Filter bubbles and ‘Fake News’ have been dominating conversations in the mainstream media, leaving us feeling burnt out on recycled information and twisted truth. If you’re like us, and have been searching for a way to break out of your personal information paddock, fear not, we have just the thing for you! Kickstart your very own information revolution by signing up for Cinema Politica’s newly launched Subscription Video on Demand service, CPSVOD.
If you are thirsty for documentaries and independent cinema that offers alternative, progressive and provocative worldviews, CPSVOD is for you. A membership with this new online film insurrection will crack open a carefully curated crate of foundational films to scratch your knowledge itch—with new streaming content added each and every month. Perhaps you’ve been questing to pop your own filter bubble, or maybe your brain has begun to calcify after endlessly scrolling through the red dungeon of re-released films and re-purposed stories.
Well scroll the depths of distraction no more! Our mission with CPSVOD is to make meaningful, political and engaging content just as convenient to access, without ever having to ask oneself, “How do I get those hours of my life back?”.
How does it work?
Cinema Politica wants to ensure you can easily quench your documentary thirst, so a whole library of films will be yours, unlimited, for the price of a single subscription. Membership with CPSVOD is set at $5.99/month, or better yet, get almost 25% off by signing up for an annual subscription at only $55.99/year. As well, anyone who subscribes can take advantage of our two week free trial.
Our SVOD service is separate from our individual pay-per-film VOD platform, and we will continue to add content to both. With a CPSVOD membership, you will be supporting a whole roster of independent filmmakers along with Cinema Politica itself. CPSVOD is ideal for film fans, documentary freaks, researchers and activists, politically mindful students, or anyone interested in the myriad issues explored in our library of titles.
CPSVOD is comprised of a diverse catalogue that will keep growing. It includes documentary features, narrative hybrids and hard-hitting shorts, with titles from across Canada and around the globe, all guaranteed to expand your horizons. Peruse our launch titles here to see what’s in store the moment you subscribe.
A few words on a handful of CPSVOD launch titles
Above, film stills from Ayiti Toma by Joseph Hillel and East Hastings Pharmacy by Antoine Bourges
Haiti, the only nation to successfully revolt against colonization in the nineteenth century, declared itself a free republic through resistance to the slave trade. Over a century later, Ayiti Toma explores Haiti’s modern legacy of resistance and oppression through the stories of Haitians themselves, aided by economists and historians, anthropologists and humanitarians, voodooists and young disaster survivors in Port-au-Prince. Director Joseph Hillel presents their collective dream, that Haitians will finally be allowed to make their own long fought-for culture the foundation for their future, creating a true “Ayiti Toma” – that is, the country that is ours, the country of the living.
In Paramita Nath’s poetic short Durga the spiritual worship of femininity and the brutality of domestic violence are strikingly juxtaposed against the backdrop of one of India’s most celebrated religious festivals. This visually remarkable glimpse into the world of the Durga Puja is at once colorfully joyous and haunting in its recognition of the ongoing brutalization of so many Indian women. Through her artistry, Nath appeals for the worship of divine goddesses to be mirrored in reverence for the very real women living amongst us.
In an innovative interleaving of reality and recreation, director Antoine Bourges has crafted an arresting glimpse into the lives of addicts living in Vancouver’s East Hastings district with East Hastings Pharmacy. Home to more drug addicts than anywhere else in Canada, in this unique film the East Hastings neighbourhood sees patients visit a special pharmacy to receive their methadone dose, which they must immediately take in front of the pharmacist in a ritual process of negotiation. In this re-imagined space of reflection, Bourges recreated the pharmacist’s aloof and calm routine, set against footage of real addicts moving through their storied days. This innovative blending of documentary and cinematic recreation confronts us with an ennui that feels so close and entirely too real.
Diving into the often unfathomable world of fascist oppressors, God’s Will is a film that attempts to shed light on the perspectives that drive homophobic and often violent ideologues currently fuelling anti-gay sentiments in Russia. Beata Bubenec’s disturbing but essential documentary tracks the cultural process that has led to the rise of homophobic legislation, as well as the violent subjugation of members of the Russian LGBTQ community. With administrative support for LGBTQ communities evaporating overnight in America, this urgent film serves as a jarring reminder of the very real dangers that hateful rhetoric poses for marginalized communities, while calling on audiences to stand tall in safeguarding all human rights – both abroad and in our own backyards.
Questions of interwoven identities sweep across Morocco, Israel-Palestine, and New York in They Were Promised the Sea, a film that asks us to embrace the sublime beauty found in ambiguity. Profiling the aspirations of Moroccan Israelis and Muslims who long to rewrite the narratives of belonging and homeland, Kathy Wazana has given us a film that asks elegant questions and begins to hint at the resilience of those who seek answers. Her investigation into the political maneuvering that has fragmented communities along religious and cultural lines also lends voice to those who continue to resist the categorical separation of Arab and Jew. In a complex web of questions about dual identity, political opportunism, and the challenges faced by those torn between Homeland and Promised Land, They Were Promised the Sea compels audiences to challenge historical narratives that are too eager to divide along supposed clean lines of ally and enemy.
Start streaming truth to power today with our free trial offer!
Because we are so thrilled to welcome you into this new branch of the Cinema Politica Family, we are offering a free trial period of two weeks for anyone who signs up. Our first 100 subscribers will also be entered to win a free one year subscription as well as a copy of the Cinema Politica book Screening Truth to Power.
CPSVOD is more than the sum of its individual films—it is a means to support independent filmmaking (and CP!), to diversify knowledge around social justice and politics and to displace the hold of content that has been corporately selected on our collective behalf. Join Cinema Politica’s SVOD service today, and together we will enrich narratives and stream truth to power.
