Despite the pandemic, Cinema Politica continues to bring you inspiring independent documentaries available through CP On Demand, and we’ve compiled a brief list of our top screened films this year from our streaming platforms! Some of these films are currently available only as pay-per-view titles, while others can be found in the collections on our subscription platform.
ON DEMAND TITLES
HANDS ON: WOMEN, CLIMATE, CHANGE
Liz Miller, Nupur Basu, Mary Kiio, Iphigénie Marcoux-Fortier, and Karen Winther, Canada, 2014, 48′
In HANDS ON, this collaborative documentary brings to light the creative efforts of five women from four continents addressing the plight of climate change. This is a truly global documentary, from Norwegian activism against oil exploration in the Arctic, to collaborative research methods between Cree and Inuit communities in Quebec, to sustainable agriculture and climate change policies in Kenya, and grassroots efforts to inform a coastal community of Veerampattinam, India on storm data. HANDS ON brings these stories together to show how women are leading the progressive front on addressing climate change, and the need to incorporate feminist policy for sustainability.
A RED GIRL’S REASONING
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Canada, 2013, 10′
A RED GIRL’S REASONING is a no-holds-barred, neo-noir action thriller featuring a formidable female vigilante in a powerful social commentary on violence against Indigenous women. Slick with dark humour, this is a subversive feminist take on racially-driven sexual assault.
* Cinema Politica also has educational streaming/digital rights for this title. For inquiries, contact booking@cinemapolitica.org.
TUNNIIT: RETRACING THE LINES OF INUIT TATTOOS
Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, Canada, 2011, 50′ (English; Inuktitut; French)
Inuit traditional face tattoos have been forbidden for a century, and almost forgotten. In her award-winning documentary TUNNIIT, director Alethea Arnaquq-Baril takes the viewer on a deeply personal journey through the impacts of Canadian colonialism on the changing way of life for the Inuit. Together with long-time friend and activist Aaju Peter, Arnaquq-Baril is determined to uncover the mystery and meaning behind this beautiful ancient tradition.
* Cinema Politica also has educational streaming/digital rights for this title. For inquiries, contact booking@cinemapolitica.org
THE CORPORATION: 10th Anniversary Cut
Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan, Canada, 2003, 121”
Cinema Politica partnered with the creators of THE CORPORATION, to release the 10th anniversary edition of this now classic documentary. Taking its status as a legal “person” to the logical conclusion, the film puts the corporation on the psychiatrist’s couch to ask “What kind of person is it?” THE CORPORATION includes interviews with 40 corporate insiders and critics – including Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Milton Friedman, Howard Zinn, Vandana Shiva and Michael Moore – plus true confessions, case studies and strategies for change.
CONTINUOUS JOURNEY
Ali Kazimi, Canada, 2004, 87′
CONTINUOUS JOURNEY by Ali Kazimi is an inquiry into the largely ignored history of Canada’s exclusion of the South Asians by a little known immigration policy called the Continuous Journey Regulation of 1908. Unlike the Chinese and the Japanese, people from British India were excluded by a regulation that appeared fair, but in reality, was an effective way of keeping people from India out of Canada until 1948. Rare archival materials tell the story of the Komagatu Maru, a Japanese steamship carrying immigrants from British India, which Canada turned away in 1914, forcing their return to Calcutta, where colonial police arrested and shot at protesting migrants.
SUBSCRIPTION TITLES
GULABI GANG
Directed by Nishtha Jain, Norway – India – Denmark, 2012, 96′
A biting look at community resistance to femicide in India, director Nishtha Jain’s GULABI GANG takes viewers into the badlands of Bundelkhand in central India. The fierce pink sari-clad women of the vigilante Gulabi Gang travel long distances by cart and tractor, bus and train, to wrest justice for abused and murdered women and Dalits, undeterred by widespread denial, sneering policemen and condescending bureaucrats. Jain’s film examines the divisions of class and caste that underpin violence against women, and celebrates the defiance of Gulabi Gang, which has spread from Uttar Pradesh across Northern India.
EAST HASTINGS PHARMACY
Directed by Antoine Bourges, Canada, 2012, 47′
EAST HASTINGS PHARMACY is the chronicle of a typical pharmacy of the Vancouver Downtown Eastside, where most clients are on a treatment that requires taking daily doses of methadone witnessed by the pharmacist. The pharmacy is a site of rituals and repeated interactions where quiet routine and confrontation follow each other in one continuous movement. Made in collaboration between Bourges and residents of the Vancouver Downtown Eastside through improvisations and re-enactments, EAST HASTINGS PHARMACY is vital viewing at a time when Canada is seeing an urgent rise in fentanyl overdoses, while governments at all levels fail to deliver on safe-injection sites and drugs remain criminalized.
ENCIRCLEMENT: NEO-LIBERALISM ENSNARES DEMOCRACY
Directed by Richard Brouillette, Canada, 2008, 160′
A philosophical documentary on the entanglement of corporations, government and think tanks under neoliberalism, Richard Brouilette’s ENCIRCLEMENT unpacks the post-Cold War dogmas of deregulation, reducing the role of the State, and privatization that led to the financial crisis of 2007-2008. As global economic and social conditions are under extreme strain during COVID, the result of decades of austerity measures and financialization, Brouillette’s documentary offers a treasury of interviews that are more relevant than ever. From Noam Chomsky and Ignacio Ramonet, to Omar Aktouf and Michel Chossudovsky, ENCIRCLEMENT scrutinizes how neoliberalism undermines democracy.
* Also check out UNCLE BERNARD, where director Richard Brouillette reveals the full, intimate interview with economist Bernard Maris. UNCLE BERNARD is available as a CP Distribution title with educational streaming/digital rights for this title. For inquiries contact booking@cinemapolitica.org.
MY BROOKLYN
Directed by Kelly Anderson and Allison Lirish Dean, United States, 2012, 85′
Director Kelly Anderson’s MY BROOKLYN is an unflinching critique of gentrification in Brooklyn, informed by her personal journey and role as a Brooklyn “gentrifier”. Anderson traces the racial and class divisions that have been reshaping her neighbourhood since 1988, telling an all-too-familiar tale of an influx of bohemian culture and creative industries leading to higher rents, evictions and displacement. Through the stories of local residents and activists, MY BROOKLYN shows how the massive speculative real estate boom that followed Michael Bloomberg’s election as mayor in 2001, rapidly altered neighbourhoods under the guise of “improvement” and “upgrades”.
SPECIAL FLIGHT
Directed by Fernand Melgar, Switzerland, 2016, 103′
In 1994, the Swiss approved a law authorizing the detention of all foreigners in an irregular situation until they are expelled. Every year, a purely administrative decision has thousands of men and women imprisoned up to 24 months before their expulsion. Their only crime is to be paperless. Those who refuse to leave voluntarily are bound hand and foot, hooded, put in disposable diapers and forced into a plane. Fernand Melgar’s SPECIAL FLIGHT is a scathing but humane critique of the carceral treatment of migrants and the disingenuous policies of supposedly democratic and humanitarian states.
