, April 15 and Wednesday, August 12, 2015. Application deadlines for the Rogers Cable Network Fund are Wednesday, June 17 and Wednesday, October 7, 2015.

www.rogersgroupoffunds.com

THURSDAY APRIL 30

OPENING NIGHT FILM

7:00 PM PLAYHOUSE

How to Change the World Jerry Rothwell, Canada/UK, 2015, 112 mins

believed. Staggering archival footage, intimate and deeply honest interviews with the organization’s main participants including Rex Weyler, Walrus Oakenbough (AKA David Garrick), Patrick Moore, and Paul Watson are woven masterfully together, through narrated sequences of Bob Hunter’s extraordinary writing. How to Change the World is a testimony to Bob Hunter’s poetic spirit, and more importantly a call for radical action. If, as Bob asserts, “Ninety In the fall of 1971, a young journalist named Bob Hunter volunteered percent of history is being in the right place at the right time,” then, to take a leaky, antique fishing boat dubbed “The Greenpeace” into perhaps, we are again standing on the edge of a global revolution the centre of the cold war. The American plan to conduct nuclear whose time has come. -DW tests on Amchitka Island in the Arctic had galvanized a generation and Hunter found himself at the centre of a burgeoning movement. PLAYHOUSE SCREENING: Bob understood the effects of media, and the revolutionary power of Preceded by DOXA festival’s opening remarks and will include a an image to shape pubic opinion. As the boat set forth, with a handpost-film Q&A with the filmmaker and special guests. painted sail and a new generation of eco-freaks aboard, the intent was to plant “a mind bomb” and bring the eyes of the world to what NO MEMBERSHIP REQUIRED. OPEN TO YOUTH UNDER 18. was happening. “Bob, we are all gonna die,” was the less generous prognosis of fellow-Greenpeace member Patrick Moore. The first ADDITIONAL SCREENING: campaign succeeded in generating enormous media attention, SATURDAY MAY 2 | 12:00PM | VANCITY and the stage was set for Greenpeace’s next, and perhaps most legendary campaign. The decision to save the whales was received AUDIENCE with less than universal acclaim by the rest of the Greenpeace crew, PARTNER but they took to the high seas, armed with youthful idealism, the I Ching, and rubber zodiacs. What followed must be witnessed to be “In Vancouver in 1971, we have the biggest concentration of treehuggers, draft-dodgers, shit disturbing unionists, radical students, garbage dump stoppers, freeway fighters, pot smokers, vegetarians, nudists, Buddhists, fish preservationists, and back-to-the-landers on the planet,” wrote Bob Hunter. “And we are all haunted by the spectre of a dead world.”

WEDNESDAY MAY 6

SPECIAL PRESENTATION

7:30 PM PLAYHOUSE

The Yes Men Are Revolting Laura Nix and The Yes Men, USA, 2014, 90 mins

You could say that the The Yes Men wrote the book on the subject of Satire & Subversion (DOXA’s Spotlight Program this year), or at least they made three films about their activist antics. The third in the series, The Yes Men Are Revolting, is a fitting summation of the careers of Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno (The Men, themselves). Codirected by Laura Nix, this chapter finds our heroes at a crossroads. Mike has two kids, going on three, and Andy is embarking on his first serious relationship. But despite the forces that would drive them apart — demanding schedules, lingering resentments, and the new threat of a lawsuit — they remain committed to the cause. Namely being a huge pain in the ass to the people who most deserve to suffer — oil executives, ineffectual politicians and greedy corporate honchos. With the help of culture jammers around the world, The Yes Men mount some of their most elaborate hoaxes to reveal the dirty deeds and shady dealings of the rich and the powerful. But some plans go better than others. At a climate change summit in Amsterdam, a complicated bit with a Russian oil exec and a fake polar bear goes hilariously off the rails. Still, Andy and Mike rally for one final epic undertaking, convincing a meeting of Homeland Security executives that divestment of fossil fuels for renewable energy sources is a good idea. Climate change has superseded all other issues as the biggest, baddest, and most heavily entrenched foe they have ever faced. The scale of the problem is daunting, but

The Yes Men are never ones to turn down a challenge. Especially when the fate of the world hangs in the balance. -DW But even though The Yes Men Are Revolting features the usual pileup of stunts and first-rate animation to explain their intentions, Nix and her collaborators place their efforts in an intimate context. Like many third entries in a trilogy, the approach enhances the stakes of their work and gives new meaning to everything preceding it. Unlike many third entries in a trilogy, this one doesn’t suck. -Indiewire

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

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SUNDAY MAY 10

CLOSING NIGHT FILM

7:00 PM PLAYHOUSE

Iris

Albert Maysles, USA, 2014, 78 mins

As a tribute to the legendary documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles, DOXA is proud to present his final film, Iris, as our closing night film. Instantly identifiable by her gargantuan glasses and gobs of necklaces, bracelets, and accessories, Iris Apfel, like Maysles himself, is a true American original. She came to fame first as an interior designer and founder of Old World Weavers, a company devoted to reproducing fabric designs from the 17th through to the 19th century. But it was a 2005 MoMa exhibit that celebrated her personal style which vaulted her to international fame. Or, as she bluntly puts it, transformed her into an “Octogenarian starlet.” In an industry that thrives on pretense, air kisses, and fakery (facelifts and Botox), Iris is unafraid to speak the truth. At age 94, she has the sass, verve, and energy of people half a century younger. As she bickers with Albert Maysles, the film follows along in her regal wake, through flea markets, thrift stores, and glittering New York parties. Keep your eyes peeled for cameos from a variety of famous faces, including Kanye West, and New York Times photog Bill Cunningham (the subject of his own documentary). But the star of the show is, without a doubt, this tiny indefatigable woman, trailing jewelry, scarves, and her 100-year old husband, Carl. A true blue individual, both in art and life, Iris is a potent reminder that sometimes the most deeply revolutionary thing you can do is simply be yourself. Mr. Maysles would no doubt agree. -DW

PLAYHOUSE SCREENING:

Preceded by DOXA Festival’s closing remarks and awards presentation (20 min). ADDITIONAL SCREENING:

SUNDAY MAY 10 | 9:00PM | VANCITY

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FRIDAY MAY 1

7:00 PM VAncity

FRIDAY MAY 1 MonDAY MAY 4

7:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE 3:30 PM vancity

The Special Need

Seth’s Dominion

Enea is a 29-year-old virgin with a goofy smile, a rather curious fashion sense, and, thankfully, some good friends. The decision to go on the road (in a Volkswagen bus) to find a woman willing to deflower Enea is ostensibly the jumping off point for this road movie-cum-sexual adventure. It’s not for lack of trying that Enea hasn’t found a girlfriend, but his interactions with women are complicated by his autism. Carlo and his friend Alex decide to help out. It’s not just sex that Enea is after though, but the blush of genuine romance. Charming and sweet as a first kiss, The Special Need is a valuable reminder of the importance of intimacy and tenderness. -DW

Sometimes cartoons are a better reflection of life than anything else — especially if you happen to be graphic novelist Seth. Throughout his acclaimed career, Seth’s work has captured the unique eccentricities of life as a Canadian artist. His semiautobiographical tales of time passed in southern Ontario, along with his more fictional stories set in other corners of our nation, are essential pieces of Canadiana. Seth’s Dominion is a sometimes hilarious, often bittersweet, but always mesmerizing look at a nostalgia-infused past. Director Luc Chamberland expertly mixes animation, live action, and even some puppetry to provide us with a glimpse into the fascinating mind of one of Canada’s best storytellers. The film’s crisp visuals, in gorgeous black and white, along with Seth’s bone-dry wit bring viewers into his world. Whether he is drawing cartoons in the basement while his wife the barber works upstairs, or remembering a final moment with his mother, Seth’s work and life are inextricably intertwined. Each one wears a snappy fedora! -CP

Carlo Zoratti, Italy, 2013, 84 mins

In a society likes ours, in which sex and pornography are everywhere, a film like The Special Need, which approaches sexuality not in terms of performance but rather in its most emotional, intimate and vulnerable nuances, acquires a truly revolutionary meaning. -Vogue Winner of the Golden Dove Award at the 2013 DOK Leipzig. Winner of the SXGLOBAL Award at the 2014 SXSW Festival.

CONSULATE AND CULTURAL Partner

Luc Chamberland, Canada, 2014, 42 mins

Grand prize for Best Animated Feature at the Ottawa International Animation Film Festival. PRECEDED BY

I Thought I Told You to Shut Up!! Charlie Tyrell, Canada, 2015, 12 mins

Vancouver-based cartoonist David Boswell’s infamous antihero “Reid Fleming, World’s Toughest Milkman,” burst onto the scene in a 1978 issue of the Georgia Straight. Since then, Reid has gathered legions of fans devoted to his glorious cussedness. A veritable rogues’ gallery of Reid-o-philes, including Ed Asner, Matt Groening, and Marv Newland, weigh in. Alas, the movie that should have brought the milkman to a wider audience has been stuck in development hell for nearly 30 years. Jonathan Demme narrates Charlie Tyrell’s sweetly hilarious film about the pitfalls of Hollywood and the enduring appeal of the great David Boswell. -CP THE MAY 1 SCREENING WILL BE FOLLOWED BY A FILMMAKER Q&A.

IATSE Local 891 proudly supports DOXA 2015 Located in beautiful British Columbia, with an accomplished, world-class membership of artisans, technicians, and allied craftspeople, IATSE Local 891 is internationally recognized as a leading choice for film and television producers.

knowledge.ca/storyville 36

FRIDAY MAY 1

9:00 PM VAncity

FRIDAY MAY 1

9:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE

The Forecaster

A Rock and a Hard Place

Martin Armstrong’s childhood hobbies included collecting coins and trading gold. This early obsession with monetary things led into his later career as an economic forecaster, and enabled the development of an algorithm with the uncanny ability to predict stock market crashes and economic turmoil. Martin’s formula triggered the interest of some rather unsavoury folk, including Russian mobsters and New York bankers, who all expressed a desire to obtain Armstrong’s source code. But it was the US Government that proved to be his biggest and most intractable foe. An FBI investigation resulted in Armstrong’s arrest on charges of fraud and conspiracy, after he refused to surrender assets (including his secret code). Marcus Vetter’s laser sharp portrait plays more like a political thriller than a film about economics. Whether or not you agree with Martin’s theories, there’s a method to his madness that’s incredibly fascinating to witness. Chronicling the history of currencies around the globe, Armstrong explains, “These numbers, for some strange reason, they’re all interconnected, you can follow it like a ballet. It’s like a Shakespeare play, played for hundreds of years, the actors change but the plots are always the same.” According to Martin’s predictions, we are bound for another global economic crisis very soon. -SC

Red Lake Ontario is home to one of the richest gold mines in the world. It’s also the hometown of filmmaker Cliff Caines, who makes the mine the subject of his debut feature, A Rock and a Hard Place. Goldcorp is the sole employer in town, and like other small towns that are dependent on a single resource, the citizens of Red Lake need the mine to continue. More ethnographic than expository, the film presents a cinematic portrait of the complex relationship between the mine and its workers. The camera plays over abandoned buildings half-caved in with snow, lonely streets, and dingy small business facades with a certain distance. The mine itself, some 7,000 feet underground, is where the real action takes place. The process of transforming gold from raw ore to manmade bricks is brutal physical work. Long takes and closeup shots of the machinery, and the human hands that help it along, are oddly hypnotic, a quality aided by the film’s rhythmic industrial soundscape.

Marcus Vetter, Germany, 2014, 100 mins

Miscarriage-of-justice documentaries are a dime a dozen these days, but few can boast the global sweep or geopolitical context of Marcus Vetter’s English-language German production The Forecaster. An unambiguously partisan profile of controversial economics whiz Martin Armstrong — who spent a decade in jail on technicalities relating to fraud charges — it plays like a slickly elaborate sketch for a future Hollywood retelling in the Wolf of Wall Street mold. -The Hollywood Reporter

Cliff Caines, Canada 2015, 78 mins

Less soothing, however, is the off-camera narration, in which miners tell stories of workplace accidents, a four-year labour strike, and the impact of transient workers. In places, A Rock and a Hard Place possesses an almost apocalyptic atmosphere, with scenes reminiscent of Godfrey Reggio’s Qatsi Trilogy. As the eye of the camera moves through the darkness carved out of the earth, the people whose lives are impacted by this place linger long. -SC PRECEDED BY

E&N

Ryan Ermacora and Jessica Johnson, Canada 2014, 4 mins

“The great land grab” in Hul’qumi’num Territory privatized most of Southeastern Vancouver Island. In this visual study, the trains and railway tracks that pass through the territory are captured on 16mm and filled out with lush sound and imagery. -SC SCREENING PARTNER

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SATURDAY MAY 2

12:15 PM CINEMATHEQUE

Good Things Await Phie Ambo, Denmark, 2014, 93 mins

Who knew cows could be so cerebral? Ostensibly a film about a “biodynamic” farm in northern Denmark, Good Things Await quickly becomes something more akin to Terrence Malick than Green Acres. Phie Ambo’s camera renders the natural beauty of Thorshøjgaard, the farm in question, in vivid detail. Through the film’s lush cinematography and operatic score, we are invited to meditate on the seasons, time, and the interconnectedness of nature itself. This is appropriate, as biodynamic farming is a practice that is as philosophical as it is practical. It promotes a holistic approach to agriculture, treating everything from a farm’s smallest plants to its largest animals as ecologically connected. Natural fertilizers and treatments are used instead of artificial, and livestock is treated with the utmost respect. Niels Stockholm and his wife Rita Hansen, the octogenarian proprietors of Thorshøjgaard, are living embodiments of the biodynamic philosophy. The fact that their farm provides for the world-renowned restaurant Noma seems almost incidental, as their chief concern is to ensure the continued existence of their rare breed of Danish Red cattle without resorting to the corporatized cattle industry. They are steadfast in their ways, following the natural rhythm of the life they have developed through biodynamic farming despite the disruptions they face from the national government of Denmark. The gentle dance between them, their cattle, and the cosmos is a thing of great beauty, and is sure to entrance all willing to partake. -CP SCREENING PARTNER

Free Screening

SAturdaY MAY 2

12:30 PM SFU-GCA

Jean Renoir le patron, La Règle et l’exception (Jean Renoir, The Boss: The Rule and the Exception) Jacques Rivette, France, 1967, 95 mins

“I named this episode Jean Renoir le patron (Jean Renoir, The Boss) because he is the personification of a very demanding level of French filmmaking. Renoir is intelligence itself, or rather a being who has struck a balance between intelligence and assured sensitivity.” -JaCques Rivette, L’Humanité The third chapter in a trilogy devoted to the granddaddy of French cinema. Jean Renoir le patron, La Règle et l’exception was directed by Rivette and edited by Jean Eustache. At the time of the film’s creation, Rivette had only recently left his position as editor at Cahiers du cinéma. Renoir himself would make only one more film (The Little Theater of Jean Renoir) before he died in 1979. Sitting in a movie theatre, Renoir screens clips from some of his celebrated films including La Marseillaise and La Règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game). The conversation and analysis ranges from Renoir’s feelings about editing to the genesis of his most well known film. Inspired partly by The Marriage of Figaro, La Règle du jeu was an attempt to make a classical work. “I wanted to show a society, a group of people; I was even rather ambitious, I almost wanted to show an entire class.” The film was initially received with less than universal acclaim. At an early screening, Renoir himself watched a bourgeoisie gentleman carefully unfold a newspaper, light it on fire and attempt to burn down the theatre. Reflecting on his film, Renoir remarks, “The subject overwhelmed me. But you know when you’re faced with a good subject...it devours you.” A masterpiece in the collection of the Cinema, de notre temps. DOXA is extremely proud to begin our French French program with this remarkable film portrait. -DW This film is part of French French, curated by Thierry Garrel. Read more on page 18.

Proud to defend quality, public health care. Proud to support the DOXA Documentary Film Festival.

SATURDAY MAY 2

2:30 PM CINEMATHEQUE

Tab Hunter Confidential Jeffrey Schwarz, USA, 2015, 90 mins

In the 1950s, no one was quite as big, as blond or as blindingly handsome as Tab Hunter. All-American heartthrob, teen idol, and celebrated crooner, Tab had the whole package. But underneath the gleaming hair and sky blue eyes was a quiet boy who loved his mother, horses, and unfortunately, for that time in history, other men. Jeffrey Schwarz (familiar to DOXA audiences for his films Vito and I Am Divine) gets to the heart of Tab Hunter’s story with warmth and humour. In order to maintain his leading man roles, Tab remained deeply in the closet. Staged photo-ops with starlets like Natalie Wood were arranged by the studio to dispel any rumours about the star’s sexuality. (In truth: Tab was busily dating Anthony Perkins, while Natalie Wood was getting down with Dennis Hopper.) What could have been a bonanza of Hollywood Babylonstyle stories is undercut by the genuine sweetness of the man at its centre. Clips from Hunter’s more, and often less, famous roles are combined with interviews with friends and co-stars including John Waters, Clint Eastwood, George Takei, Debbie Reynolds, Robert Wagner, and Connie Stevens. As his teen idol looks faded, the surfer boy roles dried up. Tab’s second career came from the most unlikely of directors, namely John Waters, who cast Hunter opposite Divine in his film, Polyester. The chemistry between the two stars was, shall we say, divine, and Hunter went on to star with the larger-than-life diva in Lust in the Dust. But despite his comeback, Tab Hunter didn’t come fully out of the closet until 2006, when he revealed in his autobiography the difficulties he faced in Hollywood. “There was a lot written about my sexuality, and the press was pretty darn cruel, but what moviegoers wanted to hold in their hearts were the boy-next-door marines, cowboys and swoon-bait sweethearts I portrayed.” Tab’s best revenge came eventually from a life lived in the open with his partner of more than thirty years at his side. -DW HOSPITALITY PARTNER

Free Screening

SATURDAY MAY 2

2:30 PM SFU-GCA

Georges Franju, le visionnaire (The Visionary)

André S. Labarthe, France, 1996, 50 mins

“I like films that make me dream but I don’t like it when somebody dreams in my place.” With this one sentence Georges Franju defined an entire philosophy of cinéma. André Labarthe combined six interviews with Franju, made from 1964 to 1987, as though it were a single ongoing conversation, beginning with the shocking and beautiful images of Franju’s first film Le Sang des bêtes (The Blood of Beasts). Franju’s ringing edict that “Nothing but truth is beautiful, therefore nothing but truth matters,” can be seen in his first feature La Tête contre les murs (Head against the walls), a film that depicts the residents of an insane asylum, locked in terrible peace. With sophisticated movies like Les Yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face) or Judex (shot in black and white, naturally), Franju became the master of anxiety in horror film. In the film’s final sequence, made only a few weeks before his death, Franju offers a shot-by-shot deconstruction of two sequences from Les Yeux sans visage, demonstrating how to create fear through silence, expectation, and ultimately, mystery. -TG PRECEDED BY

La Photo (The Photo)

André S. Labarthe, France, 2014, 15 mins

Made in honour of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Henri Langlois, comes this most sublime gift. The eponymous photo contains three of the most legendary figures in cinema history — Roberto Rossellini, Jean Renoir, and sandwiched between them, Langlois himself. In the sleek confines of La Cinémathèque française, Labarthe collects five preeminent film critics to give their reactions to the photo. Chris Marker and Jean-Luc Godard weighed in earlier, each in their own unique fashion. -DW This film is part of French French, curated by Thierry Garrel. Read more on page 18.

SATURDAY MAY 2

3:00 PM vancity

Unearthed

Jolynn Minnaar, South Africa, 2014, 93 mins

The Karoo in South Africa is a rural area, with 40% unemployment, a sparse population, and a potentially huge reserve of natural gas. The entrance of multinational oil corporations initially seems like a boon. Gas company spin-doctors and lobbyists promise development, money and jobs for exploratory rights. Director Jolynn Minnaar grew up in the Karoo and she admits that the area needed some economic help, but issues with fracking in the USA and Canada prompt her to dig a little deeper. A phone call from a resident of rural Pennsylvania who described a litany of horrors including profound health effects, flammable tap water and contamination of soil and air set Jolynn on a path into the centre of the fracking industry. Upon arriving in Tioga County, Pennsylvania, Jolynn discovers that the truth is hard to find. Despite visible evidence that methane is leaking into groundwater (even random puddles can easily be set alight), people are reluctant to talk. Mutual nondisclosure agreements (gag orders, in other words) signed between residents and the oil and gas companies result in silence and fear. “No longer able to comment,” is the official language. When even the scientists who helped develop fracking are warning against its use, she knows things are bad. As much a primer in the process of fracking itself, Unearthed is also a vigorous investigation of just how deep money and corruption go to undermine the fabric of community, revealing a rotten core of corporate malfeasance, government inattention and raw greed. Meanwhile, back in the Karoo, Shell Oil is on the move, advocating with the South African government for unfettered access to the area. Armed only with her camera and the stories of people living with the reality of fracking, Jolynn moves from merely documenting events to actively fighting back. -DW

Free Screening

SATURDAY MAY 2

4:15 PM SFU-GCA

Alain Cavalier, 7 chapitres, 5 jours, 2 pièces-cuisine (7 Chapters, 5 days, 2 Rooms with a Kitchen) Jean-Pierre Limosin, France, 1996, 56 mins

Alain Cavalier began his career making films with luminaries such as Catherine Deneuve, Alain Delon, and Romy Schneider. “Makeup films,” is how he refers to them but he moved into much more insular, and arguably, idiosyncratic work later in his career. Jean-Pierre Limosin shot this entire film in five days, in the small apartment where Alain Cavalier lives and works today. In a series of interviews, the filmmaker addresses the camera directly. He speaks quickly, often stumbling over his words, in an effort to explain the forces that drive him. The tone is confessional, bordering occasionally on the rapturous. His first experience with the transcendent came from seeing a woman’s face projected onscreen. But when he was given a camera, it was too overwhelming to film an actual human being. “I filmed my uncle’s house instead,” he explains. From the vagaries of actresses to the drama that is explicit on a 500 Franc note, everything is material for Cavalier but certain things — hands, faces, and owls (curiously enough) have endured. Cavalier sums up the strange interconnectedness between life and art, stating: “I am not alone, I have a kind of assistance. Reality helps me.” An early photograph of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, taken by her sister, depicts the young nun dressed as Joan of Arc, in a homemade costume, constructed out of shiny chocolate wrappers. The existence of this photo led to a scene in Cavalier’s most celebrated film Thérèse. Throughout his work, the homely and the profound combine to delirious effect. If you want to see the apotheosis of this type of convergence of the prosaic and the divine, you need only look to the director’s new film Le Paradis (Paradise), also screening at DOXA this year. -DW This film is part of French French, curated by Thierry Garrel. Read more on page 18.

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SATURDAY MAY 2

4:45 PM CINEMATHEQUE

Even Though the Whole World is Burning Stefan Schaefer, USA, 2014, 85 mins

W.S. Merwin may be the one of the world’s greatest living poets, but most afternoons, he can be found puttering about in his palm forest on the island of Maui. In the late 1970s, Merwin purchased a bit of wasteland on the island, and set about planting trees. The garden grew into The Merwin Conservancy, recognized as one of the largest and most extensive palm collections on earth. Schaefer’s deeply affectionate portrait traces the course of Merwin’s life and career, from his childhood introduction to nature to his affinity with language. His mentors, including John Berryman and Ezra Pound, each influenced Merwin’s work, but his path was truly his own. Wandering from the snobby climes of Princeton to a tiny French village, where he discovered the language of the troubadours, Merwin’s relationship with the land, history, and culture was fused into poetic work of otherworldly beauty. Thoroughly anti-establishment, and independent almost to a fault, Merwin resisted the traditional route of academia, and instead lived a hand-to-mouth existence, all in an effort to remain free. The pantheon of the current literary heavyweights, including a rather crusty old Harold Bloom, talk about Merwin’s work, recite some of their favourite poems and are reduced to tears. Another poet, describing her reaction to a first reading of Merwin says, “I think this is a voice that could save us...” -DW PRECEDED BY

City Centre

Jenn Strom, Canada, 2013, 3 mins

SATURDAY MAY 2

5:45 PM vancity

Running on Climate Robert Alstead, Canada, 2015, 85 mins

In the wake of one of the warmest winters in Vancouver’s history, the urgent need to do more about the issue of climate change became even more critical. World-renowned climatologist Dr. Andrew Weaver certainly thought so, and threw his hat in the political ring when he ran for the BC Green Party in his home city of Victoria during the 2013 provincial election. Running on Climate follows Weaver on the campaign trail while shining light on one of his biggest concerns — how British Columbia, “The Best Place on Earth,” according to the glossy PR blitz, is transforming from a climate policy leader into a “carbon corridor” for the export of fossil fuels. Filmmaker Robert Alstead gathers an impressive array of local climate and policy experts to help examine how politics and the environment intersect on the West Coast. In contrast to the political rhetoric we are used to hearing, topics such as green jobs, carbon economy, and sustainability are broken apart and thoughtfully explored. While learning how these political issues relate to the ordinary citizens of BC, we begin to understand just why Andrew Weaver felt the need to enter the political arena. Although we now know how the BC Green Party fared in 2013, the film makes it apparent that the fight for climate leadership is bigger than any one election. Whether you agree or disagree with him, Andrew Weaver’s story will make you want to engage in shaping our province’s future. -CP SCREENING PARTNER

Vancouver’s Poet Laureate Evelyn Lau captures the city’s rapid and rapacious level of development through a poem to an elderly lady and her little green house. -DW SCREENING PARTNER

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SATURDAY MAY 2

6:00 PM SFU-GCA

Géographie humaine (Human Geography)

Claire Simon, France, 2013, 101 mins

“La Gare du Nord…” growls director Claire Simon by way of introduction to her film about one of the most famous train stations in the entire world. She goes on to admit that understanding the place requires at least two people. Luckily, her friend Simon Mérabet is amenable and he joins in this quest to capture the essence of this legendary place of intersection. Every day, thousands of people pass through, on their way to work, or to play. Some folk come to simply hang out in the station itself. This interstitial space, filled with exiles and outcasts, workers and travellers, cops and hustlers, is French down to its very cornerstones, all helpfully inscribed with the words “Nord.” Cinema and trains have travelled a curiously conjoined path ever since the brothers Lumière created a mass panic by filming the arrival of a train. It is a natural connection, each is filled with fleeting, fragmented experience. With his easy manner, and long trench coat, Simon Mérabet strikes up conversations with a vast array of people. Some are only too happy to yak away, while others scurry to board their trains, yelling over their shoulders as they go. People tell stories about lost love, failed dreams, new hope or what they wore to dinner the night before. A woman cleaning the bathrooms tells a story about a junkie and his dog who were killed on the tracks, moments after he had told her, “You’ll never see me here again.” “Incroyable,” she murmurs almost to herself. Movement is near constant, with lines and masses of bodies passing like schools of fish, buffeted by invisible currents. The constant purr of announcements over the PA system becomes another element in the constant waterfall of sound. In quieter moments, Claire and Simon talk to each other, sharing their stories and memories, adding their own part to the great jazz symphony that is the Gare du Nord. -DW

SATURDAY MAY 2

7:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE

On the Trail of the Far Fur Country Kevin Nikkel, Canada, 2014, 80 mins

On the Trail of the Far Fur Country tells the fraught story of Canada’s early cinematic history and its representation of First Nations people. In 1919, a film crew led by Harold M. Wyckoff set out on an epic journey across Canada’s North. Over the course of six months, their expedition traveled by icebreaker, canoe, and dog sled, capturing the Canadian fur trade in a silent feature documentary: Romance of the Far Fur Country. Kevin Nikkel retraces that journey weaving together footage from the original film — recently rediscovered in a British archive — with the contemporary lives of the First Nation communities that once formed the Hudson’s Bay Company’s trade network. Thanks to Nikkel’s efforts, Romance of the Far Fur Country can take up its rightful place alongside Edward Curtis’ 1914 film, In the Land of the Headhunters and Robert Flaherty’s 1921 documentary, Nanook of the North. Each of these films are important historical documents — both for what they show of First Nations life 100 years ago and for what they can tell us about the distorted lens through which Europeans viewed those lives. But On the Trail of the Far Fur Country does much more than document the story of Canadian commerce and colonialism, it also demonstrates the almost magical power of film to connect us to the past. When a man from Fort Chipewyan tears up at the sight of his own grandfather filmed in 1919, we are reminded that despite the motives of those who made the original documentary, the film document has its own power. A power in evidence again when a Kwakwaka’wakw girl sticks her tongue out at Wyckoff’s camera, sending a secret message to her great-grandchildren yet to be born. That’s magic! -JC

This film is part of French French, curated by Thierry Garrel. Read more on page 18.

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SATURDAY MAY 2 SATURDAY MAY 9

8:30 PM vancity 2:30 PM vancity

SATURDAY MAY 2

8:45 PM SFU-GCA

Orion: The Man Who Would Be King

La France est notre patrie

On August 16, 1977, Elvis Presley died. As fans gathered at the gates of Graceland for one final glimpse of Elvis, another man was putting on a cape and mask, and taking up the mantle of the “King of Rock and Roll.” Born in Pascagoula, Mississippi to a single mother, Jimmy Ellis was adopted by an elderly couple, and grew up a likable kid with a penchant for horses and a remarkable voice. But as Jimmy struggled to carve out his own career as a singer, his eerie likeness and vocal similarity to Elvis forestalled any real success. All of that changed the day Elvis died, and a Svengalilike promoter named Shelby Singleton created the idea of the King reincarnated. With the addition of a mask, some glittery jumpsuits, and a pompadour that touched the sky, Jimmy Ellis was reborn as Orion. Fans swooned, money poured in, and the fame train took off from the station, fueled in part by the public’s desperation to believe that Elvis was still alive. Into the annals of “You cannot make this stuff up,” roars Jeanie Finlay’s new film, as it explores the deeply weird intermingling of fame, identity, sex, and money that is the music business. Interviews with Ellis’s friends and family recount his bizarre ride to the heights of fame and precipitous fall. But at the very heart of the story is an even deeper mystery. Even as Jimmy struggled to create his own identity in the shadow of the King, was his relationship to Elvis closer than anyone realized? -DW

If you would like to witness the forces of colonialism in brute action, Rithy Panh’s extraordinary new film provides the long view. A masterpiece of editing, the film assembles archival footage and antiqued title cards into a wordless recapturing of the Indochinese Empire, beginning with the early days of French occupation. In this prelapsarian age, everything is golden with promise. Ladies, in empire waist gowns and enormous hats, throw candies to local children. Great steamships carry French culture abroad, and the Tricolore flag flies on high.

Jeanie Finlay, UK, 2015, 90 mins

THE MAY 2 SCREENING WILL BE FOLLOWED BY A FILMMAKER Q&A.

SCREENING PARTNER

(France is Our Mother Country)

Rithy Panh, France/Cambodia, 2014, 75 mins

The film derives a great deal of its meaning from the juxtaposition of different bits of archival footage. In one clip, French sailors are depicted with their ‘little wives’, as giggling young Cambodian women strip down to their underpants. In the next, a Catholic priest leads his charges in a ceremonial farewell. Ultimately, what you are forced to see is cinema itself, controlling and constructing meaning. The camera fixes people into place, like a collector might stick an insect with a pin. In taking back this footage, subverting its initial purpose, the filmmaker renders explicit the machinery of oppression. All empires end in bloodshed, but the fate of Cambodia was particularly horrific. Underneath the film’s exquisite construction, a controlled fury is at work, pushing the narrative forward, towards its inevitable terrible conclusion. La France est notre patrie is a stunning critique and an essential part of Rithy Panh’s body of work and the Cambodia Diaspora. -DW This film is part of French French, curated by Thierry Garrel. Read more on page 18.

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SATURDAY MAY 2

9:15 PM CINEMATHEQUE

Transatlantique

Félix Dufour-Laperrière, Canada, 2014, 72 mins

A poem to the sea and the people that move upon it, Transatlantique is a spiritual journey created out of light and shadow. Though the premise appears to be a voyage across the Atlantic, you may soon start to wonder if it is a cargo vessel or a ghost ship that you’ve embarked upon. It is hard to believe that forty hardy souls are enough to pilot this massive ship across an endless ocean. Félix Dufour-Laperrière’s mysterious world of dreams and reality recalls Fritz Lang’s Metropolis where the scale of humans, in relation to space, is so exaggerated as to be somewhat absurd. Indeed this film often resembles a fantastical alternate reality, where people are lost in time and space, and filled with the sweet melancholy that is homesickness. Without human presence, absent space becomes much more tangible and vivid. This raw world is given voice through the film’s elegant and artful sound design. The wind and the ocean become the principal protagonists. Never has a journey aboard a cargo ship been captured in such a poetic and purposeful way. -NH PRECEDED BY

Island & Flight

Dan Popa, Canada, 2014, 24 mins

Being 35,000 feet in the air allows for a certain distance, and provides the space for reflection, memories and even love to unfurl. Island & Flight is an intimate collage of airplane passengers’ thoughts and feelings about the great vessels that carry them aloft. -NH

SUNDAY MAY 3

12:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE

The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution Stanley Nelson, USA, 2015, 114 mins

Stanley Nelson has done it again! In The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Nelson (Freedom Riders and Freedom Summer, both of which screened at DOXA) puts his masterful research skills to reveal the politics and history of the revolutionary organization known as The Black Panther Party. The Panthers were originally formed as a self-defense group in Oakland in 1966. In the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, police brutality continued unabated, and the Panthers were determined to fight back. Stunning footage of demonstrations and back room meetings are brought to life by candid interviews with the folks who were on the front lines. Party leaders including Eldridge Cleaver, Bobby Seale and Huey Newton are given due coverage, but even more fascinating are the less known programs that the Panthers initiated such as the “survival” food program. Fearless not only in challenging white supremacy, but also in attacking capitalism, as well as demanding better housing and education, the Panthers actively advocated for social change. Passive resistance was not on the table. As they did with other activist groups that similarly threatened the status quo, the FBI riddled the organization with informants. But it was internal conflicts between the leaders that ultimately undermined the movement’s solidarity, and spelled the end of the Panthers. A curious thing about history though: it has a tendency to repeat itself. Lessons unlearned and unheeded come back around, deeper and more complex than ever. As levels of violence in the US reach new levels, and the racial divide continues to wreak havoc on the American psyche, this film could not be more necessary. -SC

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SUNDAY MAY 3

2:45 PM CINEMATHEQUE

Cincinnati Goddamn

April Martin and Paul Hill, USA, 2015, 102 mins

Before there was Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, there was Timothy Thomas and Roger Owensby Jr., two unarmed black men who died at the hand of local law enforcement in Cincinnati. In 2001, their deaths sparked a citywide riot, leading to a federal investigation into the city’s policing practices. Incredibly candid and filled with raw emotion, this is grassroots filmmaking at its finest. Directors April Martin and Paul Hill present an impressive collection of interviews with articulate and impassioned historians, activists and legal experts who paint a big picture analysis of how systemic racism, urban poverty, and neoliberal policies intersect, leading to what one academic calls an “urban genocide.” But with more than twenty percent of the population living in poverty, a lack of affordable housing, and high rates of unemployment, one has to ask, who are the real criminals? The testimonies from families who have lost loved ones to police brutality are the most necessary and agonizing to witness. In one powerful scene, Timothy Thomas’ mother, surrounded by community members at a town hall meeting, demands to know why her son was killed over outstanding parking tickets. Holding the hand of her surviving son, she asks, “This is my other son. I know he has a ticket. Is he going to die too?” As a harbinger of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, inspired by the Ferguson unrest and other recent tragedies, Cincinnati Goddamn presents a chilling, and critical account of how the power to exercise deadly force has a gun in one hand, and the law in the other. -SC

SUNDAY MAY 3

3:00 PM VANCITY

Caged Birds: Shorts Program From China to Poland to Cuba, city dwellers have adopted different ways to cope with the demands of urban life. Whether it’s the freedom offered by a balcony or keeping a room full of giant furry cats, this program of short films explores the different ways in which densification influences individuality and community.

Of the Unknown Eva Weber, UK, 2014, 9 mins

In Eva Weber’s meditative work, a caged songbird is a metaphor for the working poor who live in one of the most expensive and densely populated cities in the world.

Super Unit

Teresa Czepiec, Poland, 2014, 20 mins

A camera pads through the hallways, dipping in and out of apartment units, following a looping, meandering course through one of the largest apartment blocks in Poland. Viewers are pulled into different lives and offered a glimpse into the peculiar worlds of the individual occupants. A cat lady, a wannabe bodybuilder, and skater kids are just some of the characters who spark against the cold functionality of what Swiss architect Le Corbusier described as a “machine for the living.”

Balcony Tales

Helle Windeløv-lidzélius, Denmark, 2013, 36 mins

In Havana, balconies are a staple of city life. Not only do balconies offer a place of refuge and daily entertainment, they also serve a greater social function. Citizens gossip, snoop, and partake of the ongoing neighbourhood narrative. From the balcony’s perspective, close to that of a bird’s eye view, sounds and smells are alive offering a colourful and poetic portrait of old Havana. Like the people who have made them an extension of their home, each balcony has its own story. -SC

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SUNDAY MAY 3

4:45 PM VANCITY

Canadian Hobbies: Shorts Program Canadians are weird. This program will remind you of the great cultural mosaic of freakiness to which we all belong.

Catching Idle

Janelle Huopalainen, Canada, 2014, 3 mins

Motorcycle stunt rider Matt Bush has spent almost two years chasing the elusive moment when gravity falls away.

Mars Barb

Milena Salazar, Canada, 2015, 10 mins

Barbara Keith has big plans to travel beyond the stars.

The Little Deputy

Trevor Anderson, Canada, 2015, 8 mins

Father and son’s disastrous outing to get an old timey portrait.

The Match

Kurt Spenrath, Canada, 2014, 15 mins

The Prairie Wrestling Alliance may not quite be the WWE — but that’s what makes it great.

The eBay Pickup

Brian Oliver, USA, 2014, 5 mins

After winning a bid on eBay, Pat travels to pick up a package that may be very familiar to documentary fans. Hint: grizzly bears.

The Good Knight (aka Batman) Karen Hawes, Canada, 2015, 15 mins

SUNDAY MAY 3

5:45 PM CINEMATHEQUE

Deep Web

Alex Winter, USA, 2015, 95 mins

The story of Ross William Ulbricht, a 30-year-old entrepreneur who was accused of being the creator and operator of the online black market, Silk Road, forms the heart of director Alex Winter’s revelatory new film. But the story goes much deeper than just this one case, into the heart of what is termed the dark net, an online, anonymous community, outside of government control and surveillance. Winter’s first film Downloaded, which explored the rise and fall of Napster, finds a curious echo in the story of Silk Road, and more particularly in the government crackdown on Bitcoin and the crypto-anarchist community. While Napster allowed people to trade and share music, trade on the Silk Road is much more troubling. Cody Wilson, the infamous creator of the 3-D printed gun indicates the scope of the issues at stake, stating: “We see this as part of the total sublimation of the state.” Interviews with Julian Assange, Wired writer Andy Greenberg (This Machine Kills Secrets), Cody Wilson, and Andrew Lewman, the Executive Director of Tor, help explain the intricate twists and turns of the story. But it is Edward Snowden, himself no stranger to government surveillance, who states that the case of Ross Ulbricht is one that must be paid close attention to, as it will set legal precedent. The human heart of the story is that of Ross’s parents, who come face-to-face with government forces that are capable of stripping people of their fundamental rights, suspending the judicial system, and suppressing freedom on a troubling new level. -DW SCREENING PARTNER

Suburban Batman walks the streets.

The Queen of Rosefish and Her Kingdom Philippe Belley, Canada, 2014, 12 mins

On the frozen water of the mighty Saguenay River, the Queen of Rosefish first assumed her crown. -DW 55

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SUNDAY MAY 3

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SUNDAY MAY 3

8:30 PM CINEMATHEQUE

I Think You’re Totally Wrong: A Quarrel

Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll

Author David Shields (guest curator from DOXA 2012) returns with a cinematic adaptation of his new book from director James Franco. What could possibly go wrong, you may ask? Well, almost from the start, just about everything. Shields and his collaborator and fellow-combatant, Caleb Powell, decide to up the ante by spending four days together in a cabin in the Cascades. The men barely make it down the driveway before an argument breaks out. On the drive to the cabin, things degenerate even further, as they variously debate the idea of life versus art. Powell, a father of three girls and a stay-at-home dad, has chosen to devote himself to family, while Shields, author of five new books in the coming year alone, is the champion of the arts.

In the late 1950s, Phnom Penh was a hotbed of arts and culture, a swinging scene that gave way to a rock revolution in the 1960s and early 1970s. Music shops flourished, and newly available records from French and Afro-Cuban groups inspired a generation of musicians to pick up guitars and learn to play. During the Vietnam war, radio stations started spinning The Rolling Stones and The Beatles, and the floodgates opened to new music and new ideas. The result of this melding of different musical worlds gave rise to a distinctly Cambodian sound that combined sugary sweet guitar licks, bright horns, surfy beats and microtonal vocal melodies.

James Franco, USA, 2015, 87 mins

On the first day of shooting, an actual fight breaks out over what and who can be talked about in the course of the film. Namely, whether Powell will or won’t be willing to invite his friend, a former stripper, to participate in the film. The director gets dragged into the mix. As the three men, and their respective egos, circle and jab at each other, you wait for someone to get punched in the face. The gladiatorial aspects of the film are only a beginning, as the weekend continues, something altogether more surprising happens — genuine and real communication. More than a deconstruction of the buddy film, I Think You’re Totally Wrong assails the divisions between reality and fiction, documentary and life, with subversive glee. -DW

John Pirozzi, 2014, USA/Cambodia, 105 mins

Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten provides a detailed retrospective of this lost era of rock and roll through interviews with Cambodian historians and musicians (including Mol Kamach, Touch Chattha, Ouk Sam Art, and Sieng Vanthy) as well as archival footage of young mod rockers dancing and performing, including Pen Ran, Sinn Sisamouth and the spectacular Ros Sereysothea. But as political tensions rose, the musical climate changed. The Khmer Rouge seized power and began one of the most horrific acts of genocide in human history. Between 1975 and 1979, more than two million citizens were killed. Many of those targeted were the longhaired rockers who embodied modernity and western influence. -SC [Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock & Roll] has created a tangible historic document from the shaky clips and the fuzzy memories. It brings image and sound to the last rays of positivity before the darkness of the Khmer Rouge. The old songs are faded postcards from better times, gone but not forgotten. -Bangkok Post

SUNDAY MAY 3 TUESDAY MAY 5

9:00 PM VANCITY 12:30 PM VANCITY

MONDAY MAY 4 TUESDAY MAY 5

12:30 PM VANCITY 6:00 PM VANCITY

After the Last River

Sugar Coated

In 2008, the South African mining monopoly De Beers opened its first Canadian mine in Northern Ontario, just 90 km downstream from Attawapiskat First Nation. In a concentrated PR campaign designed to help the company clean up its act, the world’s wealthiest diamond corporation had closed operations in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Victor Diamond Mine was part of a strategy to rebrand blood diamonds, but what followed was pretty down and dirty. Filmmaker Victoria Lean learned of the story when her father, an environmental biologist, was recruited by the local band council and environmental groups to test for mercury in the nearby river. The fact that mercury levels had nearly doubled since mining activity began was met with radio silence by the corporate powers and politicians who had staked a claim to the land. Shot over five years, Lean’s incendiary film presents a range of interviews with community activists, politicians, scientists, Cree elders, and Chief Theresa Spence, before and during her hunger strike. The contrasts between the stark reality of Northern communities and luxurious Toronto PR events, complete with ice sculptures and dancers, are staggering. In the community of Shannen Koostachin, recipient of the International Children’s Peace Prize, black mold infests homes and little kids brave -40 degree weather with homemade protest signs to ask for a better school. It’s this work, done by young kids, that renders explicit the lingering effects of Canada’s troubled colonial history. In fact, it isn’t history at all, since these battles are still being actively fought. Despite being sold the dream of development by De Beers’s public relations firm, it’s the homemade videos created by Attawapiskat youth that offer a clear vision for the future based on genuine truth and reconciliation. -SC

From birthday cakes to Halloween treats, sugar is intimately bound up with almost every part of our lives. At weddings, holidays, and every type of celebration, sugar is the star of the show. We eat it when we’re happy and also when we’re sad. (Who hasn’t pounded back a tub of ice cream to soothe a broken heart?) With over 56 different names for sugar, it’s difficult to spot it, let alone avoid it. All the while, it may be sweetly killing us.

Victoria Lean, Canada, 2015, 88 mins

NO MEMBERSHIP REQUIRED. OPEN TO YOUTH UNDER 18. MAY 5 SCREENING WILL INCLUDE A POST-FILM DISCUSSION.

Michèle Hozer, Canada, 2015, 90 mins

Director Michèle Hozer’s exposé, Sugar Coated, features a range of experts who explain the consequences of a sugar-heavy diet. Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist, says children are the most at risk. And when a “no-sugar added” juice box contains more sugar than a package of Twizzlers, it’s time to ask some serious questions. After learning that sweetened ice tea was considered a healthy option, Dr. Cristin Kearns was propelled into action and began to investigate the forces behind big sugar. Documents uncovered by Dr. Kearns show how public relations campaigns, crafted by tobacco giants, provided a blueprint for the sugar industry. In fact, the sugar debate pretty much picked up where the tobacco debate left off. With public research money funneled into pro-sugar campaigns, it’s not surprising that, “You can’t get the answers that would be harmful to the sugar industry,” says Dr. Kearns. In 2013, Vancouver hosted the third Canadian Obesity Network conference, sponsored in part by some very sugar-friendly corporations including McDonalds and Coca-Cola. Sharply put together, with perky tunes and outspoken testimonials, Sugar Coated is more than just another lecture on health and wellness. The film digs deep to uncover the role that big business, politics and the media play in fostering our dependence on the sweet stuff. -SC NO MEMBERSHIP REQUIRED. OPEN TO YOUTH UNDER 18. BOTH SCREENINGS WILL INCLUDE A POST-FILM DISCUSSION.

Free Screening

MOnday MAY 4

1:30 PM SFU-GCA

Free Screening

MONDAY MAY 4

3:30 PM SFU-GCA

Jacques Rivette le veilleur I: Le jour

Éric Rohmer, preuves à l’appui

(Jacques Rivette The Watchman I: The Day)

André S. Labarthe, France, 1996, 117 mins

Claire Denis, France, 1990, 72 mins

This two-part documentary about Éric Rohmer gets off to a rather humorous start, with the statement that it took enormous coaching to actually make the film happen at all. Rohmer relented on a few conditions: firstly that the film would be made by Labarthe himself (with the collaboration of critic Jean Douchet); and secondly that it would only be screened after Rohmer’s death.

Claire Denis was still in the salad days of her career as a cinéaste when she made this film about Jacques Rivette. Although films like Céline et Julie vont en bateau (1974) and La Belle noiseuse (1991) initially brought Rivette’s work to North American audiences, it was the release of the epic Out 1 (1971, 1972) and L’amour fou (1969) that helped to cement his reputation. Denis’s film (shot by Agnès Godard) is comprised of beautifully constructed footage of Rivette in lively honest conversation with Serge Daney (former critic of Les Cahiers du cinéma and former Editor-in-Chief of Libération). In the streets and cafés, as well as the seamier bits of Paris, the places that most inspired Rivette’s work, the two men amble and talk. The apocryphal story is that Rivette had inspired Daney to become a critic. Despite a seeming reluctance on the part of Rivette to speak, their discussions touch on the early days of the Les Cahiers du cinéma, in particular the bande des quatre (gang of four) that included Godard, Rohmer, Rivette, and Truffaut under the mentorship of André Bazin who was the first to develop a real ontology of cinema. With smiling gravitas, Rivette draws parallels between the Nouvelle Vague and Impressionism, both renewing the way of perceiving and depicting reality through technical simplification. Curiosity is touted as the most central of virtues, but modesty and a scrupulous intimacy are also key to Rivette’s approach. His methodology when working with his favourite actors (Jean-François Stévenin and Bulle Ogier) was an active form of on-set collaboration to develop his unscripted narrative films. Each film was approached as “a small conspiracy” being made for a secret society of informed viewers. But it was the character of the director, shy and sincere, yet possessed by the passion to tell stories, that most deeply informed the nature of the work. -TG

(Evidence)

The film’s opening scene seems to allude to this difficulty. In an empty apartment, Labarthe sits alone, hammering away at an oldfashioned typewriter. At the camera’s approach, he stops and fixes the interloper with a baleful stare. When Rohmer finally makes an appearance, he already seems somewhat embattled, combative even. Filmed over the course of eight days, the interview between director and critic proceeds at a breakneck pace. The discussion covers vast areas of subject matter, everything from the influence of Beethoven to the politics of the Nouvelle Vague. It is a veritable gallop through the director’s methodologies, and favourite ways of working. Avoid non-diegetic sound, never cover dialogue with music, trust your instincts when it comes to casting. The tone ranges from the clinical to the impassioned. Douchet takes a cool approach, pushing Rohmer into confronting his own secretiveness and habits with a quiet remark here and there. As Rohmer leafs through old notebooks, searching for particular scenes from films such as Le rayon vert (The Green Ray) or Pauline à la plage (Pauline at the Beach), you get the sense that these two men have tangled before. Although it stops short of being an autobiography, the film is filled with rare insight into the theory and practice of Rohmer’s body of work. -DW This film is part of French French, curated by Thierry Garrel. Read more on page 18.

This film is part of French French, curated by Thierry Garrel. Read more on page 18.

Cameron Duder

RESEARCH, WRITING & EDITING

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MOnday MAY 4

6:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE

Florence, Arizona Andrea B. Scott, USA, 2014, 74 mins

The town of Florence, Arizona is ringed with a total of nine prisons, with plans for another mega-prison in the works. For many of the people in Florence, the prison system is just a fact of life. Ultimately those who call this rustic town home are faced with two choices: go to jail, or go to work for the jail. Despite this rather grim premise, director Andrea B. Scott manages to capture the vibrancy of life here. One of the town’s most vivacious characters is mayoral candidate Lina Austin, a selfdescribed former hippie, who campaigns for a new community centre, theatre for the arts, and a yoga studio. Her opponent, Tom Rankin, is proud to say that inmates make “pretty good cheap labor.” (The benches and picnic tables they build are a source of revenue for the government.) Conversations with correctional officers, town residents and inmates, along with commentary from a local museum guide, who explains the town’s long history with prison execution devices, provide a certain quirky Errol Morris quality. But just underneath the town’s quaint exterior, something profoundly sad lingers. Even sweetly dippy Lina is not above selling out her principles if it means a shot at the Mayor’s office. Corruption and compromise have a way of infiltrating the atmosphere, and filtering into people’s minds. This quality is echoed in the construction of the film itself. Scenes of open highways and vaulted blue sky are juxtaposed against watchtowers and barbed wire fences that stretch as far as the eye can see. The state of the place, and by extension the prison-industrial complex itself, is best summarized by ex-con turned town barber Andy Celaya who says: “...private industry making money off of the suffering of another human being? If that’s not diabolical, I don’t know what is.” -SC

Free Screening

MOnday MAY 4

6:15 PM SFU-GCA

Mosso, Mosso (Jean Rouch comme si…) (As If)

Jean-André Fieschi, France, 1999, 73 mins

“Act as if. As if what you tell was true. And in doing so, one is much closer to reality.” Jean Rouch learned this philosophy from the African Dogons. It informed his approach both to life and to cinema. A unique storyteller and inventor of cinéma direct, embraced by the Nouvelle Vague as one of their own, Rouch was already in his eighties when he decided to shoot La Vache merveilleuse (The Wonderful Cow), with a small Nigerien crew and his two old Songhai friends, Damouré Zika and Talou. Mosso, Mosso (Jean Rouch comme si…) is the epitome of the director’s underlying ethos, but it also extended to the work of his friend and disciple Jean-André Fieschi. The decision to make a film about Rouch (while the director was in the midst of production) was an opportunity to uncover the secrets of his unique shooting style. But it was the role of chance that resulted in his most startling moments of cinematic grace. Rouch’s decision to become an ethnologist had been sparked by a random incident of fate, when ten workers were killed in a lightning strike on a construction site that he was supervising in 1941. As Rouch installs his famous 10mm lens, charges his 16mm camera, and directs his actors, all while sitting in a small armchair, the tone is already quixotic. Fieschi’s film takes a turn into genuine comedy, when the capricious hand of fate pops up again. Old cars refuse to start or burn out while driving off the road into the bush. But when Talou starts singing to his cows, already moving to the great Niger River at sunset, a rare magic takes possession of the scene. -TG This film is part of French French, curated by Thierry Garrel. Read more on page 18.

HoLDSTOCK FUND FOR DOCUMENTARY ENGAGEMENT

PHOTO: ALISHA WENG

Orlando von Einsiedel and André Bauma at the screening of Virunga, DOXA 2014.

It seems, even as a kid growing up in Southern California, I’ve always liked movies that were not mainstream. I lived near Hollywood but watched films from Europe. When I became aware of the differences between realist and formalist films, I found I came down on the side of realism in most cases. For years my favourite film was Bicycle Thieves. Then I found the pleasure of well-made documentaries—more real than any realist fiction. After subjecting thousands of my students to my biases, I discovered DOXA Documentary Film Festival, a wonderful resource for the exhibition of the real in cinema and for the support of independent documentary filmmakers. In a culture that views movies largely as a form of escapism, documentary has sometimes had a tough time, but we seem to be entering into a period where audiences are more receptive to films that document the world we live in. We are recognizing that movies can engage audiences in the events of the world, in all their complexity. I have found that the level of engagement increases greatly when filmmakers and artists are present at screenings of their work. Audience members can learn about the challenges of the production, the motivations in making the films, and interact with the real people behind the film. I initiated the Holdstock Fund for Documentary Engagement to ensure that the experience of seeing a film with its creator(s), occurs more often. The intent of the fund is to facilitate the presence of more filmmakers and artists at DOXA screenings. I urge you to contribute and help us all to be more engaged. - Roger Holdstock

CONTRIBUTE TO THE HOLDSTOCK FUND DOXA Documentary Film Festival is extremely pleased to announce the creation of the Holdstock Fund for Documentary Engagement. With the generous support of Roger Holdstock, this fund has been initiated to help DOXA bring filmmakers and special guests from across Canada and around the globe to the festival. The fund will help DOXA engage its audience, not only through the presentation of ground-breaking documentaries, but also through the provision of stimulating discussions and interactions following screenings. If you have any questions about becoming a donor, contact DOXA’s Executive Director, Kenji Maeda at kenji@doxafestival.ca or 604.646.3200 ext 101. 64

FOR DOCUMENTARY ENGAGEMENT RIGHT NOW BY:

MOBILE Use the QR Code to donate through our mobile-friendly donation site. WEB

www.doxafestival.ca/donate Donations of $20 or more are eligible for a charitable tax receipt.

FESTIVAL VENUES Pick up a donation form during the festival from our volunteers in the lobby.

MOnday MAY 4

6:30 PM VANCITY

Seven Digital Deadly Sins Live

NFB Digital Studio, The Guardian, Jam3 and Ophira Eisenberg, Canada/ UK, 2014, 60 mins

It has been 25 years since the invention of the world wide web and more than 2 billion people are now connected. How does this information revolution affect us personally, socially and morally? Is it okay to stalk someone on Facebook? How about looking at online porn? Do you judge someone for posting 900 selfies or Instagramming everything they ever ate? Is it okay to lead a public shaming campaign via Twitter? These questions and more will be answered in Seven Digital Deadly Sins Live. Seven Digital Deadly Sins Live is an Interactive Comedy Game Show that challenges the audience to examine their behaviour online starring Ophira Eisenberg (NPR, The Moth) with the NFB Digital Studio. The live audience participation event takes the audience on an analogue and digital journey through our modern day digital sins — exploring the darker side of Wrath, the lazy side of Sloth, and the taboo side of Lust. You can gauge how much you sin online in advance at http:// sins.nfb.ca, alongside comedians Mary Walsh, Josie Long and Bill Bailey, as well as journalist Jon Ronson, musician Billy Bragg and writer Gary Shteyngart, who reveal their own sinful online behaviour. Find out what pride, lust, greed, gluttony, envy, wrath and sloth mean in the digital world — and cast judgment on the guilty. Will you absolve or condemn them?

MONDAY MAY 4

8:15 PM CINEMATHEQUE

Theory of Obscurity: a film about The Residents Don Hardy, USA, 2015, 87 mins

Who are The Residents? While the avant-garde rock group’s career has spanned over four decades, very few know the answer to this question. This veil of anonymity has allowed the group to continually experiment with its image, turning conventional rock and roll tropes on their heads. The influence of the capering anarchic spirit of The Residents can be seen in the work of generations of musical weirdos, from the Talking Heads to Lil B. Filmmaker Don Hardy, along with noted Residents fans such as Penn Jillette, Simpsons creator Matt Groening, and Jerry Casale of Devo, dives deep into the archives to unearth this most sui generis of bands. Interviews with the Cryptic Corporation, the mysterious organization behind the musicians, guide us from the band’s fabled origins in Northern Louisiana to the present day. Along the way, a gonzo mélange of old and new concert footage conjures up the magic that has drawn devotees to The Residents for so long. Keep your eyeballs peeled for the glorious madness that was The Residents’ legendary lost film project, Vileness Fats. Out of the dizzying array of masks, costumes, and stage persona that have been worn by The Residents over the years, one in particular has stuck—a group of dapper top hat- and tails-wearing eyeballs. This is fitting, as this “disguise” allows them to return our gaze, encouraging us to be as original and uncompromising as the individuals on stage. In the end, maybe we’re all Residents. -CP MEDIA SPONSOR

MONDAY MAY 4

8:15 PM SFU-GCA

Spartacus & Cassandra Ioanis Nuguet, France, 2014, 80 mins

In the beginning of director Ioanis Nuguet’s film, Spartacus (age 13) and his sister Cassandra (age 11) are living on the streets with their Romani parents. The situation has been slowly getting worse over the years, and the French authorities have finally stepped in. The decision to remove the kids from their parents’ care and place them with foster parents is not easy for anyone. Their mother seems to be suffering from mental illness and their father is a violent drunk. Neither is capable of taking care of their kids. The only beacon of hope is a young trapeze artist named Camille, who steps up and assumes the role of parent and caretaker. You get the sense that there couldn’t have been a better person for the job. A fierce young woman, who does not take any shit, Camille possesses an innate understanding that part of growing up is learning to deal squarely with reality. As she hounds Spartacus to do his homework and go to bed at a reasonable hour, or organizes a birthday party for Cassandra, the delicate balancing act that is parenting is rendered explicit. Camille’s circus training comes in handy! The opportunity to move into an old house in the countryside represents a brand new life for both Camille and the kids. You can’t help but hold your breath in hope that things will work out for everyone. But even as the siblings are coming to terms with the changes in their lives, their parents continue to spiral downwards. Spartacus’s emerging understanding of the larger forces at work is clear, as he states unequivocally that the fact that his parents continue to live in poverty and filth is something he cannot accept. Still, the film’s final act is one of resounding hope for the future. -DW This film is part of French French, curated by Thierry Garrel. Read more on page 18.

MONDAY MAY 4

8:30 PM vancity

Le cose belle (The Good Things)

Agostino Ferrente and Giovanni Piperno, Italy, 2013, 88 mins

On the surface, Le cose belle is the story of four young people coming of age in Naples. When filmmakers Agostino Ferrente and Giovanni Piperno started shooting their film in 1999, Fabio, Enzo, Adele, and Silvana were just kids. At age 14, Adele is filled with the certainty of youth, despite being held back at school. Fabio, a scamp of the first order, holds court in the street, expounding with complete assurance on politics and bomb attacks. Enzo sings for money in nighttime cafes, and swoons over girls, while Silvana struggles with her mother, but looks towards the future with optimism. After the course of more than a dozen years, the filmmakers returned to Napoli to catch up with their subjects. From sassy kids playing in the street, to beleaguered adults, the transformation is startling, mirroring the changes in the city itself. As the very grownup problems of money, jobs, and Italy’s uncertain future loom, these four people struggle to find hope, love, and some form of happiness. Fragmented, impressionistic, and suffused with atmosphere that is ripe and alive, Le cose belle feels like a postcard from another time, or a lost family album. The Neapolitan belief that time doesn’t actually exist is given full examination here, and in some fashion it almost seems to be true. Against the sunny beaches, and nighttime cafés, childhood lingers long, accompanied by a soundtrack of pop hits, and traditional songs. Adulthood is equally as lengthy, but not nearly so sweet. -DW CONSULATE AND CULTURAL Partner

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UBC Theatre & Film

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TUESDAY MAY 5

3:45 PM vancity

TUESDAY MAY 5

6:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE

Haze and Fog

She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry

One part Charlie Chaplin to two parts horror movie, Cao Fei’s film might not fall into the realms of traditional documentary, and that’s okay! Fresh off a screening at the Documentary Fortnight at the MoMa in New York, and part of Wild Grass (DOXA’s program of New Chinese Images), Haze and Fog represents a new form of filmmaking. It is wildly inventive, hilarious, and disturbing, often all at the same time. Suspend all expectations of what documentary is, and simply experience the damn thing. In a cool grey apartment block, every suite houses a strange event. Zombies roam the hallways, looking for the unwary. A dominatrix in stilettos and leather whips a naked man till he howls. A woman, mindlessly chopping carrots, accidentally chops off a finger. Meanwhile outside, Psy’s pop hit megalith Gangnam Style plays merrily away, like an idiot’s lament for a doomed world. People scream, occasionally fall over, or stare out at the distant grey skies. What to make of all this? Is it a statement of our benumbed and alienated state? An indicator that things are seriously awry in urbanized China, or a cheerfully bleak portrait of a new Armageddon? What most endures is the supreme control Cao Fei exerts over this world, whether it’s a vision of hellish modernity or something else entirely. -DW

“The personal is political.” Those powerful words set the stage for second wave feminism, and they’re also the driving force behind Mary Dore’s new film, She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry. Dore masterfully interweaves interviews with old school activists along with stunning archival footage of demonstrations and meetings to piece together an impressive history of the women’s liberation movement from 1966 to 1971. Driven by a desire for genuine social change, activists adopted a range of tactics, from storming congress in support of birth control to dressing up like witches to protest corporate America on Wall Street. Like any social movement, it is in the failure of ideology where you learn the most. Dore doesn’t shy away from the problems that undermined what was once quaintly termed ‘Women’s Lib.’ As a movement organized by mostly white middle class women, the spaces carved out by black and queer women laid the foundation for the intersectional feminism that we know today. The film gallops along, propelled by a punchy soundtrack that features some powerful women including Aretha Franklin, the Chicago Women’s Liberation Rock Band and riot grrrl icons Bikini Kill. While it’s clear that the women’s movement forced huge strides forward in health, employment and reproductive rights, the struggle is far from over. If you want evidence of the new battle lines being drawn look only to GTFO (also screening at DOXA this year) where the war over rape culture and online bullying has taken on frightening proportions. She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry serves as a strong reminder that social change is possible, and that getting and staying angry is the most radically beautiful act of all.

Cao Fei, China, 2013, 47 mins

PRECEDED BY

i.Mirror by China Tracy (The Second Life documentary) Cao Fei, China, 2007, 28 mins

A candy-coloured pop music odyssey that documents the artist’s experiences inside Second Life, as she meets and befriends a variety of folk. -DW This film is part of Wild Grass: New Chinese IMAGES, curated by Zhang Yaxuan. Read more on page 19.

Mary Dore, USA, 2014, 92 mins

-SC PRECEDED BY

Newborns

Megha Ramaswamy, India, 2014, 8 mins

In this poetic and provocative film, acid attack survivors defy the violence that was perpetrated upon them by performing monologues and testimonials in public and domestic spaces. -SC 69

TUESDAY MAY 5 THURSDAY MAY 7

8:30 PM VANCITY 2:45 PM VANCITY

Le Nez

(The Empire of Scents) Kim Nguyen, Canada, 2014, 84 mins

Truffles, wine, perfume, and poop! We experience a huge majority of life through our noses. Intricately tied to emotion and memory, smell is fundamental to determining who we fall in love with, what we remember about our childhood, and how we feel about the world. Kim Nguyen’s extraordinary film Le Nez captures this most intimate of senses through the individual stories of an Italian truffle hunter, a French perfumer, and a Chinese tea expert. Even Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield pops in to talk about what outer space smells like. Hint: it’s wild! The profound impact that smell has on human understanding of the world is particularly poignant in the experience of a young woman who loses her sense of smell after being hit by a car. Her boyfriend doesn’t smell the same way and everything is washed of colour and flavour. The return of one scent at a time, beginning with the smell of rosemary, is cause for jubilation. Le Nez takes a distinctly pungent approach to its subject. Witness the varied expressions of people as they get a whiff of ambergris, the legendary sperm whale excrement used in perfumery. This is a film that may have you sniffing the air, or the person next to you, in search for that next fragrant experience. -DW PRECEDED BY

Sniff! The Art of Air Tasting Sandra Ignagni, Canada, 2014, 5 mins

In the lush forests of Stanley Park, Vancouver-based artist and designer Alex Grünenfelder is busily practicing the arcane art of air tasting. Inspired by the philosophy of French oenologist Émile Peynaud, Grünenfelder has developed the art of attuning oneself to the nearly 400,000 smells present in the natural environment. -DW

TUESDAY MAY 5

8:45 PM CINEMATHEQUE

Karst Elegies

Shen Jie, China, 2015, 80 mins

The relationship between people and the land takes on especial poignancy in China, as the country’s stunning natural beauty succumbs to unparalleled levels of development. Bracketed by two different rituals, Shen Jie’s film unfolds as a series of conversations with the residents of his home village. Some exchanges are sweetly nostalgic, while others are bleak beyond grief. A certain strain of grim humour permeates throughout, in particular, in an extended scene between an elderly couple having entirely different conversations while seated right next to each other. In another scene, a man sits alone in a rundown building, groaning quietly to himself. As the camera approaches, he simply stares back. Sadness, thick and damp, blankets the landscape, but still there are moments of startling beauty. Fish released into a river flash bright orange. Against the backdrop of the distant mountains, draped and hung with curtains of mist, backhoes scratch at the earth. The conflict between modern and ancient China, explored in startling fashion in Shen Jie’s previous work Little Proletarian (featured in DOXA 2014), takes on an even more profound aspect here. This film is both an incantation and a prayer, an elegy to the people and the land itself. The film’s final scene is one of immolation, akin to that undertaken in The Twilight of the Gods, a purification ritual meant to free the spirit through a baptism of fire. -DW In the words of the filmmaker: “This is my ceremony to observe the living of my self-enslaved hometown; by the ceremony of burning trees, summon up the free spirit of natural civilization; infuse rhapsody into the fall of pastoral poem, as the realization of my return to the native’s spirit.” This film is part of Wild Grass: New Chinese IMAGES, curated by Zhang Yaxuan. Read more on page 19.

WEDNESDAY MAY 6

12:30 PM vancity

#chicagoGirl: The Social Network Takes on a Dictator Joe Piscatella, USA/Syria, 2013, 74 mins

How did a 19-year-old student in Chicago take on the Syrian regime and help start a revolution? Sitting on top of a pink blanket in the comfort of her bedroom, Ala’a Basatneh describes her methods that include shipping small cameras to activists on the ground, and translating and uploading content to social media websites. Facebook, Twitter and Skype are Basatneh’s weapons of choice, as she coordinates multiple protest groups at a click of the button. The Damascus-born, Chicago-raised teen has over 6,000 followers on Twitter and she’s also the administrator for one of the largest Syrian protest Facebook pages, boasting over 40,000 followers. She protects rebels and protesters by deactivating their Facebook accounts when they are detained by government officials, and shares video evidence of attacks on civilians with mainstream news sources. When the Bashar al-Assad regime cracks down on outside media entering the country, the pressure for Basatneh and her fellow citizen journalists to report what’s happening on the ground becomes even more critical. Even though the defiant protests in Syria have endured longer than that of other Arab countries, Basatneh and her friends refuse to give up. “My friends in Syria are being detained and I can’t just isolate myself from what’s happening over there,” she says. “I know that my friends, daily, are facing bullets.” But when she gets news of the death of a friend, she questions whether her online campaigns are enough. Opting for social media over an AK-47, #chicagoGirl is a dramatic and harrowing tale of 21st century global protest and the power of social media. -SC Winner of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam DOC U Award, administered by a youth jury. NO MEMBERSHIP REQUIRED. OPEN TO YOUTH UNDER 18.

WEDNESDAY MAY 6

3:00 PM vancity

Li Wen at East Lake Li Luo, China, 2015, 117 mins

On the surface, director Li Luo’s film is one-part documentary and two-parts police procedural. This curious structure allows for a loose approach and tone, wandering from man-on-the-street type interviews to decidedly more fantastical elements (dragons and a naked Mao). The story begins with the encroachment by developers onto East Lake, close to the mega-city of Wuhan. As students and locals protest the building of amusement parks and housing projects on the shoreline, the conflict between new and old in China is again trotted out. These opening scenes, with people screaming pleasurably on a roller coaster, and historical theme park reenactments, complete with explosives, gunfire and dramatic death scenes, may prompt bemusement. But things begin to take a decidedly different direction as reports of mythological creatures and a mentally ill man reach the ears of Li Wen, a detective with his own creative bent. After an extended argument with an earnest academic, studying, of all things, gender studies, the situation begins to unravel for our hero. The generational split and torturous relationship to the past, examined in a more intimate and personal fashion in Shen Jie’s film Karst Elegies (also part of Wild Grass: New Chinese Images) is again on display, but Li Luo gentles his work with humour and wry wit. -DW “While a revisit of the docudrama hybrid of his second film Rivers and My Father, Li Wen is definitely a more audacious and political work, as Li Luo quietly but powerfully contends with the effect of ideological indoctrination in China. Li Luo never seeks to browbeat viewers into submission of his pessimism. Rather, Li Wen at East Lake is a comic tragedy, its wealth of comedic moments nearly all leaving a bitter aftertaste.” -The Hollywood Reporter This film is part of Wild Grass: New Chinese IMAGES, curated by Zhang Yaxuan. Read more on page 19.

WEDNESDAY MAY 6

5:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE

Où gît votre sourire enfoui? (Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie?)

Pedro Costa and Thierry Lounas, France, 2001, 70 mins

Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet (long considered the rebels of French cinema) had been appointed to teach at Le Fresnoy — Studio national des arts contemporains, when they decided to edit the third version of their film Sicilia!, based on Elio Vittorini’s antifascist novel. With the complicity of critic Thierry Lounas, Portuguese director Pedro Costa took advantage of the situation, installing, with the requested level of discretion, a small camera and a reading light in the editing suite, transforming it into a stage. Inside this crucible, Huillet and Straub are captured, each in their distinctive mode. Huillet, bent over the Moviola, staring fixedly at the screen as she cuts the film, shot by shot, forwarding and rewinding. Meanwhile, Straub paces like a caged animal, in and out of the darkened room, ranting about things like the overuse of music in films, or form versus ideas. “The form of the body gives birth to the soul. I’ve said that a thousand times,” he states. Occasionally he disappears to smoke in the hallway. After an extended tirade, his wife asks, “Are you done? Have you calmed down?” “I am always calm,” he answers. This exceptional lesson in the theory and practice of editing occasionally turns into comedy, as the filmmakers contend with each other as much as their project. “Straub, the door!” or “Silence, Straub!” repeats Huillet, editing her husband like a bit of footage. But above all, Costa’s film allows us to discover a unique complicity in a travail à deux (a couple at work) as well as their uncompromising stance towards cinéma. -TG This film is part of French French, curated by Thierry Garrel. Read more on page 18.

WEDNESDAY MAY 6

6:00 PM vancity

Uyghurs: Prisoners of the Absurd Patricio Henríquez, Canada, 2014, 98 mins

How do you distinguish between a militant enemy combatant and a refugee? When there are political and monetary incentives to denounce marginal individuals, the differences can be difficult to prove. Twenty-two Muslims from China’s Uyghur minority fled China, but were unfortunate enough to be rounded up in the months following the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan. Patricio Henríquez’s film follows their journey from China to the Middle East and then to the detention prison at Guantánamo where they were imprisoned without trial for up to eleven years. Even after being proven innocent, they were stuck in a legal black hole. In the search for al Qaeda, the US promised cash rewards for those who reported “terrorists,” creating a huge incentive for local informers, and the refugee Uyghurs were easy targets. Indepth candid interviews with three of the former detainees, now resettled in other countries around the world, bring to light the shocking injustices of these little-known victims of the War on Terror. This legal thriller with multiple twists and turns recounts the stories of the men, their lawyers, and translators as they struggle towards justice. The strange, fascinating, and disturbing tale unfolds across multiple countries and continents, through lies and obfuscations, while navigating the labyrinth of contemporary geopolitics. The result is a journey though a Kafkaesque nightmare and an urgent, moving call for the respect of international human rights. This documentary encourages us to closely consider the religious, political and cultural persecution of minority groups, many of which are ignored by the international community, swept under the carpet for larger political reasons. -KR SCREENING PARTNER

AUDIENCE PARTNEr

WEDNESDAY MAY 6

6:45 PM cINEMATHEQUE

8:45 PM vancity

Austerlitz

Kings of Nowhere

“You buy a book. You don’t really know why. It lies around, and then one day you open it, almost absentmindedly. And there you are, facing your own innermost secrets.”

A man steers a boat across a placid lake, its humming motor, the only sound in an otherwise silent landscape. On his right, the steeple of a church emerges from the water. This is San Marcos: a town that doesn’t actually exist. Once inhabited by a community of some 300 people, San Marcos (located in Mexico’s northwestern coastal state of Sinaloa) has been erased from all official maps. Following the construction of a nearby dam several years ago, the village now spends six months of the year almost entirely underwater — a state that has forced out the majority of its population, leaving a ghost town peopled by decrepit buildings, empty houses, and rotting roads. Building from her 2011 short documentary project, Venice, Sinaloa, director Betzabé García returns to San Marcos to capture the lives of the three families that have remained in the village, despite the encroaching decay, isolation, and threat of violence. The eerie beauty and unsettling stillness of the drowned village takes on an almost spectral surrealism. A child beats his drum on a makeshift bandstand in what used to be the town square; a man brings tortillas to a family cow that has been stranded by the rising waters; a couple meticulously trims the hedges surrounding a crumbling church while animals wander freely through abandoned buildings. Nature has begun to reclaim space, and the haunting cacophony of distant thunderstorms and nocturnal insects provide an aural accompaniment to San Marcos’s slow demise. Still, where there is life, there is hope and humour, as the t own’s last residents make resolutely clear. -PP

Stan Neumann, France, 2014, 90 mins

So begins Stan Neumann’s cinematic adaptation of W.G. Sebald’s award-winning novel, Austerlitz. The vaulted and majestic space of the railway station in Antwerp is where our journey really starts with actor Denis Lavant (Holy Motors) addressing the camera directly, and musing on the curious nature of railway stations. This bravura opening is startling, charming, and like the unnamed narrator of the book, you surrender to the proceedings and perambulate alongside Lavant, as he journeys through the great buildings of Europe, faded and shuttered hotels and grand colonnades with broken windows. The next stop is the Palace of Justice in Brussels, built so quickly that things spiraled out of control, with hallways that went nowhere. From Wales to Prague, London to Paris, with an interlude in Marienbad, the film retraces the novel’s path and multiple strands of narrative intertwine and converge, studded here and there with digressions and odd facts, like the secret life of moths and the nature of photographs. At some point in these peregrinations, a spike of doubt pokes through. Details purloined from other novels and other writers including Kafka, Walter Benjamin, and Wittgenstein, are repurposed to suit the narrator’s needs. What is real and what is fiction? Whose story is this really? As the voices of the filmmaker, the writer and the characters meld and combine, the compulsive need to understand takes hold. At the center of the story stands the Prague ghetto of Terezin, and a secret long buried in childhood. -DW This film is part of French French, curated by Thierry Garrel. Read more on page 18.

WEDNESDAY MAY 6

Betzabé García, Mexico, 2015, 83 mins

WEDNESDAY MAY 6

9:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE

Heaven Adores You Nickolas Rossi, USA, 2014, 104 mins

The whisper thin vocals and gentle acoustics of Elliott Smith conjure strong emotions for the singer-songwriter’s many devotees. Although he may be most widely known for gracing the 1998 Academy Awards with a stunning rendition of “Miss Misery,” it is difficult to find consensus among Elliott Smith fans over which song or album is his “best” — likely because of the personal connections fans forge with their favourite parts of his catalogue. And since his death, from two apparently self-inflicted stab wounds in 2003, Smith’s bittersweet music has resonated all the more strongly. Director Nickolas Rossi’s respectful look at the life and work of Elliott Smith adopts an appropriately melancholic tone as it follows the path of Smith’s career through Portland, New York, and finally Los Angeles. Rare tracks along with more familiar cuts from Smith’s catalogue are expertly curated to showcase all sides of the artist’s complex personality. His thoughtfulness, sadness, and kindness are all given room to breath. Interviews with former bandmates, friends, and other associates highlight the complicated nature of the gifted musician. Longtime fans may be surprised to see appearances from some figures that have been known to be quiet about their relationship with Smith, including onetime girlfriend and subject of “Say Yes,” Joanna Bolme. A myriad of old photographs, demos, and sonic experiments complete the fascinating scrapbook that is Heaven Adores You. Relative newcomers to Elliott Smith along with completists are sure to find something to love. -CP Heaven Adores You is an archival triumph. -Pitchfork

THURSDAY MAY 7

12:30 PM VANCITY

On the Ground: Shorts Program From a casino to the school ground, this collection of films showcases kids from around the world who are forced to find their own way, taking back space and boldly calling out the injustices around them.

Play!

Andrej Kolencik, Serbia, 2014, 12 mins

A camera follows 8-year-old Dusan as he explores a casino and amusement park. The insightful young fellow philosophizes about the meaning of family, work, and SpongeBob SquarePants.

Gabriel Reports the World Cup Els van Driel, The Netherlands, 2014, 17 mins

With a microphone in hand, 14-year-old Gabriel takes on the role of an on-the-ground journalist as he reports on the 2014 World Cup, and the effect it has had on his neighbourhood in Fortaleza, Brazil.

Go Straight Home

Iga Mikler and Maud Nycander, Sweden, 2014, 11 mins

14-year-old Reba lives with her family in Dhaka where she walks to school everyday. A few of her classmates have already been forced to marry. Despite being harassed and catcalled on her way to school, Reba is determined to pursue an education.

The Space

Eléonor Gilbert, France, 2014, 15 mins

A young girl just wants to play soccer. But it isn’t that simple. The rules of the playground are drawn along gender lines. Boys get there first, while girls have to wait for their friends. Using a pencil and paper, our heroine illustrates for the clueless adults the struggle for equal rights and access, with only the occasional eye-roll and frustrated sigh. -SC

THURSDAY MAY 7

5:00 PM VANCITY

Cut Out the Eyes Xu Tong, China, 2014, 80 mins

Er Houshen is an itinerant performer in Inner Mongolia. Something of a local legend, Er performs on outdoor stages to rapturous crowds. Everyone from teenage girls to toothless elderly ladies is enthralled by his ribald stage manner and musicianship. It’s not hard to see why, as Er and his lover Liu Lanlan trade sassy, often startling sexy repartée in a series of er ren tai performances. A little like a musical tennis match with a salacious, raunchy edge, er ren tai is the Chinese name for a traditional song form in which performers take turns singing verses. Songs about their adulterous love affairs, work, and death — the stuff of rude, rough life, bring down the house. Accompanied by a vibrant range of instruments including flutes, khuuchirs, and clappers, which provide the musical backbone of their performances, these sorrowful epic songs provide a soundtrack to life in Inner Mongolia. Cut Out the Eyes follows Er and Liu as they travel to rural villages, meeting with folks who provide a history of the many different er ren tai traditions. Along the way, the camera captures everything from the bumpy roads (a little shakily at times) to intimate conversations with Er’s elderly mother about money and health problems. More than a study in ethnomusicology, director Xu Tong casts a light on the universal value of song in its ability to transcend and communicate the full range of human emotion. It’s through Er’s folk-opera songs, in all their hilarious and poignant glory, that we learn why our prickly protagonist is never without sunglasses. (Hint: look only to the film’s title.) Like the other films in Wild Grass: New Chinese Images, Cut Out the Eyes offers a rarely-glimpsed look at rural Chinese communities in an era of rapid global urbanization. -SC This film is part of Wild Grass: New Chinese Images, curated by Zhang Yaxuan. Read more on page 19.

THURSDAY MAY 7

6:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE

Je suis le peuple (I Am the People)

Anna Roussillon, France, 2014, 111 mins

On a rural farm in Egypt, a woman sits cross-legged talking to a camera. “Get rid of this sad spectacle!” she says and starts to laugh. The filmmaker answers back in salty fashion, and the two women trade remarks with an ease that speaks to deep comfort in each other’s presence. When a man arrives on a motorcycle, he joins in the teasing, “She could be a poster child for hunger campaigns…for Somalia,” he says to the filmmaker. From behind the camera, all you hear is laughter. Within moments of entering the world of I Am the People, one feels instantly at home. In this close-knit farming family, kids trash-talk each other and fight over the remote control. “I hope you die, my brother,” is a typical insult, offered with deadpan sincerity. Adults read the newspaper and trade gossip with the neighbours. All the while, huge events in world history are unfolding on the nightly news. The fact that the Egyptian Revolution is only the backdrop of this story clearly demonstrates that a singular directorial vision is at work. Whatever is happening in distant Cairo, the work of farming continues. Planting, harvesting and the purchase of a new mill are all larger events than the activities of the far off city folk. Each family member is funny and curious, but you get the sense that the filmmaker Anna Roussillon, and Farraj, the father of the clan, share a special rapport. Their conversations form the heart of the film, as they thoughtfully exchange ideas. Anna spent three years filming and at some point, she seems like an extended member of the family. When a power outage abruptly cuts off a televised speech from the country’s leader, everyone laughs. Life goes on. -DW This film is part of French French, curated by Thierry Garrel. Read more on page 18.

THURSDAY MAY 7

7:00 PM VANCITY

From My Syrian Room

Hazem Alhamwi, France/Syria/Germany/Lebanon/Qatar, 2014, 69 mins

Alhamwi, a satirical cartoonist and painter turned filmmaker, turns the camera on himself to create this modest yet touching portrait of what life was like in Syria before the 2011 uprising. “Drawing was the only space I had to express my pain,” he says. “My room was a safe haven for thousands of drawings.” When heavily-armed security guards confronted Alhamwi on a bus trip, the 18-year-old fine arts student was so terrified the guards would find the caricature he had drawn of then-president, Hafez al-Assad, that he ripped out his drawing and ate it. “The ink’s taste was very bitter,” he reflects. Through intimate conversations and poetic narration, Alhamwi explores just how far the regime’s psychological control has permeated the life of artists, intellectuals and everyday people. Drawings of masks become animations that hide the identity of the people the filmmaker speaks to. Alhamwi’s subversive drawings depict a desperate desire for peace and freedom. In one drawing, a headless body asks: “Has anyone seen my head?” In another, a body asks, “Why would you need it?” Scenes of children in classrooms, flocks of birds and a lone turtle add a poignant note. At the end of the film, Alhamwi’s camera catches a young woman playing the cello. It’s here, in this lone musician, that he sees the hope of a better future. From My Syrian Room points to the devastating consequences of censorship, and the power that a pen, an instrument, or a camera still hold in freeing and healing the collective spirit. -SC AUDIENCE PARTNER

THURSDAY MAY 7

9:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE

Le Paradis (Paradise)

Alain Cavalier, France, 2014, 70 mins

At age 83, director/auteur Alain Cavalier has reached the status of grand old man of cinema. But his newest work, Le Paradis (Paradise), is as fresh and bright as a summer day in Provence. Indeed, that is where the film begins, in the backyard of Cavalier’s summer home, where a mother peacock and her new baby chick are picking their way across the grass. Herein begins a journey through life and death, faith and myth, image and reality. Throughout, Cavalier narrates in French, like he is tucked inside your ear and telling you a story. Many stories, in fact… from the biblical tale of Adam and Eve, to the pantheon of the Greek gods, to Jesus and his disciples preparing for the last supper — this is weighty material, the cornerstone of all Western culture. But do not fear, the film takes on even the most profound idea with gentle humour and a gossamer touch. From the story of God, the Devil, and the Devil’s bluntly practical wife, casually bickering about the best way to break poor old Job, to a sweetly raunchy sex scene between two windup toys, the curious alchemy of minutiae and profundity add up to something altogether transcendent. Working in the Bressonian tradition of close intense observation, the most prosaic of things — a rollmop glistening on a plain white plate, a communion wafer nestled in the succulent leaves of a plant, a stone owl — reveal a hidden presence. It is tempting to call it divinity, but it is also the glory of cinema, that makes you see, I mean really see, what is being captured on film. Life is right in front of you. -DW This film is part of French French, curated by Thierry Garrel. Read more on page 18.

THURSDAY MAY 7 FRIDAY MAY 8

9:15 PM VANCITY 3:00 PM VANCITY

12:30 PM VANCITY 4:30 PM CINEMATHEQUE

The Ceremony

GTFO: Get the F&#% Out

The literary phenomenon Fifty Shades of Grey may have introduced BDSM to legions of folk around the globe, but the real thing is so much stranger. A circle of regal self-possessed French women, armed with the world-weary élan that only the French can pull off, talk about being introduced in different ways to the world of dominance and submission. At the centre of this curious society is the personage of Catherine Robbe-Grillet, all 4 feet 11 inches of her, not counting her cool white turban. This tiny woman nonetheless possesses the power to bring men and women to their knees. Married to Alain Robbe-Grillet, novelist, filmmaker, sadist, and august member of the Académie française, Catherine’s own métier was the erotic. She came to fame writing under the nom de plume of Jean de Berg. Described in a Vanity Fair profile as a “modern-day Marquise de Sade”, Robbe-Grillet had variously caned, cut, and whipped willing participants — “locked others in small iron cages, crowned them with acacia thorns, handcuffed them to chains on walls, and basically beaten the shit out of a rather large number of people, male and female.” Director Lina Mannheimer brings a coolly passionate eye to the ritualistic encounters at the centre of the story. Whether it is bearded masculine men hopping about like chickens, or women balancing fiery candelabra between their sweating shoulder blades, these ornate and solemn occasions make clear something else, namely, the mystery at the heart of human relationships, sexual and otherwise. It is a quality best summed up by an elderly woman who remarks with a certain wicked pleasure: “The things that make us happy aren’t necessarily what we’ve been told.” -DW

Hot on the trail of last summer’s #Gamergate controversy, director Shannon Sun-Higginson’s new film GTFO: Get the F&#% Out takes a hard look at the rampant harassment that women face in the world of video gaming. Interviews with young gamers, game creators, journalists, and academics provide a critical analysis of rape culture and online bullying.

Lina Mannheimer, Sweden, 2014, 75 mins

prECEDED BY

Max Dean

Zachary Finkelstein, Canada, 2014, 3 mins

Visual artist Max Dean explores the boundaries between performance and pain in a work that forces audiences into a confrontation with their own complicity.

fRIDAY MAY 8 SATURDAY MAY 9

Shannon Sun-Higginson, USA, 2014, 74 mins

The film is unabashedly and brutally honest as it argues how we treat each other in online spaces is a reflection of how we treat each other in the real world. Hiding behind keyboards and screen names, trolls pour out racist, sexist, and homophobic slurs with the click of a button — and anyone who dares to speak out becomes a target. Jennifer Brandes Hepler, a writer for the Dragon Age game series, discovered this phenomenon the hard way. When Hepler added a storyline that included gay romance to the game, the result was a prominent and very ugly online harassment campaign. At one point, Hepler was receiving more than 500 harassing messages a day that threatened both her and her family. It’s clear that challenging mainstream gender, race, and sexual representations is key to making safer spaces, but as gaming becomes increasingly inclusive, online bullies seem to lash out stronger than ever. Shocking footage of online threats and offline harassment paints an alarming portrait of just how nasty it can get. But as young women find solidarity with each other, and create new platforms to share their experiences, change appears to be happening. As one gamer points out, “Sometimes just existing in spaces is an activist statement.” -SC NO MEMBERSHIP REQUIRED. OPEN TO YOUTH UNDER 18. THE MAY 8 SCREENING WILL INCLUDE A POST-FILM DISCUSSION.

FRIDAY MAY 8

6:00 PM VANCITY

FRIDAY MAY 8

6:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE

Of Men and War

Tell Spring Not To Come This Year

The reality of a soldier’s life, after combat duty is over, is the subject of Laurent Bécue-Renard’s extraordinary film. Made over the course of five years, Of Men and War is on the ground, embedded with the men who are part of a therapy program at Pathway Home, a facility for veterans suffering from PTSD. In a series of group sessions, the men talk about their experiences. Some stories are so painful that the reaction is visceral. A young man talking about seeing his best friend shot in the neck retches helplessly even as he tries to speak. Throughout their conversations, the men keep their sunglasses on and their baseball caps pulled low over their faces. But as the macho posturing and the military jargon falls away, the raw horror of what they lived through comes out in painful halting conversations, punctuated with explosive outbursts. Parents, children, and wives seem helpless to understand what happened to the men they thought they knew. Made with rigorous patience and commitment, the film moves through time, alongside the different members of the group. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the men move from blank, and often incredibly unlikable people, to fragile, vulnerable individuals. The work of reassembling their sense of the world is helped along with family dinners, hikes, and even a trip to the bowling alley. From a country that claims to valorize its soldiers, where the cartoon violence of American Sniper is touted as a masterpiece, Of Men and War is a necessary and important film to witness. -DW

The War on Terror started with the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. In 2014, NATO pulled out, leaving the fight to Afghans, including the soldiers of Heavy Weapons Company 3/3/215 Corps of the Afghan National Army. Saeed Taji Farouky and Michael McEvoy’s remarkable portrait provides a gritty, complex, and haunting look at a year in the lives of those soldiers. In some ways, they’re like soldiers everywhere. They joined for a job, or out of boredom. Some are veterans who fought alongside NATO. Barracks life is boring. Combat is tense and terrifying. The camera captures those emotions in silent close-ups of the faces of the solders, and sometimes with an eye for the absurd. The commander warns “When you’re afraid, then your death is near.” A soldier pipes up, “Commander, we’re not afraid, but we haven’t been paid our salary in nine months.” Yet, this is not just any war. This is a civil war fought in the wake of an invasion by great powers. The film shares the soldiers’ conflicted views on both aspects of the struggle. It also captures some telling details. The unit comes across an abandoned NATO base. The place is gutted and is useless to them. The camera explores the rooms: copies of the New Testament and Bush at War lie in the dust; a sign reading “God Bless Our Troops… Especially the Snipers” swings in the wind; in one room, a whiteboard is filled with a handdrawn flowchart outlining the events and strategies of the past decade, beginning with 9/11. -CD

Laurent Bécue-Renard, France/Switzerland, 2014, 142 mins

Winner of the Feature Documentary Award at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam.

Saeed Taji Farouky and Michael McEvoy, UK, 2015, 87 mins

Winner of the Amnesty International Film Prize and Panorama Audience Award at the Berlin International Film Festival

This film is part of French French, curated by Thierry Garrel. Read more on page 18.

FRIDAY MAY 8

8:45 PM CINEMATHEQUE

9:15 PM VANCITY

Guidelines (La Marche à suivre)

Dark Star: H.R. Giger’s World

This atmospheric documentary set in and around a high school in rural Quebec examines kids with too much energy for their surroundings, and the adults who are trying to rein them in. Director Jean-François Caissy’s long still shots invite close observation and thought, while still conveying the raw, untamed energy of childhood. Such joie de vivre can be a source of creativity and fun but it also creates problems. Guidelines explores what happens when children shift from being spirited to being reckless, from testing boundaries to intimidating their peers. What are current strategies to deal with truancy, disruptive behaviour, and bullying? Do these guidelines turn schools into bland institutions teaching conformity or can they be crucial tools for creating informed and respectful citizens? Much of the film consists of encounters between students in trouble and their teachers or counselors, usually extended takes focused on just one face in the interaction. The most powerful moments feature the kids, defiant, occasionally understanding and struggling to consider the possibility of change. The only dialogue takes place in these student/teacher meetings while the rest of the shots capture lines of school buses, foolish extreme sports, and attempts to complete skateboard tricks. Vibrant colours mirror the inner worlds of the kids and the visual agility of the editing suggests a sense of possibility, futility, and absurdity. The refreshing and liberating lack of context allows us to evaluate just what is on screen because the intricate details of the individual students and their circumstances are unknown. The lack of narration allows themes to emerge naturally and speak for themselves. Caissy’s overall approach is non-judgmental and non-didactic, but the film retains a very strong point of view and invites discussion on many topics. -KR

On the eve of the announcement of another Alien film, this time from director Neill Blomkamp, it’s interesting to return to the original vision of the artist who started the whole damn phenomenon. Born in 1940, the young H.R. Giger was given an unusual plaything as a child, a skull that he attached to a bit of rope and dragged along behind him. It is a fitting metaphor for the artist’s work, which embodies a writhing and sinuous imagination, suffused with sex and death. For initiates and hardcore fans alike, Giger’s work repels as much as it intrigues. At the artist’s home, he takes meetings with designers and his publisher, preparing a weighty coffee table book that will detail his exhaustive body of work, including paintings, sculpture, and album covers for artists as diverse as Debbie Harry, Emerson, Lake and Palmer and the Dead Kennedys. But of course, it is the towering Xenomorph at the center of his career that commands the most attention. The film devotes a good deal of attention to Ridley Scott’s legendary science fiction masterpiece, Alien, including scenes from the production. But despite the enormous success generated by the films, the artist’s life had its own share of darkness, including the suicide of his muse and lover Li Tobler. -DW

Jean-François Caissy, Canada, 2014, 75 mins

FRIDAY MAY 8

Belinda Sallin, Switzerland, 2015, 95 mins

From the monster mother in the Alien movies to his hallucinogenic, biomechanical visions, H.R. Giger gave mankind its most beautiful and troubling nightmares. Filmed shortly before his death last May, this documentary by Belinda Sallin offers a look at the iconoclastic Swiss artist, propelled to fame by his Hollywood experience and a Best Special Effects Oscar in 1980... There are also a few clues to Giger’s approach, including an anecdote about a mummy that traumatized him to the point where he went into therapy and learned to control his fear through art. -Cineman

SATURDAY MAY 9

2:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE

SATURDAY MAY 9

4:45 PM VANCITY

Drone

Censored Voices

Tonje Hessen Schei’s chilling new film illustrates how it’s never been easier for the American government to carry out a killing operation than it is today. Or, in the case of Pakistan, to stage ongoing military attacks without ever officially calling it a war. The film provides a comprehensive, and long overdue, look into drone technology — from how it was created (originally for tuna fishing) to its current military function (carrying out remote strikes from military bases in Nevada). The film provides ample demonstration of how drones work, with POV footage taken directly from the drone’s perspective. Ordinary Pakistani people talk about the wholesale destruction and the appalling level of civilian death. (The CIA has been carrying out attacks in Pakistan since 2004.) Interviews with drone operators, human rights activists, journalists and former Secretary of State Colin Powell provide additional context. But the most horrifying aspect of drone warfare is the blurring, if not complete erasure, of the line between war and entertainment, as the US military increasingly looks to video games to help recruit and train new soldiers. As robotic warfare technology develops faster than international law, and killing becomes computerized, one has to wonder if the psychology of distance creates, and even promotes, an ease of conscience. -SC

Censored Voices revisits 1967’s Six-Day War through a number of recordings made on kibbutzim not long after the battle ended. Israeli soldiers returning from the War spoke with searing honesty about their experiences to writers Amos Oz and Avraham Shapira as part of a book project. The Six-Day War resulted in enormous territorial gains for Israel, including the West Bank, Gaza and portions of the Golan Heights, but also helped entrench the country’s embattled state.

Tonje Hessen Schei, Norway, 2014, 78 mins

Politicians are fond of describing the killings carried out by unmanned drone aircraft in medical terms. They’re “surgical strikes” in which, according to one speaker here, a “cancer” is removed with minimal loss to “surrounding tissue.” But in the operating room, healthy tissue doesn’t have relatives to grieve it; the destruction of unoffending cells does not inspire other tissue to turn against the surgeon.

Mor Loushy, Israel/Germany, 2015, 84 mins

Censored Voices is one of three films featured in DOXA this year that gives voice to the experiences of soldiers. Of Men and War and Tell Spring Not To Come This Year offer up the stories of American and Afghan soldiers with the same raw candour. From tales of coming face-to-face with teenage Egyptian soldiers, as thin and trembling as reeds, to enemy combatants forced to take canteens of urine with them into battle because they had no water, the reality of war was a world away from the jingoist sentiment of the time. As the men in Censored Voices listen to recordings they made almost fifty years earlier, a range of emotions moves in waves behind their eyes: regret, sadness, and shame. The result is a gradual peeling away of falsity and nationalist pride, like so much fading paint. The experience of combat, far from the violence depicted in Hollywood films, is ugly, brutal and impossible to forget. As one ex-soldier remarks with painful prescience, “Are we doomed to bomb villages every decade for defense purposes?” -DW

-The Hollywood Reporter

SATURDAY MAY 9

6:30 PM CINEMATHEQUE

7:15 PM VANCITY

Cain’s Children

Hit 2 Pass

In 1984, three teenage boys were convicted of murder and sent to one of Communist Hungary’s most notorious detention centres. Pali, Jószef, and Zsolt each had their own harrowing story. When Pali was 15 years old, he was convicted of shooting his father. Jószef, then aged 14, stabbed his teacher in supposed self-defense, while Zsolt attacked and killed one of his friends after he made a sexual pass at his mother.

Prince George may be famous for Cariboo beer, the Mr. PG statue, and an indelible pulp mill stench, but British Columbia’s largest Northern city is also home to a full-contact demolition derby car race called Hit to Pass. The annual event, now in its 25th year, sets the stage for Kurt Walker’s debut feature film. It’s hard to fully prepare viewers for the ride that is Hit 2 Pass — a certain controlled chaos permeates the film. A catchy 16-bit soundtrack, video game interludes and shaky cam recorded from a child’s point of view are just some of the elements that make the experience of watching the film a little like being inside a Hit to Pass derby car. Mid-way through, however, the action slows down and the film takes a turn for the more reflective. The brilliance of Hit 2 Pass is how it subverts traditional narrative structure in favour of a more spontaneous and inventive approach. What starts off as a fun lovin’ road movie ends as meditation on home, identity and the creative process itself, reminiscent of the work of Ben Russell. -SC

Marcell Gerö, Hungary/France, 2014, 103 mins

The boys were interviewed for a documentary called Bebukottak (The Fallen) in 1985. Almost thirty years later, director Marcell Gerö unearthed the original interviews and began his own film, Cain’s Children. The result is much more than a real-life Boyhood, it is a harrowing, yet strangely beautiful journey through age, regret, and profound sadness. Through a series of intimate conversations, in which the men are framed in the same way as their original teen interviews, they talk about their crimes, their childhoods, and the long years spent in prison. As the camera captures the grain of their skin and every crease and line in their faces, the effect is like a Rembrandt portrait come to life. The cost of suffering is clear in their direct gaze and honest speech. But perhaps most startling of all is the curious echo that exists between their former selves and the men they have become. They remain as calm, composed and thoughtful today, as they were as children. Forever haunted by the tragedies of their youth, they sift through the memories, and the silence grows long. A work of rare and luminous humanity, Cain’s Children gives some form of redemption to these broken men. -SC

SATURDAY MAY 9

Kurt Walker, Canada, 2014, 74 mins

“Hit 2 Pass is an act of genuine and tender interrogation and selfdiscovery that explores the gap between the immaterial excitement of videogames and the complexity of life. Like the most humble and earnest first features, Walker’s film is open about its own imperfections so as to carve out its own distinctive and tentative place in the saturated imaginary of contemporary cinema.” -Film Comment

SATURDAY MAY 9

9:00 PM CINEMATHEQUE

SATURDAY MAY 9

9:15 PM VANCITY

Monsterman

Stories of Our Lives

Tomi Petteri Putaansuu, also known as Mr. Lordi, is the lead singer of Finland’s most celebrated, and decorated, metal band, Lordi. After being severely bullied in school, Tomi channeled his pain, and his love for KISS, into an elaborate monster fantasy world. From creepy figurines to horror movies, his artistic vision led him to form Lordi in 1992. Fast forward to 2006, when Lordi was the first hard rock band to win the Eurovision Song Contest. (They remain the only Finnish artists ever to win the award.) A huge welcome home concert in Helsinki took place, and, for a moment, the band members were national heroes. Lordi even landed a movie deal, starring in the horror film Dark Floors. But a few years later, when the hype had worn thin, and the screaming crowds were long gone, Tomi, on the advice of Sony Music Entertainment executives, decided to participate in a reality television show called Clash of the Choirs. This is when Lordi took the inevitable turn from unfettered artist to corporate entertainer.

The stories in this extraordinary film anthology are united by a commitment to telling the truth about the lives and love of gay and lesbian people in Kenya. In Ask Me Nicely, a pair of schoolgirls, much to their own surprise, fall passionately in love. In Athman, two men working on a tea plantation address the fact that one man’s feelings for his friend have evolved. A young woman dreams of transforming genders, and living openly with her girlfriend. Filmed in chiaroscuro shades of black and white, each story unfolds with an honesty that is heartbreaking in its simplicity. Based on real life experiences that were collected by an artists’ collective in Kenya, the material proved so revelatory that a decision was made to adapt it to the screen. With little more than a couple of lights and a small camera, the crew of actors and technicians made this anthology over the course of eight months. Underneath every story depicted on camera is the reality that even to speak the truth out loud is a dangerous and subversive act. Members of the Collective are still forced to remain anonymous in order to protect themselves. -DW

Antti Haase, Finland, 2014, 85 mins

In the style of a true Shakespearean tragedy, Monsterman traverses the rise and fall of the band’s popularity. Rarely taken seriously by true metal heads, and now near-abandoned by the mainstream, a rotating cast of band members and a pressure to get out of debt make it difficult for Lordi to write another new album. Never free of monster frills and makeup, Tomi continues to receive unconditional love and support from his adoring mother, his best friend, and even his pet boa constrictor. But eventually, he must turn his lyrics on himself and ask: “Would You Love a Monsterman?” -SC

Jim Chuchu, Kenya, 2014, 60 mins

Stories of Our Lives is a gorgeously constructed tone-poem that taps into something deeply universal: the desire to belong, the impulse to feel wanted and needed and free. One of the most triumphant and stunning films of the year. -Huffington Post Winner of Jury Prize from the Teddy Award Jury at the Berlin Film Festival

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Share your vision. DOCUMENTARY FILM PRODUCTION PROGR AM The Documentary Film Production Certificate at Langara is designed for individuals from diverse backgrounds who are passionate, curious, and wishing to create their own projects in the expanding world of non-fiction film. Our fulltime course is 16 weeks long, with a maximum intake of 9 students. Start May or September. Learn more. Annat Kennet l 604.323.5561 akennet@langara.bc.ca www.langara.bc.ca/docfilm

SUNDAY MAY 10

2:45 PM CINEMATHEqUE

SUNDAY MAY 10

3:15 PM VANCITY

The Age of Love

Sunday Ball

A speed dating event for seniors in Rochester, New York provides the framework for this charming and warm-hearted film. Hopeful singles who are seventy-plus are looking for love; thirty of them will meet for speed dating at an Italian restaurant. Will any love connections be made? We meet a serial online dater, a man obsessed with Disney World, a widowed adrenaline junkie, a Casanova, a champion body-builder, and a single woman who wonders if she should have settled down with a man she didn’t love. What keeps the film so entertaining is this huge range of characters involved — from quiet conformists to wild risk-takers. Most are still romantics at heart, searching for the joys of love, while others seek companionship, wanting to share their lives and wake up next to someone. The Age of Love also focuses on changing bodies and how these potential lovers face the sagging arms, wrinkled necks, and even the need for an oxygen tank. The happiest amongst them try their best to keep up appearances while ignoring their age and concentrate on having a good time. This sense of light-hearted fun is what marks out two of the speed daters (not to give anything away!) who do start a relationship. There are still so many stories left untold about the elderly, and the desire for love in our twilight years is the filmmaker Steven Loring has specifically tackled. The extended time he spent with the subjects results in genuine vulnerability as the seniors expose their dreams. Finally, the film asks if seniors might actually have more love to give, unencumbered by work and family distractions, while armed with years of experience and a perspective on the future. -KR

The beautiful game is rendered true to its spirit in director Eyrk Rocha’s impassioned poem to soccer. In a pitch close to the site of the 2014 World Cup, rival teams from the city’s poorest neighbourhoods stage their own version of the tournament. More than a dozen teams from different favelas meet on consecutive Sundays to compete (hence the film’s title). The final game features Geracao (from the Matriz favela) vs. Juventude (from the Sampaio favela). The action begins, suitably enough, with the Lord’s Prayer. But the religious aspects are much more than superficial observances. For the players, the coaches, and the fans watching from the sidelines, the entreaty to a greater power means, “Get the referee.” In one bravura scene, a red card on the play revolves backwards in time, as the camera follows the referee and the players on a serpentine course of flailing arms, shouted invective, and furious argument. The drama, operatic in nature, erupts into actual opera, as the voice of Maria Callas swells into Puccini-esque passion over the scene. Here, soccer takes on almost Homeric proportions, as the camera captures the beauty of bodies in motion, cutting back and forth from the enraptured and agonized crowd, to the flying feet, pumping legs, and sweat-slicked bodies of the players. Physical, visceral, and very emotional, Sunday Ball is so inside the action, you might think the cinematographer was taking the occasional pass. -DW

Steven Loring, USA, 2014, 78 mins

Eryk Rocha, Brazil, 2014, 70 mins

Labeling Eryk Rocha’s terrific Sunday Ball a sports documentary, because it focuses on soccer, is like calling Grey Gardens a madwomen documentary for featuring a couple of loonies. -Variety

SUNDAY MAY 10

4:45 PM CINEMATHEQUE

5:00 PM VANCITY

The Creeping Garden

Tea Time

It’s the stuff of classic cheeseball Sci-Fi; a luminescent blob with wildly-pulsating tentacles that lurks in the forest and oozes its way over fallen logs. It has no brain or central nervous system, as we understand it, yet it can move around on its own and find the best route through a maze to the bait provided by researchers. Is it super sentient space goo? Possibly. But it’s also more properly known as plasmodial slime mould, and it’s found in fields and forests all over the globe.

Since graduating from high school more than 60 years earlier, a group of now-elderly ladies come together each month for afternoon tea. Bone china, fairy cakes, and delicate sandwiches are de rigueur, as the ladies gather to gossip and nibble. You might think this would be a scene of supreme gentility. And, on the surface, it is just that. But underneath their sweet outfits and thick coats of lipstick, the real truth of female friendship lurks. As cutthroat as any high school mean girls clique, these women are not sweetly doddering, but smart, hilarious, and occasionally pretty bitchy. In essence, they are real women. Over the course of decades, their conversations have run from politics to love affairs, with even the occasional bit of World Cup soccer madness thrown in.

Tim Grabham and Jasper Sharp, UK, 2014, 81 mins

Directed by Tim Grabham and Jasper Sharp, The Creeping Garden introduces us to the common but mysterious life form known as myxomycetes, as well as a charming array of researchers, artists, robotics engineers, and other assorted characters who are geeked on slime moulds. It’s no wonder the lowly slime mould inspires such devotion; this is truly one super strange life-form. The film’s stunning macroscopic time-lapse footage takes us inside a luminous Petri dish world and shows us the beauty and mystery of a life-form that is neither animal nor vegetable and consequently challenges our traditional ideas about both. The slime mould’s ability to engage in complex behaviours may just have a thing or two to teach us about how we understand a term like ‘intelligence.’ The Creeping Garden is full of surprising connections that illuminate the wonder inherent in the smallest and strangest of creatures. -AW

SUNDAY MAY 10

Maite Alberdi, Chile, 2014, 70 mins

At the heart of Maite Alberdi’s (The Lifeguard) ridiculously charming film is something much more profound than tea talk and cakes. In the sidelong glances the women share, or the occasional rolling of the eyes, as they wait out the 10th rendition of someone’s story. “You told us already,” is often heard, time is moving steadily on. As members of the group fall away, from illness or infirmity, the ultimate fate that awaits us all becomes clear. Death has joined the party, and would like more than tea and sandwiches. But before that happens, there is still time for one last story and a final parting gift from one of the group’s most lively members. -DW

Final

SUNDAY MAY 10

TICKETS FROM

6:45 PM VANCITY

Dawn Petten & Ben Elliott, The Comedy of Errors (2015) Photography & Image Design: David & Emily Cooper

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Madame Phung’s Last Journey Tham Nguyen Thi, Vietnam, 2014, 87 mins

As a child, Tham Nguyen Thi and her family moved each time her father was assigned to a new hydroelectric dam project in Vietnam. In her introduction to the film, she talks about watching travelling performers, who similarly roamed about the country, arriving to set up their tents. “We watched them from a distance, their each and every move. Eccentric, colourful, cheeky, so different from us.” This childhood fascination endured. As a filmmaker, Tham embedded herself for a year with a troupe of travelling performers, presided over by Madame Phung, a worldweary transgender woman with a complicated past and a very uncertain future. In addition to crooning sickly sweet pop songs while dressed like Vegas showgirls, Madame Phung’s company also offers a variety of raffles and games of chance, with some weirdly involving hamsters. The life of a traveling company is neither easy nor glamorous. When the performers take off their glittery dresses and wigs, the hard dirty work of breaking down the set, moving on to the next town, and setting up all over again is ongoing. Life on the road takes on added worry when the performers come under attack by locals. Dealing with the cops and smoothing out relationships, it’s no wonder Madame Phung needs the occasional drink or two. As the company journeys into the remotest parts of the countryside, the film captures a side of Vietnam that is rarely witnessed. On the fairgrounds, troupe members are alternately harassed and propositioned. The threat of violence hangs in the air, and sometimes spills over into genuine tragedy. As Phung soldiers on, chastising her company for fighting, drinking, and other forms of bad behaviour, she herself is at a crossroads. Blunt, honest and startlingly intimate, Madame Phung’s Last Journey is a revealing portrait of life for gay and transgender people in Vietnam. -DW

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