World Premiere
In this personal documentary, Indigenous comedian Chad Charlie goes to participate in the Standing Rock occupation and has a transformative experience. The film takes us on Charlie’s powerful passage of self-discovery, from the irreverent jokester to the culturally aware poet whose powerful spoken word piece encapsulates his realizations at the close of the film. In this blend of cinema, vlog, and social media with tons of humour, Charlie uses a real mix of formats (phone streaming, news footage, fly-on-the-wall documentary style) very effectively, and doesn’t try to work in a huge narrative or have a tidy conclusion. Like many who were there and endured violence by police against their peaceful marches, Charlie is still working through trauma and mental health issues he experienced from it. In his case, this journey has left him with a greater awareness of the ongoing injustices that Indigenous people must still contend with.
Community Partner
USA
2022
English
Featured in:
International Shorts: Personal Journeys
The films in this shorts program are all about discovery. Beautiful and thought-provoking voyages of internal and external discovery that honour relations and history, while encountering stimuli that promote a new understanding of self.
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The Blue Trail
77-year-old Tereza makes a break for the Brazilian jungle in this trippy septuagenarian fantasy, the latest from Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro is a quirky picaresque, lushly photographed and filled with mordant humour.
Calle Málaga
Seventy-nine-year-old María Ángeles lives independently in Tangier's Spanish quarter. When her daughter pressures her into selling her apartment, she refuses to give in, finding in her old age a new resilience and an unexpected romantic connection.
Streetwalker
Middle class and married, Elena (Miroslava Stern) has been seduced by an unscrupulous swindler, who turns out to be the pimp of Maria (Elda Peralta), a prostitute and Elena's estranged sister. But are they really so different under the skin?
Two Prosecutors
In the midst of Stalin’s purges, a naïve prosecutor sets out to investigate a prisoner’s innocence, unaware of the labyrinthine bureaucracy awaiting him. A Kafkaesque procedural thriller about the pursuit of justice in the face of corruption.
Image: © SBS Productions
Salón México
Cheated by her pimp, Mercedes recklessly steals his wallet and is only saved from a severe beating by the intervention of a kindly policeman. Hard-hitting social realism sits beside patriotic sentimentality and multiple red hot dance sequences.
The Kneeling Goddess
In which wealthy industrialist Arturo de Cordova purchases the titular nude sculpture of his lover (María Félix) as an anniversary gift for his innocent, adoring wife. Soon enough the wife is dead, though untangling just how and why is part of the fun.
Credits
Producer
Ben-Alex Dupris
Cinematography
Alex Goetz
Editor
Ben-Alex Dupris
Original Music
Terrance Sabbas
Director
Chad Charlie
Chad Charlie is an Afro-Indigenous filmmaker from Ahousaht First Nation. Beginning his career in 2008 as a stand-up comedian and spoken word artist, he now extends the same passion for poetry and humour in his writing for TV and film. He is currently a writer and actor for the hit television series Reservation Dogs (FX).