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RELAW: Living Indigenous Laws

For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples have governed their territories according to their own laws – safeguarding land, air, water and communities to sustain their cultures and economies. Drawing on the lessons learned over two decades of work with Indigenous peoples on Indigenous law-based approaches to land use planning, impact assessment and other aspects of environmental governance, in 2016 West Coast launched the RELAW program (Revitalizing Indigenous Law for Land, Air and Water).

RELAW: Living Indigenous Laws

NR 2017
Tales from the Winnipeg Film Group

The explosive story of how a stubborn band of independent filmmakers started a film co-operative that became the most highly respected and mythologized film centre in Canada. Tales outlines the tremendous importance and impact of Winnipeg on the national filmmaking scene. Packed with rare archival footage, dynamic film excerpts, and hilarious interviews, this documentary traces the history of the legendary Winnipeg Film Group. We hear candid behind the scenes stories that illuminate the storied rise of acclaimed filmmakers like John Paizs (Crime Wave), Guy Maddin (Tales From The Gimli Hospital, My Winnipeg) Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan (We’re Talking Vulva, Good Citizen, Betty Baker) and Caroline Monnet (Ikwe). Often mired in controversy, the Film Group has been acclaimed at film festivals around the world – attested to by several Toronto film luminaries in the film – for subversive, original filmmaking. This documentary continues that tradition of bold, exuberant work.

Tales from the Winnipeg Film Group

NR 2017
Under Green Waves

Susan’s dancing career ended when she became a mother. Thirty years later her daughter (the filmmaker) attempts to recreate her last performance through documentation, memory and contemporary restagings. The inspiration for the original dance began with Green’s ancestral oral history of her great-grandmother’s husband who was lost at sea. The film references the temporal space between each rendition of the story; the cyclical (dis)appearance of what is just out of reach: the husband, the story and the dance.

Under Green Waves

NR 2017
Stay Gold Man Up

What began 9 years ago as a drag king competition night at one of the last lesbian bars in Vancouver—the now closed Lick nightclub—has since turned into a monthly multi-gender drag spectacular and queer dance party in East Vancouver. Celebrating Kings, Queens, Things and everything in between, Man Up has grown to become indispensable in Vancouver’s vibrant and diverse queer community, proving that drag is for everybody. Stay Gold Man Up features interviews with key figures, attendees, and performers alike.

Stay Gold Man Up

NR 2017
It Takes A Riot: Race, Rebellion, Reform

On May 4, 1992 in Toronto, a march against anti-Black police violence turned into a riot. The march was organized by the Black Action Defense Committee, a civil rights group and police and criminal justice system watchdog founded by members of Toronto’s Black community. While media and politicians called it a riot, others, including anti-racism activists, called it a “rebellion,” even an “uprising.” “It Takes A Riot” is a provocative new documentary film exploring the events of May 4, 1992, its historical context, political impact, and relevance to contemporary struggles against anti-Black racism. On the 25th anniversary of the Yonge Street “riot”—and with racial injustice, police killings of Black people, and the Black Lives Matter movement on the front pages—this documentary asks: What does it take for Black people to get justice in this society?

It Takes A Riot: Race, Rebellion, Reform

NR 2017
An Echoing Memory of a Tongue

Words are just sounds that we have ascribed meaning to. But words are finite, the sounds we can generate are probably not. "An Echoing Memory of a Tongue" is an experimental/abstract visual trace of a stutter, the struggle that a person with chronic stuttering carries through his speech in an act of communication. In this broken-narrative, hand painted imagery, the combination of visuals, voices and the music tries to reflect the dialectical intricacies of weight and freedom within this struggle. This animation was inspired by my own stuttering since childhood, which undermined my own speech-acts, spawning different kinds of limitation.

An Echoing Memory of a Tongue

NR 2017
In Jesus’ Name: Shattering the Silence of St. Anne's Residential School

A poignant all-Indigenous English and Cree-English collaborative documentary that breaks long-held silences imposed upon indigenous children who were interned at the notoriously violent St. Anne’s Residential School in Fort Albany First Nation, Ontario. Use of a homemade electric chair at St. Anne's and the incorporation of testimony about student-on-student abuse makes this documentary stand apart from other films about Canadian residential school experiences. This film will serve as an Indigenous historical document wholly authored by Indigenous bodies and voices, those of the Survivors themselves.

In Jesus’ Name: Shattering the Silence of St. Anne's Residential School

NR 2017
Mass for Shut-Ins

Twentysomething Kay Jay sleeps on his grandfather Loppers’ couch. The computer’s on the fritz and there’s not much of anything to do; there’s a lot of sitting around, eating 5-cent candies and drinking pop. Bored, Kay Jay plays with fire, aimlessly wanders through the night, encounters strangers and gets hassled by September, his aggro delinquent brother. Chained to a life of co-dependency, he passively navigates his isolated existence—but you can see the desire to escape in his eyes.

Mass for Shut-Ins

4.2 2017
1999

In the late 1990s, Moncton's Acadian community was forever marked when death struck an high school. In a sweet impressionist film, Samara returns to the city she fled as a teenager to immerse herself in memories that are still buried there, in various places and in dusty boxes containing diaries, photos and VHS tapes. 1999 is not a ghost story, although it is populated by ghosts. The snow-covered streets, corridors and locker rooms of the school are intact, as in a dream, but the absence left by the wave of teenage suicides still resonates with unanswered questions, trauma and regret. Samara meets inspiring people who carry with them great pain and who, 16 years later, can finally comfort each other by breaking a long silence. In the end, the film interweaves different voices and gives rise to a collective reflection on the internalization of mourning and the need to learn to affirm one's desire to survive.

1999

5.0 2017
Loved by All: The Story of Apa Sherpa

Apa Sherpa has climbed Mount Everest 21 times, more than any other human. But he wouldn’t wish this upon anybody. Having grown up in the remote Khumbu region of Nepal, Apa was forced to leave school and work as a porter at the age of 12. His dreams of being a doctor forever lost. It is a story all too common for the Sherpa people of Nepal, a story Apa aims to change with his work at the Apa Sherpa Foundation. In this visually stunning short documentary, we follow young Pemba Sherpa, a young child who must walk six hours a day to attend school. Pemba’s story is a present day reflection of Apa’s past, one where the draw of being a high altitude porter conflicts with the dreams of Nepal’s rural people, dreams made possible only through education and knowledge.

Loved by All: The Story of Apa Sherpa

8.5 2017