Nations and Migrations

November 28, 2016 – May 31, 2017

Working with the curatorial guideposts of mobility, origins, community and belonging, Cinema Politica has selected a program of independent film and videos that highlight issues of nationhood and migration from both a historical and contemporary perspective.

Canada is one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse places on the planet. Since the country’s much-debated official policy of Multiculturalism was formed into policy over three decades ago, the Canadian “national project” as articulated through successive federal governments, has taken on as many forms as there are critical responses. Whereas Multiculturalism began with the promise of recognition and celebration of diversity (racial, religious and cultural), we have now moved into an era that Indigenous scholar Sean Glenn Coulthard has framed as “beyond recognition.”

The assertion of minority populations to determine their own social realities, institutions, cultural expression, political identification and imagined futures, amounts to a fierce reworking of what has been derisively dubbed Canada’s “Benetton-Multiculturalism.” Add to this the arrival of thousands of “new Canadians” each year, many of whom are refugees and who become migrant workers, and the old notion of nation-building demands a shift to one of nations-building in a new inclusive context of pluralism.

Following this, Nations & Migrations is a project that contributes to shifting political discourse and grassroots organizing engaged in articulating and building alternative visions and communities to the mainstream, liberal notion of what it means to be “Canadian.” By privileging voices (in film and speech) from the peripheries of this ongoing discussion Nations & Migrations looks at troubling topics like Islamophobia, xenophobia, racism, chauvinist nationalism and more. But the project also explores important collective struggles around social justice, migrant rights and anti-racism work across the country and beyond.

Whether it’s #BlackLivesMatter, #IdleNoMore, #MigrantWorkersJustice or #NoOneIsIllegal, Canada’s social movement fabric is rich, diverse and very much engaged. It is our hope that Nations & Migrations can pull together some of the multi-facted threads and provide a platform for critical, engaged and movement-based discourse on these important issues.

Using film screening events as spaces for public dialogue, independent films as the generative spark, and guest speakers (including artists) as mediators in the discourse, we hope to contribute a unique, timely and urgent creative program of film and video devoted to these multifarious topics and issues.

Nations & Migrations is comprised of three main components, the first of which is our “Comfortable Truths” campaign (#comfortabletruths), which launches November 28th, 2016. The second component involves 4-6 “groundswell screening events” at locations across Canada, held between November 2016 and February 2017. The third is the continuing discussion online, across all the platforms we all know and love!

#ComfortableTruth

“Comfortable truths” are mainstream attitudes and ideas about nationhood, belonging and identity that, despite not being true (such as “immigrants have it easy in Canada”), have become so ingrained in the Canadian imaginary and mainstream culture that they become orthodoxy. Cinema Politica reached out to activists and artists across the country and asked them to share their thoughts and reactions to these so-called truths.