Queer for Palestine
From intimate portrayal to experimental cinema, this program of queer shorts from Palestine and Lebanon examines the intersection of gender and sexual identity with the Palestinian liberation struggle. This event is part of Queer Cinema for Palestine, a collectively-curated 10-day film festival celebrating global queer realities and standing in solidarity with Palestinians. The festival will […]
Netizens, followed by discussion with Our Bodies Our Voice
What Is Democracy?
What does it mean for the people to rule—and is that something we even want? Director Astra Taylor’s idiosyncratic, philosophical journey takes us from ancient Athens’ groundbreaking experiment in self-government to capitalism’s roots in medieval Italy; from modern-day Greece grappling with financial collapse and a mounting refugee crisis to the United States reckoning with its […]
Encirclement: Neo-Liberalism Ensnares Democracy
Drawing upon the thinking and analyses of internationally renowned intellectuals, ENCIRCLEMENT: NEO-LIBERALISM ENSNARES DEMOCRACY sketches a portrait of neoliberal ideology and examines the various mechanisms used to impose its dictates throughout the world. The one-size-fits-all dogmas of neoliberalism are well known: deregulation, reducing the role of the State, privatization, limiting inflation rather than unemployment. In […]
Unarmed Verses
In the feature documentary UNARMED VERSES, acclaimed filmmaker Charles Officer creates a thoughtful and vivid portrait of a family and a community facing a difficult transition. The largely low-income residents of a rental housing block in Toronto’s north-east end are threatened with imposed relocation due to the impending demolition of the place they call home. […]
The Coca-Cola Case
Colombia is the trade union murder capital of the world. Since 2002, more than 470 workers’ leaders have been brutally killed, usually by paramilitaries hired by private companies intent on crushing the unions. Among these unscrupulous corporate brands is the poster boy for American business: Coca-Cola. Talk to Martin Gil: His brother Isidro was killed […]
Illusions of Control
Taking inspiration from the late cultural theorist Lauren Berlant’s influential scholarly work Cruel Optimism, Vancouver-based director Shannon Walsh delivers a philosophical portrait of five women’s stories of survival and transformation on a global scale. A compelling meditation on resilience in the face of disaster, ILLUSIONS OF CONTROL unfolds in landscapes that are irrevocably shaped by […]
OUR DANCE OF REVOLUTION Screening
SILVICOLA – In Theatres at the Cinémathèque québecoise
This Stained Dawn
Karachi’s feminists organise a woman’s march, coming up against Pakistan’s radical religious right as “my body, my choice” becomes a controversial slogan that holds the country’s imagination in its grip. Filmmaker Anam Abbas follows the march’s organisers as they negotiate a deeply surveilled, paranoia-inducing, and often physically violent space in the hopes of spurring a […]
Dolores
History tells us Cesar Chavez transformed the U.S. labor movement by leading the first farm workers’ union. But missing from this story is his equally influential co-founder, Dolores Huerta, who tirelessly led the fight for racial and labor justice alongside Chavez, becoming one of the most defiant feminists of the twentieth century. Like so many […]
Territories
A giant in the world of documentary photography, Larry Towell has garnered several top-level honors, including the 2005 Priz Nadar and the first Henri Cartier-Bresson Award. This program follows Towell as he uses his camera to confront foreboding landscapes and shed light on struggling communities—drawing parallels between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the militarization of the […]
Call me Kuchu
In an unmarked office at the end of a dirt track, veteran activist David Kato labors to repeal Uganda’s homophobic laws and liberate his fellow lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender men and women, or “kuchus.” But David’s formidable task just became much more difficult. A new “Anti-Homosexuality Bill” proposes death for HIV-positive gay men, and […]
Sweet Crude
Beginning with the filmmaker’s initial trip to document the building of a library in a remote village, SWEET CRUDE is a journey of multilayered revelation and ever-deepening questions. It’s about one place in one moment, with themes that echo many places throughout history. SWEET CRUDE shows the humanity behind the statistics, events and highly sensationalized […]
SILVICOLA – Quebec premiere at RIDM with director Jean-Philippe Marquis in attendance
Uyghurs, Prisoners of the Absurd
This feature documentary recounts the incredible odyssey of 22 men from China’s persecuted Uyghur minority who were detained in Guantánamo as terrorists. These Turkic-speaking Muslims, persecuted by the authorities in Beijing, escaped to the Middle East where they were captured and sold as terrorists to the American forces. From northern China to Guantánamo, Cuba, this […]
