2021 FestivalRESISTANCE. FREEDOM. Justice.
POSTER
Embodying the relentless pursuit of a more equitable and liberated world.
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!
Courtesy of Kwantlen’s Library, you can read a bibliographic listing of additional resources for the KDocsFF 2021 films.
OUR FILMS 2021 Films
Nowhere is the worldwide erosion of democracy, fueled by social media disinformation campaigns, more starkly evident than in the authoritarian regime of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Journalist Maria Ressa places the tools of the free press—and her freedom—on the line in defense of truth and democracy, investigating how Duterte uses social media to spread disinformation.
Seventy-eight years ago, Executive Order 9066 paved the way to the profound violation of constitutional rights that resulted in the forced incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans. Featuring George Takei and many others who were incarcerated, as well as newly rediscovered photographs of Dorothea Lange, And Then They Came for Us brings history into the present, retelling this difficult story and following Japanese American activists as they speak out against the Muslim registry and travel ban. Knowing our history is the first step to ensuring we do not repeat it. And Then They Came for Us is a cautionary and inspiring tale for these dark times.
Based on the international bestseller by rock-star economist Thomas Piketty (which sold over three million copies worldwide and landed Piketty on Time‘s list of most influential people), this captivating documentary is an eye-opening journey through wealth and power, a film that breaks the popular assumption that the accumulation of capital runs hand-in-hand with social progress and shines a new light on today’s growing inequalities. Traveling through time, the film assembles accessible pop-culture references coupled with interviews of some of the world’s most influential experts, delivering an insightful and empowering journey through the past and into our future.
Filmed over a four-year period to accompany the Landless Workers Movement’s activism to promote land reform in Central Brazil, Landless (Chão) portrays an occupation as a dissonant intervention in the landscape. This extraordinary event cracks the monochromatic, homogeneous, dystopian territory with no sign of a working hand. Camila Freitas’ unique take on observational documentary consists in building an inventory of change. There is no routine when everything is provisory, fragile, made of wood and plastic, lit by candles, always threatened with disappearance. But the camerawork is steady, as firm as the tenacity of the old lady who works every day to keep up the fight while dreaming about her future piece of land. The collective lexicon begins to incorporate the political discourse, while keeping the exuberance of very particular accents, and the film finds a hundred different ways to repeat the same slogan. The immersive sound is as diverse as those multiple bodies—so different from the tedious group of old males in the judiciary court—who resist together, but also drink coffee with the same cup, eat with the same plate, share stories with each other and learn how to fight while fighting.
Hong Kong Moments tells the stories of seven protagonists who live in the centre of the protests. With their different social backgrounds and political attitudes, they represent different hopes and dreams—a reflection of the geopolitical conflicts in the Hong Kong society that is increasingly divided. In three districts—Yuen Long, Tuen Mun, and Hong Kong Island—protestors join forces and fight against the authorities. Through a multitude of perspectives, this film tells the stories of [these] seven protagonists: a protestor, a policeman, a first-aid worker, a pro-Beijing district councillor, a democratic community officer who wants to win the next election, a restaurant owner who supports the police, and a taxi driver whose son fights in the streets. Each represents special hopes and dreams for Hong Kong—a city of economic power, a harbour between the Western world and China—and a place of longing for freedom, first under the British crown and now under the Chinese flag.
iHuman is a political thriller about artificial intelligence, power, and social control. From the inside of the booming AI industry, this film shows how the most powerful and far-reaching technology of our time is changing our lives, our society, and our future. iHuman follows pioneers at the frontline of the invisible AI revolution to see how this technology is developed and implemented. Through some of the brightest minds in the AI industry, iHuman draws the roadmap to where we are going. Who punches in what codes for our future? How does AI impact who we are? iHuman shows a growing conflict in the tech world. On one side, corporations like Google claim we need AI to solve climate change, cancer, or hunger. On the other side people like Bill Gates and Elon Musk fear AI is the biggest threat to humanity. iHuman investigates the consequences of the power concentration of the multi-billion-dollar AI industry that barely has any regulations. Some compare artificial intelligence to the nuclear bomb, as we do not know the potential power or the consequences of this new technology. What is coming our way?
The feature-length documentary film Influence charts the recent advancements in weaponized communication by investigating the rise and fall of the world’s most notorious public relations and reputation management firm: the British multinational Bell Pottinger. This story of influence and weaponized communication centers on the infamous Lord Tim Bell and his associates, known for their controversial geopolitical spin-doctoring. Bell, who started his career in advertising, had an affinity for difficult briefs and ‘people with problems,’ as he liked to call them. He designed campaigns for unpopular politicians, dictators, disgraced companies, and celebrities the same way he put together product branding—by being concise and brutal. In 1987, he cofounded Bell Pottinger, which quickly became one of the most influential reputation-management companies in the world—until one of those campaigns incited racial division in South Africa and ruined BP’s reputation to a degree beyond spinning. Using a fascinating blend of archival footage and interviews with Bell and the people who worked with, for, or against him, filmmakers Diana Neille and Richard Poplak conduct an impressively thorough investigation into the politicization of modern communication. Influence is terrifyingly relevant in our current era of alternative facts and theatrical politics.
In the Philippines, women get deployed abroad to work as domestic workers or nannies. In order to do so, they frequently leave their own children behind, before throwing themselves into the unknown. In one of the many training centers dedicated to domestic work that can be found in the Philippines, a group of trainees are getting ready to face both homesickness and the possible abuses lying ahead. During role playing exercises, they alternatively play both the roles of the employee and that of the employers. Overseas brings to light the question of modern servitude in our globalized world, while emphasizing these women’s determination, their sisterhood, and the strategies they find to face the ordeals that awaits them in the near future.
Sea of Shadows is a feature documentary thriller that follows undercover investigators, environmentalists, journalists, and the Mexican Navy on their desperate last-minute effort to rescue the Earth’s smallest whale—the Vaquita—from extinction. A looming disaster in one of the most spectacular environments on Earth sparks a rescue mission unlike any other in Sea of Shadows, a riveting new documentary with the intensity of a Hollywood thriller. When Mexican drug cartels and Chinese traffickers join forces to poach the rare totoaba fish in the Sea of Cortez, their deadly methods threaten to destroy virtually all marine life in the region, including the elusive and mysterious whale species known as the vaquita porpoise. But a team of brilliant scientists, high-tech conservationists, investigative journalists and courageous undercover agents put their lives on the line to save the last remaining vaquita and bring the vicious international crime syndicate to justice.
A Buena Vista Social Club meets The Year of Living Dangerously, renowned Malian singer Inna Modja takes us on a music-driven journey of hope, hardship, and perseverance across Africa’s ambitious Great Green Wall. The Great Green Wall is an African-led movement with an epic ambition to grow an 8,000 km natural wonder of the world across the entire width of Africa. The Great Green Wall is taking root in Africa’s Sahel region, at the southern edge of the Sahara Desert—one of the poorest places on the planet. More than anywhere else on Earth, the Sahel is on the frontline of climate change, and millions of locals are already facing its devastating impact. Persistent droughts, lack of food, conflicts over dwindling natural resources, and mass migration to Europe are just some of the many consequences. Yet, communities from Senegal in the West to Djibouti in the East are fighting back. Since the birth of the initiative in 2007, life has started coming back to the land, bringing improved food security, jobs and stability to people’s lives.
The Guardian of Memory bears witness to the violence that has displaced thousands, while examining how governments on both sides of the border have exacerbated the crisis. With striking visual poetry, director Marcela Arteaga provides intimate accounts of the lives Mexican migrants have left behind, while also highlighting the work of Carlos Spector, an immigration lawyer from El Paso, who fights to obtain asylum for those fleeing the violence.
From Joel Bakan and Jennifer Abbott, filmmakers of the multi-award-winning global hit, The Corporation, comes this hard-hitting and timely sequel. The New Corporation reveals how the corporate takeover of society is being justified by the sly rebranding of corporations as socially conscious entities. From gatherings of corporate elites in Davos, to climate change and spiralling inequality, to the rise of ultra-right leaders, to Covid-19 and racial injustice, the film looks at corporations’ devastating power. Countering this is a groundswell of resistance worldwide, as people take to the streets in pursuit of justice and the planet’s future. In the face of spiralling inequality, climate change, and the hollowing out of democracy, The New Corporation is a cry for social justice, deeper democracy, and transformative solutions.
A group of tween girls chant into megaphones, marching in the San Francisco TransMarch. Holding clenched fists high, they wear brown berets and vests showcasing colorful badges like ‘Black Lives Matter’ and ‘Radical Beauty.’ Meet the Radical Monarchs, a group of young girls of color at the front lines of social justice. Set in Oakland, a city with a deep history of social justice movements, We Are the Radical Monarchs documents the Radical Monarchs – an alternative to the Scout movement for girls of colour, aged 8-13. Its members earn badges for completing units on social justice including being an LGBTQ ally, the environment, and disability justice. The group was started by two, fierce, queer women of colour, Anayvette Martinez and Marilyn Hollinquest, as a way to address and center her daughter’s experience as a young brown girl. Their work is anchored in the belief that adolescent girls of color need dedicated spaces and that the foundation for this innovative work must also be rooted in fierce inter-dependent sisterhood, self-love, and hope. The film follows the first troop of Radical Monarchs for over three years, until they graduate, and documents the co-Founders struggle to respond to the needs of communities across the US and grow the organization after the viral explosion of interest in the troop’s mission to create and inspire a new generation of social justice activists.
From Academy Award-nominated director David France (How to Survive a Plague, The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson) comes Welcome to Chechnya, a powerful and eye-opening documentary about a group of activists risking their lives to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ persecution in the repressive and closed Russian republic of Chechnya. With unfettered access and a commitment to protecting anonymity, this documentary exposes Chechnya’s underreported atrocities while highlighting a group of people who are confronting brutality head-on. The film follows these LGBTQ+ activists as they work undercover to rescue victims and provide them with safe houses and visa assistance to escape persecution.
From the taiga in Siberia, over the primary forests of Romania, to the primeval forest in Peru: around the world, billions of dollars are made from illegal logging. First World consumers are happy about low prices at the hardware and furniture stores but would doubtless be shocked if they knew the origins of these goods. Alexander von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor’s great-great-great-nephew, has been on the timber mafia’s trail for years. As head of the Environmental Investigation Agency in Washington, he tirelessly takes to the road. He doesn’t shy from changing persona and appearance and employing concealed technical means to bring illegal activities to light. He knows the swamp of crime can’t be drained while corrupt politicians and idle authorities remain indifferent to these illegal activities. So, for Alexander von Bismarck, an essential part of his work, over and above his detective activities, is creating political and public awareness of the disastrous consequences of forest depletion—as the state of the planet’s “green lung” has long since assumed dramatic proportions. This wake-up-call documentary follows Von Bismarck and his comrades into the hell of profit-lust and back again.
2021 FILMSWant to watch panel talks and more content?
WORD ON THE STREET
KDocsFF has become Metro Vancouver’s premier social justice film festival.
They provide a unique opportunity whereby filmmakers, industry professionals, community members, activists, advocates, and the general public come together to celebrate the power of documentary film and documentary activism. KDocsFF’s Film Festival, Year-round Program, Community Outreach Program, and YouTube Channel create diverse and inclusive spaces where networking opportunities can happen, such as community engagement and advocacy, project collaborations, research initiatives, and much more. Unlike most film festivals, at KDocsFF, direct engagement, dialogue, and community-building are just as important as film screenings. […] Their Year-round Program and Community Outreach Programs offer open-access events, workshops, and opportunities for everyone to embrace the world of documentary film and filmmaking. As a filmmaker, I know how vital these exchanges are to the success of our industry.”
Baljit SangraDirector, Because We Are Girls and Special Guest and Panelist, KDocsFF 2020 and Panelist, KDocsFF Year-round Program 2020 and 2021
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