Here in Montreal at CP Headquarters our summer days are getting shorter and the nights a little cooler. And as we prepare for brisk Autumn weather, we also prepare for another season of screening powerful and provocative political cinema. With that in mind we are delighted to announce the following new titles as part of our Fall 2017 Network acquisitions. These amazing films are now available across the CP Network, so if you have a CP local in your community, you may be seeing one of these on the big screen near you very soon.
Stills from Gulîstan, Land of Roses (Zaynê Akyol) and Angry Inuk (Alethea Arnaquq-Baril)
The National Film Board of Canada is a long-time collaborator with CP, and we are consistently impressed with the hard-hitting POV documentaries our state-run production house releases year after year. For our Fall 2017 collection, we’ve managed to get our hands on four outstanding titles made at the Board. GULISTAN, LAND OF ROSES follows armed female guerillas from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) who defend Kurdish territory against ISIS; WE CAN’T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE TWICE is the newest film from legendary Abenaki filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin “who focuses her lens on the landmark discrimination case filed by the Assembly of First Nations and the Child and Family Caring Society of Canada against Indian Affairs and Northern Development Canada in 2007” (NFB); ANGRY INUK is the award-winning powerhouse advocacy doc from Inuit filmmaker Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, who in this smashing work, makes an undeniable case for traditional seal hunting and pelt harvesting in Canada’s Northern territories; And lastly, another Indigenous-made NFB doc tops our Fall list as an older, but must-see core Canadian doc: Tasha Hubbard’s (Nehiyaw/Nakawe/Metis) 2004 TWO WORLDS COLLIDING chronicles the story of Darrell Night, an Indigenous man left to freeze to death by police in Saskatoon in January 2000, during -20° C temperatures.
Stills from Oheró:kon – Under the husk (Katsisionni Fox) and Rise:Red Power (Michelle Latimer)
Four other Indigenous works, this time independently produced, inspire reflection and courage in our new lineup. Beth Wishart Mackenzie’s LANA GETS HER TALK intimately captures Cree artist Lana Whiskeyjack as she translates into art that trauma experienced by survivors of Canada’s Indian Residential School System; OHERO:KON (UNDER THE HUSK) is Katsitsionni Fox’s (Mohawk) beautiful 27 minute documentary about cultural resilience as she follows young Mohawk women taking part in a traditional right of passage called Oheró:kon; Michell Latimer’s (Métis/Algonquin) stunning two-part look at the Water Protector’s Camp at Standing Rock may not have as much festival play as all the non-Indigenous documentary depictions of Indigenous resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline, but RED POWER & SACRED WATER (STANDING ROCK PARTS 1 &2) are hands down the most thoughtful, beautiful and captivating that we have seen.
Stills from Frontera Invisible (Nico Muzi & Nicolás Richat) and Reflections: Art for an Oil Free Coast (Raincoast Conservation Foundation & Strongheart Productions)
Turning to Indigenous resistance in another parts of the world, Kim Webb’s THE PRICE OF PEACE is a moving documentary about Mauri resistance to the New Zealand police state with a surprisingly hopeful conclusion; FRONTERA INVISIBLE (Nicolás Richat and Nico Muzi) highlights the struggle over land and rights by Indigenous people facing the devastating palm oil industry in Colombia.
In every batch of films we always have those that we consider a little more “artsy” than others – where filmmakers deploy an array of creative tools to tell a story through metaphor, imagery, allusion and more. In this camp we have the quietly devastating, yet creatively fantastic INSIDE THESE WALLS (Lorraine Price and Juliet Lammers), a compelling film urgently advocating for the release of Chinese-Canadian political prisoner Wang Bingzhang, founder of the Overseas Chinese Democracy Movement; REFLECTIONS: ART FOR AN OIL FREE COAST (Raincoast Conservation Foundation and Strongheart Productions) is a short advocacy doc that chronicles 50 artists who come together to advocate for Western Canada’s environment and people, and against oil tankers and pipelines on the coast.
In the politically provocative and quirky department we have Neal Livingstone’s 100 SHORT STORIES, a David versus Goliath tale of community action in the name of a renewable energy project staged in Atlantic Canada, despite predatory capitalism’s many traps and pitfalls.
Stills from #Direnayol (Rusgar Buski) and Honey at the Top (Dean Puckett)
Last but not least are three films from divergent global locations: #DIRENAYOL (Rusgar Buski) follows trans and queer activists in Turkey during the 2013 Gezy Park protests;
Angélique Kourounis’s brave and bold GOLDEN DAWN: A PERSONAL AFFAIR looks unflinchingly at the inside of the fascist group Golden Dawn in Greece; and HONEY AT THE TOP (Dean Puckett) tells the inspiring story of Kenya’s Sengwar forest people, who refuse eviction from their ancestral lands under pressure from the World Bank.
