Unarchived

This double feature includes the films Unarchived and Writing With Fire.
After Writing With Fire, there will be a joint panel discussion/Q&A where themes common to both films will be discussed.
Your ticket for this double feature includes admission to each film, a keynote address for each film, and the joint panel discussion/Q&A.

12:30 pm: Unarchived (84 min.)
Keynote Speaker: Grace Wong, Board Chair, Chinese Canadian Museum; Film Subject, Unarchived
For too long, the past has been the exclusive domain of the white colonial power structure. The good news is, we are in the midst of a paradigm shift in consciousness when it comes to appreciating history from multiple viewpoints. In this zippy NFB documentary, Hayley Gray and Elad Tzadok survey the inspiring work of a handful of community archives across British Columbia. It’s an important and timely reminder that the model of a centralized repository of records and artifacts is highly problematic—indeed, the official version of our history as presented by the Royal Museum of BC, for example, has consciously or not served to propagate a white supremacist narrative. In contrast, Gray and Tzadok talk to curators and archivists from groups traditionally marginalized or excluded communities: 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.

2:40 pm: Writing With Fire (92 min.)
Vancouver Premiere
Keynote Speaker: Rintu Thomas, Co-director, Writing with Fire
In a male-dominated media landscape, the women journalists of India’s all-female Khabar Lahariya (“News Wave“) newspaper risk it all, including their own safety, to cover the country’s political, social, and local news from a women-powered perspective. From underground network to independent media empire—now with 10 million views on their YouTube site—they defy the odds to redefine power.

4:15 pm: Joint Panel Discussion/Q&A following Writing With Fire with Grace Wong, Board Chair, Chinese Canadian Museum, Film Subject, Unarchived; Satwinder Kaur Bains, School of Culture, Media, and Society and Director of SASI, University of the Fraser Valley, Film Subject, Unarchived; Lou-ann Neel, Indigenous Lead, Creative BC, Former Head of Indigenous Collections and Repatriation, Royal BC Museum, Film Subject, Unarchived; Rintu Thomas, Director, Writing with Fire; Asma Sayed, Canada Research Chair, South Asian Literary and Cultural Studies, Department of English, KPU
Moderator: Gurp Sian