ACTIVISM for MORE than a DECADE.

KDocsFF held its tenth annual official documentary film festival on February 21-25, 2024. Featuring thought-provoking documentaries and engaging panel discussions, this festival marked over a decade of showcasing powerful stories that inspire, inform, and challenge perspectives.

KDocsFF held its ninth annual official documentary film festival (our eleventh year!) on February 22-26, 2023,—our biggest festival yet, back in-person (since 2020) with 25 films over 5 days in 2 theatres. This year’s festival also included 25 keynote addresses, 9 panel discussions/Q&As, and 17 exhibitors.

KDocsFF held its eighth annual documentary film festival on February 18-27, 2022, fully online for the second time (due to Covid19 and restrictions on in-person festivals), with 21 award-winning documentary films, as well as 18 keynote addresses, 4 panel discussions/Q&As, and 1346 ticketed guests (2580 guests in total)!

KDocsFF held its seventh annual documentary film festival on March 18-21, 2021, fully online! Over 2,300 ticketed guests and 25 digital exhibitors were in attendance throughout the ten-day festival—our biggest festival and audience yet!

KDocsFF held its sixth annual documentary film festival on February 20-23, 2020, at the Vancouver International Film Centre/Vancity Theatre. Over 2100 people and 36 exhibitors were in attendance throughout the four-day festival—our biggest audience yet!

On February 6, 2019, KDocs held its 2019 Spring Mini-Fest. This double-feature showcased the award-winning documentaries RBG and Won’t You Be My Neighbour?  Our special guest and Keynote Speaker for the evening was Ellen Woodsworth, and panelists also included Mebrat Beyene (Executive Director, WISH Drop-In Centre Society), Cicely Blain (Co-founder, Black Lives Matter-Vancouver),Chastity Davis (Chair, Minister’s Advisory Council on Aboriginal Women for the Province of British Columbia), Anita Huberman (CEO, Surrey Board of Trade), Debra Parkes (Professor, UBC, and Chair, Centre for Feminist Legal Studies), and Jinny Sims (MLA, Surrey-Panorama). Over 300 people were in attendance!

EXPLORE

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KDocs held its fourth annual official documentary film festival on February 15-18, 2018, at the Vancouver International Film Centre/Vancity Theatre. Over 1500 people and 30 exhibitors were in attendance throughout the four-day festival!

KDocs held its third annual official documentary film festival on February 16-19, 2017, at the Vancouver International Film Centre/Vancity Theatre. Over 1200 people were in attendance throughout the four-day festival!

KDocs held its second annual official documentary film festival on February 19 and 20, 2016, at the Vancouver International Film Centre/Vancity Theatre. Over 700 people were in attendance throughout the two-day festival, with a 35% increase in average per-film attendance.

KDocs held its first full film festival on March 14, 2015, at the Vancouver International Film Centre/Vancity Theatre. Over 300 were in attendance throughout the day.

• The Price We Pay: KDocs launched on October 5, 2014, with its inaugural event, in partnership with the Vancouver Film Festival (VIFF): a screening of The Price We Pay, with special guest, the film’s director, Harold Crooks. With The Price We Pay, Crooks, best known for The Corporation and, most recently, Surviving Progress, blows the lid off the dirty world of corporate malfeasance with this incendiary documentary about the dark history and dire present-day reality of big-business tax avoidance, which has seen multinationals depriving governments of trillions of dollars in tax revenues by harbouring profits in offshore havens. KPU’s Coast Capital Library has prepared a bibliography of additional resources related to this film.
  Bibliography of Additional Resources (courtesy of KPU’s Coast Capital Library)
• How to Survive a Plague: How to Survive a Plague is the story of two coalitions—ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group)—whose activism and innovation turned AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable condition. The 2014-2015 Documentary Series closed out with 150+ registrants and a visit from David France, award-winning author, journalist, and director of the Oscar-nominated and Peabody-award-winning How to Survive a Plague, a sobering and, at times, heartbreaking, look at the early years of HIV/AIDS activism. France delivered the event’s Keynote Address and participated as a panelist during the town hall/Q&A, along with Kwantlen students and Canadian HIV/AIDS consultant, advocate, and activist, Brandy Svendson (CEO, Be the Change Group Inc.). Once again, MRAG worked closely with the KSA and various Kwantlen students groups, including Kwantlen Pride, to present a lively panel discussion in which student representatives from Kwantlen’s queer, gender diversity, and social justice groups drove a lively conversation and debate. The event garnered media attention from CBC Radio, AIDS Vancouver, and Positive Living BC and demonstrated once again the far reach of MRAG and its high-quality, community-based, social justice-oriented events.
  Bibliography of Additional Resources (courtesy of KPU’s Coast Capital Library)

• Orgasm Inc.: Orgasm Inc. is an extraordinary behind-the-scenes access reveals a drug company’s fevered race to develop the first FDA-approved Viagra for women and offers a humorous but sobering look inside the cash-fueled pharmaceutical industry. The 2013-2014 Documentary Series kicked off in October 2013, when we hosted filmmaker Liz Canner for a day on KPU’s campus, where she not only delivered the Keynote Address for the evening’s main event, but also met with smaller student/class groups (breakfast and lunch events) and participated in the town hall/panel discussion that followed the main event. This was another sold-out MRAG event, with over 200 registrants, and feedback was overwhelmingly positive, especially for Liz Canner, as well as special panel member, Saleema Noon, one of Canada’s most well-known and highly respected Sexual Education Consultants. Audience members responded enthusiastically to such high-profile speakers/ professionals, and this set an even higher standard for what had already become a well-known, quality brand (MRAG). The Orgasm Inc. event also solidified what was already a growing partnership with the KSA and secured even more, deeper student involvement in the planning and execution of the day’s events.
  Bibliography of Additional Resources (courtesy of KPU’s Coast Capital Library)
• Payback: This feature documentary offers a fascinating look at debt as a mental construct and traces how it influences relationships, societies, governing structures, and the fate of the planet itself. Exploring the link between debtor and creditor in a variety of contexts and places, from the mountains of northern Albania to the tomato fields of southern Florida, the film blends compelling stories of “owing” and “being owed.” This event was a high-profile Kwantlen cultural event that attracted an audience of over 200 people from Kwantlen’s communities and beyond, with major contributions in kind made by the School of Horticulture and the Faculty of Design and the direct involvement of their faculty and students in the project. MRAG was pleased to welcome special guest Margaret Atwood. Atwood, author of Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, on which the film is based, took part in the town hall discussion following the screening, along with Dr. William Rees, originator of the “ecological footprint” concept and measurement, who also served as the evening’s keynote speaker. CBC Radio One was the event’s media sponsor and provided CBC Radio One host Sheryl MacKay to MC the evening as well as timely media support and coverage. Audience feedback was extremely positive. By all accounts, this event set a new bar for Kwantlen’s MRAG, and Kwantlen events in general.
  Bibliography of Additional Resources (courtesy of KPU’s Coast Capital Library)

• Pink Ribbons, Inc.: Pink Ribbons, Inc. is a 2011 National Film Board of Canada (NFB) documentary about the pink ribbon campaign, directed by Léa Pool and produced by Ravida Din. The film is based on the 2006 book Pink Ribbons, Inc: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy by Samantha King, associate professor of kinesiology and health studies at Queen’s University. In October 2012, as just one of MRAG’s projects, we launched its first annual Documentary Series with a screening of this controversial documentary film, including an interdisciplinary panel of Kwantlen faculty and students, as well as Keynote Speaker, Dr. Judy Segal, distinguished UBC professor of English and a scholar in the rhetoric of health and medicine. The Pink Ribbons, Inc. event again attracted a full house; a lively discussion followed, led mainly by the audience, our community; and media interest.
  Bibliography of Additional Resources (courtesy of KPU’s Coast Capital Library)
• Miss Representation: Miss Representation is a 2011 American documentary film written, directed, and produced by Jennifer Siebel Newsom. It explores how mainstream media contribute to the under-representation of women in influential positions by circulating limited and often disparaging portrayals of women. The film premiered in the documentary competition at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. This first screening and town hall panel/community dialogue (January 2012) attracted over 150 participants and received an overwhelming show of positive feedback within and across KPU’s many communities, including the media. We received many requests for more such events and dialogues across KPU campuses, ranging from community action-oriented meetings, to speaker evening/series, to group websites/social media/blogs, and of course, more film screenings and town hall discussions.
  Bibliography of Additional Resources (courtesy of KPU’s Coast Capital Library)