Presented by
Black Ice
Black Ice offers a sweeping look at the systematic racism in Canadian hockey culture. Directed by Oscar-nominated African-Canadian filmmaker Hubert Davis, this engrossing film explores the significance of the Coloured Hockey League during times of segregation in Canada, alongside personal stories today of Black hockey players dealing with racism from fans, coaches, and other hockey players. Ultimately, a new generation of Black coaches and players reminds us of a more humane way the game can be played.
Good Night Oppy
In 2003, NASA sent the rover Opportunity on a mission to Mars. Intended to analyze soil samples and expected to have a lifespan of only 90 days…the rover lived for 15 years. Incredibly, Oppy the rover continued to share vital reports from the Red Planet it now called home. Reassembling key scientists involved with Oppy’s mission and exhuming incredible archival footage, this film celebrates an extraordinary robot’s ability to expand our understanding of space and bring out the best in its human colleagues.
The Klabona Keepers
The Klabona Keepers is a fierce, hopeful account of the Tahltan Nation’s struggle to protect the Klabona Sacred Headwaters, an important natural habitat in northwest British Columbia, from commercial mining. Interspersing verité cinematography with intimate interviews, the film documents the tactics used by the land defenders. As blockades are met with arrests by police, the trauma of residential schools and forced relocations are recollected as part of the ongoing healing and resistance to colonialism.
Leonor Will Never Die
Once-famous action filmmaker Leonor spends her old age in her apartment, daydreaming about her movies. A freak accident puts her in a coma and she magically wakes up in one of her own unfinished screenplays. Colourful, funny, packed with thrills and B-movie nostalgia, writer-director Martika Ramirez Escobar’s debut feature is an homage to the power of stories, the enduring force of grief, and a tender love letter to filmmaking itself. 2022 winner of the Special Jury Prize for Innovative Spirit at Sundance.
Moja Vesna
After the sudden loss of her mother, 10-year-old Moja is determined to pick up the pieces for her mourning family. Caring for her willful, pregnant older sister and their grieving father who barely speaks English, she takes on the role of stabilizing presence and cultural mediator in preparation for the new baby on the way. Evocative use of interior spaces, set design, and camerawork show how cinema can explore stories of some of life’s most difficult experiences in poignant and deeply moving ways.
Nayola
Dreams, reality, myth, past, and present fluidly intertwine in this stunning, mesmerizing animated feature. During the Angolan civil war, Nayola scours combat zones and treks through perilous terrain in search of her missing husband. Sixteen years later, her bereaved daughter Yara—now a politically censored rap artist, striving for social change—is on the run from the police, lying low at her grandmother’s house. One night, an encounter with a masked intruder brings the scars of the past into stark relief.
Rebellion
In 2018 former organic farmer Roger Hallam decided it was time to make a nuisance of himself and co-founded Extinction Rebellion. Their mission: peaceful protest with maximum disruption to the UK economy. First-time filmmakers Maia Kenworthy and Elena Sánchez Bellot were there in the room before anyone knew what this environmental movement would grow to become. This candid observational doc charts the inspiring impact that direct action can have, as well as the stresses and strains within the movement.
Reel Youth Film Festival
The Reel Youth Film Festival is a diverse collection of short films made by emerging filmmakers around the world. Chosen by an international youth jury from 1300+ submissions and 100 countries. Whether it is a writer fishing for her next idea, a Māori boy grieving his father’s absence, or a hilarious young Black man expressing frustration with pandemic lockdown, the Reel Youth Film Festival will show you the world through the eyes of its talented youth.
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Rosie
A heart-warming film about family, love, and misfits. Rosie is a orphaned, Indigenous girl who is forced to live with her reluctant, street-smart, Francophone Aunty Fred. Rosie is thrust into the fringes of 1980s Montréal into the care of Fred and her two glamourous, gender-bending best friends, Flo and Mo. In the end, Rosie transforms the lives of these colourful characters and together they find love, acceptance, and a true home with her in a new chosen family of glittering outsiders.
Unarchived
Whose histories are told in the museums of British Columbia, and whose are never seen? Today, we are in the midst of a paradigm shift towards exploring history from multiple viewpoints. We hear from curators and archivists across BC from groups traditionally marginalized or excluded: Indigenous, Queer, Trans, the Chinese Canadian Museum, the Tahltan Nation, the South Asian Legacy Project, and others. Along the way, we learn the secret, neglected, and untold histories of this place we only think we know.