Moug (Waves)
Using an artistic combination of documentary footage, archive images, animation scenes, animated characters representing the family members of the filmmaker, and his own voice-over, the director tells the story of himself and of his generation, born with the birth of Mubarak’s rule in the early 80s of last century, and of his forgotten home city, […]
Nations and Migrations
November 28, 2016 – May 31, 2017 Working with the curatorial guideposts of mobility, origins, community and belonging, Cinema Politica has selected a program of independent film and videos that highlight issues of nationhood and migration from both a historical and contemporary perspective. Canada is one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse places on […]
Granny Power
GRANNY POWER is a documentary about a very original activist movement – the Raging Grannies. Spanning 10 years, the film follows several passionate, activist grandmothers and their “gaggles” as they fight for peace, social justice and the environment. From Occupy Wall Street sites in Canada and the U.S., to demontrations against nuclear arms, the Montebello […]
Our People Will Be Healed
Education is key to the future of any nation. Distinguished director Alanis Obomsawin visits a Cree community in Manitoba that’s putting this principle into practice in OUR PEOPLE WILL BE HEALED, her 50th film. The community of Norway House lies 800 kilometres north of Winnipeg, on the shores of Playgreen Lake. The Helen Betty Osborne Ininiw […]
More than a Word
MORE THAN A WORD analyzes the Washington football team and their use of the derogatory term R*dskins. Using interviews from both those in favour of changing the name and those against, the film presents a deeper analysis of the many issues surrounding the Washington team name. The documentary also examines the history of Native American […]
Dawnland
“My foster mother told me … she would save me from being Penobscot.” For most of the 20th century, government agents systematically forced Native American children from their homes and placed them with white families. As recently as the 1970’s, one in four Native children nationwide were living in non-Native foster care, adoptive homes, or […]
General Call for Submissions 2021
Cinema Politica is seeking submissions of independent films that combine strong creative vision with political perspective. We are interested in works of any length that contribute to justice and equality movements, activism, knowledge and discourse.
Waru
Nine female Māori filmmakers contributed eight ten minute vignettes, presented as a continuous shot in real time, that unfold around the tangi (funeral) of a small boy (Waru) who died at the hands of his caregiver. The vignettes are all subtly interlinked and each follow one of eight female Māori lead characters during the same […]
Standing Above the Clouds
STANDING ABOVE THE CLOUDS highlights the movement to protect Mauna Kea through the intergenerational stories of women in three Native Hawaiian families as they stand for the sacred mountain. The film follows teacher and community organizer Pua Case and her two daughters — artist-activists Hāwane Rios and Kapulei Flores — who have been called to […]
Bisbee ’17
BISBEE ’17 is a nonfiction feature film by Sundance award winning director Robert Greene set in Bisbee, an eccentric old mining town on the Arizona-Mexico border that finally reckons with its darkest day: the deportation of 1200 immigrant miners exactly 100 years ago. Locals collaborate to stage recreations of their controversial past. Radically combining documentary […]
The Archivettes
“Our history was disappearing as quickly as we were making it. ” With that realization, Deborah Edel and Joan Nestle co-founded the Lesbian Herstory Archives, the world’s largest collection of materials by and about lesbians. For more than 40 years, through many of the major milestones in LGBTQIA+ history, the all-volunteer organization has literally rescued […]
Pipelines, pouvoir et démocratie
Face aux dangers pour l’environnement que représente l’expansion de l’industrie des sables bitumineux qui exploite l’une des énergies fossiles les plus polluantes de la planète, ce long métrage documentaire rappelle que le pouvoir n’est pas toujours là où l’on croit. Des couloirs de l’Assemblée nationale, où se trouve le pouvoir parlementaire, aux actions militantes des […]
I Am Rohingya: A Genocide in Four Acts
I AM ROHINGYA: A GENOCIDE IN FOUR ACTS chronicles the journey of fourteen refugee youth who take to the stage to re-enact their families’ harrowing experiences in Burma and beyond. This story chronicles their journey before, during, and immediately after the escalation of military violence in their native homeland, Rakhine state; their unforgiving escape by […]
Birth of a Family
Three sisters and a brother, adopted as infants into separate families across North America, meet together for the first time in this deeply moving documentary by director Tasha Hubbard. Removed from their young Dene mother’s care as part of Canada’s infamous Sixties Scoop, Betty Ann, Esther, Rosalie and Ben were four of the 20,000 Indigenous […]
Black Ice
This incisive, urgent documentary examines the role of Black players in Canadian hockey, from pre-NHL contributions to the game to the struggles against racism that continue to this day. Directed by Oscar nominee Hubert Davis (Hardwood) and executive produced by LeBron James, Drake, and Maverick Carter, Black Ice is a sobering survey of systemic marginalization within […]
Fairy Creek Opens In Theatres Across Canada
FAIRY CREEK documents the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history, a blockade which made international headlines and broke records with nearly 1,200 people arrested for protesting to protect British Columbia’s last old-growth forests.
