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 Dates
Girls Rock
About the Festival
Venues
Tickets
Other Activities
Contact Info
Volunteering
Download Program and Schedule
Reel Kids Film Festival
Dates
January 25 to 27 2008
Fri. Jan. 25, 2008
Sat. Jan. 26, 2008
Sun. Jan. 27, 2008
Prefestival Event: Girls Rock
A prefestival screening of
Girls Rock! The Movie
Friday, January 11 at 7:00 p.m.
PCVS - 201 McDonnel St.
Admission by donation at the door
View the poster for this event
About the Festival
This year marks the fourth edition of the World Traveling Community Film
Festival- Peterborough and we are pleased, proud and even a bit in awe at how far the Festival has developed in such a short time.
Thanks to the hard work, commitment and passion of so many people in our community, the Festival has evolved every year.
There are more films, a greater variety of films, more sponsors and partners and more visiting artists who come to speak and work with local students and filmmakers.
We are still primarily a volunteer driven organization and our financial support comes from a broad spectrum of community groups,
educational organizations, local businesses, arts funders and private donors.
Our approach to programming reflects our roots and our collective way of working. Initially, in 2005, we presented the package
of films organized by the World Community Film Festival in Courtney B.C. This group of social activists had a strong background in
film and video and made their program available to a number of like-minded communities across the country. It was a great place to start.
In 2006, we began to include productions that we had found on our own - almost ¼ of our film programming -
and we added performances and exhibitions by local activists and arts groups as well as works by local filmmakers.
That marked the first year that we went beyond the documentary and began to screen feature-length fiction films
(our audiences were enthusiastic about that) and to invite visiting filmmakers to Peterborough.
As the Festival became better known, filmmakers began to approach us about showing their work, and we began to actively
seek out more work by regional filmmakers and to broaden our scope, looking for more and different ways to tell stories and talk about complex issues.
In 2007 our approach to programming took another leap forward and we began by doing an inventory of sorts.
What was happening in the world we asked and what were local groups and organizations interested in and concerned about?
Our audiences were looking for information and reporting, but also for inspiration and solutions
In 2008, the programming is organized by a committee that is part of our community based collective.
We work hard to determine and reflect the interests of our community and respond to our audiences,
while always pushing the frontier of new forms and new issues. Our research goes far and wide and in addition to
suggestions from our sponsors and partners, we network extensively with other film and video festivals
around the world looking for the very best, most thoughtful and insightful work we can find, both old and new.
In 2008 we are pleased to present an original program at the Festival that creates dynamic interconnections
between the local and the global and that we know will challenge, inspire and excite our audiences. Enjoy.
Venues
Do NOT sell tickets.
Market Hall Theatre
336 George St., Peterborough
(705) 749-1146
Peterborough Public Library
345 Aylmer St., Peterborough
(705) 745-5560
Showplace Box Office
290 George St. N., Peterborough
(705) 742-SHOW (7469)
Tickets
On sale December 1, 2007
Weekend passes-access to all:
films, events, exhibits & displays,
talks, panels, workshops!
$25.00 - Regular
$12.00 - Student/Unwaged
Happenstance Books and Yarn
44 Queen Street,
Lakefield
652-7535
Have You Seen
321 Alymer Street,
Peterborough
750-0770
Kawartha World Issues Centre (KWIC) Environmental Sciences Building
Room B101
Trent University
748-1011 ext. 1680
Titles Book Store
379 George Street,
Peterborough
743-9610
Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG)754 George St N
Suite 101
741-1208
Millbrook
Village Bulk Foods
12 King Street E
Millbrook
932-2444
Other Activities
Performances:
PCVS African Drumming Group Showplace (Showplace, Friday, 7:30)
The 25-member-strong PCVS African Drumming Group works with rhythms coming mostly from West Africa, but has recently begun to broaden their repertoire. Peterborough youth worker Christian Harvey leads the group.
Unity Singers Market Hall Saturday, 2:15)
The Unity Singers were formed in 2000 by a group of women at Trent University. They sing traditional and contemporary hand drum songs in several Algonkian languages. They sing for the joy of singing and, just as important, to keep traditional songs alive for the generations to come.
Indian Dance (Showplace, Sunday, 3:00)
"Bhagwan" (Hindi word for God). It is a 10-minute dance piece depicting a soul's intense quest to understand God.
TISA Choir (Showplace, Saturday, 7:30)
Members of the TISA choir come from around the world.
Filmmakers Panel (Showplace, Saturday, 4:30)
Who gets to tell the story ...
Don’t miss the opportunity to hear four documentary filmmkers discuss with one another and the audience the question of “ Who gets to tell the story in documentary filmmaking?”
Participants Peter Raymont, Brenda Longfellow, Pamela Matthews, Alice Klein and Richa Khandelwal Bhat have films showing in this year’s festival.
Filmmmaker, journalist, and writer Peter Raymont has produced and directed over 100 documentary films and series during a 35-year career. His films have taken him to Ethiopia, Nicaragua, India, Rwanda, the High Arctic, and throughout North America and Europe. A founding member and past-president of the Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC), Raymont is the recipient of 35 international awards. His documentary feature Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire was honoured with the Audience Award for World Cinema Documentaries at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, among other awards. The film was also recently been nominated for an Emmy award for Best Documentary.
Brenda Longfellow is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, and film theorist. Her productions include Our Marilyn (1987), an experimental documentary on Canadian swimmer Marilyn Bell (contrasted with that other Marilyn, Monro); the feature-length drama Gerda (1992); A Balkan Journey/Fragments from the Other Side of War (1996); and the Genie Award-winning documentary Shadow Maker: Gwendolyn MacEwen, Poet (1998). Her critically acclaimed feature documentary Tina in Mexico (2002) won Best Arts Program at the Yorkton Film Festival, Bronze at the Columbus Film Festival, and a Golden Rose at the Montreux Television Festival.
Pamela Matthews, from the Sachigo Lake First Nation, is a director, filmmaker, and actor with more than 20 years’ experience in the industry. She has just completed her Masters degree in Film Production at York University. Her thesis film, A Shot in the Dark, a documentary on the murder of Dudley George and the Ipperwash crisis, was recently screened at the ImagineNative Film Festival in Toronto and the American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco. Her Masters thesis has been nominated for one of York’s highest awards, the Masters/Dissertation Award. Her first dramatic film, Only the Devil Speaks Cree, has won several awards, including the Best Live Short at the American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco and the Best Short Film at the Native American Film and Television Alliance Film Festival in Los Angeles (2002). It was also awarded as the Best Foreign Film at the Down Under International Film Festival (2003) in Darwin, Australia.
Alice Klein is the co-founder, editor and CEO of Toronto’s NOW Magazine, a free alternative news and entertainment weekly with a weekly readership of 355,000. As an accomplished writer and passionate observer of social movements, Klein has covered a breadth of subjects ranging from Canada and the global economy to behind the scenes at the Dalai Lama’s Kalachakra initiation. This year, Klein has added documentary film- making to her editing, writing and publishing career. Call of the Hummingbird, her first film, has been honoured as an official selection at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Toronto’s Hot Docs, the International Environmental Film Festival of Catalonia (FICMA) in Barcelona, DOCSDF in Mexico City and the Beats Breaks and Culture Festival at Harbourfront.
Richa Khandelwal Bhat is a 26-year-old filmmaker from India. So far, she has directed and scripted eight documentaries, all of which have aired on prime time on TV channels in India and in Canada. Her first short film, "Atma", won the Best Documentary Award at the Millbrook International 3-Minute Film Festival in 2007. For three years before moving to Canada, Richa worked as a television reporter and news anchor for Sahara Samay News Channel, India. She worked as freelance reporter for two years for Hindustan Times, a popular national newspaper in India. Now, Richa is a columnist for the Peterborough Examiner. She is currently pursuing the Certificate Program in Creative Writing at Trent University in Peterborough. She graduated in Mass Communications from Indra Prastha College, Delhi. Richa is also a Kathak Dancer and specializes in devotional dancing.
Late Night at the Festival
Gala (Showplace, Friday, 9:30-12:00)
Join us downstairs at Showplace immediately following the feature film on Friday evening for our first festival gala. Visit with festival friends while enjoying music, food, and drink.
Beats for Justice! (The Splice, 379 George St. N., Saturday, 9:00)
A fundraiser in solidarity with Indigenous resistance, featuring an all-women cast of poets, hip hop artists, filmmakers, and DJs,
including filmmaker/musician Sarah DeCarlo, and Lan Anh's Trespassing Poets.
$10 waged/$5 unwaged, or pay-as-much-as-you-can.
Beats for Justice! will be preceded by Peterborough's monthly poetry slam. Sign-up at 6:45 pm, competition at 7 pm. www.peterboroughpoetryslam.blogspot.com
For questions, comments, or media, please contact: Ziysah at ziysah@nccpeterborough.ca or 743-0882, ext. 224.
Displays:
Thomas A Stewart Secondary School: A Point of View
FULL SPECTRUM (Market Hall).
Students from TAS have combined colour, photos, and text as a commentary on the world as it appears to them.
Emotional Places, Paradoxical Spaces (Showplace)
Cheryl Sutherland
This photography exhibition is a compilation of photographs taken by women who (im)migrated to Canada, and who participated in a photo-voice research project as co-ordinated by a graduate student in the Department of Geography at Queen’s University, Kingston. The project focus involves mapping the spaces and places of emotions (vulnerability, fear, safety, comfort, belonging, among others) as experienced by women in the post-(im)migration phase. (Im)migrant women who participated in this project live in Peterborough or Kingston, and their photographs illustrate how place(s) and emotions are connected and intertwined. These photographs tell a story that is uniquely enlightening.
Voices of Burma (Showplace)
An exhibition of original artworks created by children and professional Bumese artists from a refugee camp in Thailand. Deanna Schott, a Trent student who spent time working and teaching art at the camp, brought the art back with her as a way of alerting the world to the situation in Thailand. She is also using it to raise money both to send art supplies back to Thailand and to help hire art teachers there.
Bazaar (Showplace, Saturday & Sunday during the day)
Downstairs at Showplace on Saturday during the day you will find our International Bazaar. At the bazaar there will be food vendors, international goods for sale, coffee, drinks, and a comfortable place to discuss films. If you are taking a break from films, don’t forget to visit.
Fair Trade Extra Virgin Olive Oil & Soap (Showplace)
Zatoun (Arabic for olive) is a registered non-profit bringing certified fair trade olive oil from Palestine to Canadians. Zatoun enables Palestinian farmers to gain a livelihood from their land and for Canadians to taste olive oil with a lustrous green colour and unforgettable taste. Join the thousands of Canadians who have discovered the true taste of olive oil. Zatoun is sold primarily through the grassroots / activist network.
Carole Roy Celebration of Human Dignity (Friday, 7:30, Showplace)
Friday night’s feature presentation is in honour of Carole Roy, one of the founders of the Traveling World Community Film Festival–Peterborough. Carole was the inspiration for this festival four years ago when she moved from British Columbia to Peterborough. She had a vision and dedicated endless hours organizing the first three festivals. In the summer of 2007 Carole accepted a position on the academic staff of St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. Friday night is the first Carole Roy Celebration of Human Dignity.
Peace Begins Murals: Three bright & beautiful “Peace” murals created by the grade nine, Integrated Arts Students at PCVS. The posters are part of the “Art Miles Project,” a global art project creating 12 miles of murals for the International Decade of Peace, 2001-2010. These three murals, along with thousands of others from around the world, will be wrapped around an Egyptian pyramid in a record-breaking display
Speakers
Native Youth Movement
(Co-Sponsored Speaker)
Nation Kanahus Pellkey of Secwepemc Nation is a member of the Native Youth Movement, an organization that uses education to revive traditional knowledge, and inspires native youth to defend their land. One of their current campaigns is resistance to the devestating effects the preparation for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics is having on their land and culture. They are currently touring Ontario, looking to make connections across communities, and share important perspectives on colonialism, ecological justice, and community resistance.
Speaker
Ulises Garcia will speak after the film Tambogrande. Mr. Garcia is the son of assassinated leader (Godofredo Garcia Baca) in Peru’s Tambogrande Case, and he was also a key activist in Tambogrande’s successful struggle to hold Peru’s first referendum and to expel Canadian Mining Company Manhattan Minerals. Ulises Garcia toured the 3 affected communities this past year to encourage them to hold their own referendum in Peru and promoted the Canadian tour to observe this referendum. He also visited the community of Sipacapa in Guatemala who later held their own referendum. Mr. Garcia has extensive experience in promoting peaceful resolution alternatives and with organizing referendums.
Contact Info
Tel: (705) 876-7149
Krista English
peterboroughfilmfestival@gmail.com
705-745-5892
Volunteers needed before and during festival!
If you'd like to volunteer, contact our volunteer coordinator:
Daphne Ingram
tingram@nexicom.net
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Traveling World Community Film Festival
The Traveling World Community Film Festival will be returning to Peterborough in January of 2008 and Quid Novis will host the
updates for the Festival. The films listed below will be included in the Festival and have been posted as a sneak preview for our readers!
Please bookmark this page and plan to check for regular updates leading up to the Festival dates.
Film Listings (Alphabetical)
A Female Cabby in Sidi Bel-Abb's
Saturday January 26 at 12:00 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2001 Algeria/Belgium | | Film Length: 52 minutes | | Directors: Belkacem Hadjadj |
After the death of her husband, a mother of three becomes the only female taxi driver in the violence-plagued city of Sidi Bel-Abb's, Algeria. Culture, tradition, and prejudice are revealed in the filmed conversations between the outgoing cabby and her various customers. In Arabic and French with English subtitles.Special Jury Prize, Biennale des Cinemas Arabes (Paris), 2000; Best Documentary, Zanzibar International Film Festival, 2001. |
Sponsor: Women's Events Committee |
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A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman
Saturday January 26 at 12:00 (Showplace)
| | Released: 2007 Canada/Chile/USA | | Film Length: 92 minutes | Directors: Peter Raymont
** FAMILY FRIENDLY ** |
 An exploration of exile, memory, longing, and democracy through the words and memories of author and activist Ariel Dorfman (Death and the Maiden/How to Read Donald Duck/Other Septembers). Born in Argentina and raised in New York, where his family experienced the pressures of McCarthyism, Dorfman became a cultural attaché to socialist president Salvador Allende in Chile. When Allende's government was toppled in the military coup of September 11, 1973, Dorfman was among the few to survive. A Promise to the Dead documents Dorfman's return to his beloved adopted home of Chile after years of political exile. |
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Adventures of Bikeman, Episode 1
Friday January 25 at 5:30 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2006 Canada | | Film Length: 4 minutes |
Toronto is considered the North America capital for bike thefts. In this episode of the Adventures of Bike Man, a local superhero with a great set of wheels seeks to prevent his arch rival, the Stripped Bandit, from stealing a young girl's bike. |
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Amal
Saturday January 26 at 10:00 (Market Hall)
| | Distributor: France and Morocco | | Released: 2004 | | Film Length: 17 minutes | | Directors: Ali Benkirane |
 Amal is a bright Moroccan girl who goes to the village school every morning with her less than enthusiastic brother. She wants to become a doctor when she finishes school, and the teacher encourages her to pursue her goals. The images of her village and its lost world of traditional craftsmanship are delightful. The enchanting beauty of Amal's surroundings makes us believe that her dreams will come true, but the harsh reality of social expectations in a remote region eventually prevails. Amal is a simple and moving film, but its ultimate sadness is overcome by its beauty, which does not allow the audience to dismiss its ending as inevitable. |
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Atma
Friday January 25 at 5:30 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2006 Canada | | Film Length: 3 minutes | | Directors: Richa Khandelwal Bhat |
A woman named Atma is in love with God. She sees God everywhere: in art, philosophy,
geography, history, biology. This short film shows her attempt to understand the world through God's point of view. The filmmaker, Richa Khandelwal Bhat, is a dancer, journalist, and filmmaker from New Delhi, India. She now lives in Peterborough.
Best Documentary Award, Millbrook International 3te Film Festival. |
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Between Lunch and Dinner
Friday January 25 at 5:30 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2007 Canada | | Film Length: 20 minutes | | Directors: Christopher Romper |
The story of the Seasoned Spoon Cafe , a little place with big ideas. Serving only locally grown, ecologically sustainable, and socially affordable food, "the Spoon," a student-run, co-operative eatery at Trent University, seeks to dish out radical ideas in tasty bite-size pieces. Between Lunch and Dinner chronicles the filmmaker's journey as he not only uncovers the story behind this little caf but also discovers the truly powerful ideas that underpin our regular eating habits. |
Sponsor: Seasoned Spoon Cafe |
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Bombay Calling
Friday January 25 at 5:30 (Showplace)
| | Released: 2006 Canada | | Film Length: 72 minutes | | Directors: Ben Addelman & Samir Mallal |
 Bombay Calling connects to a bustling world of late nights, long hours and hard partying to chronicle the rise of a new force in Indian society-the telemarketers. This new generation of call-centre employees works late into the night, trying to perfect their English and American accents in order to sell to clients half a world away. For their efforts they are paid more money than their parents ever dreamed of earning. Fast-paced, gritty and fun, the film is a compelling inside look at youth culture in India and the emerging and already conflicted middle class. Getting the audience to sympathize with telemarketers-now that's quite a feat.Grand Jury Prize, Best Documentary, Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles. |
Sponsor: Trent University Business Administration Program |
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Call of the Hummingbird
Saturday January 26 at 4:30 (Showplace)
| | Distributor: Alice Klein | | Released: 2007 Canada | | Film Length: 62 minutes |
 Our natural world is cracking under the strain of human consumption. In the gorgeous setting of central Brazil, a rag tag of group of 1000 permaculture experts, Rastafarians, health care workers, Hare Krishnas, NGO executives and contact improvisational dancers work towards a do-it-yourself action plan to make the world a better place in 13 days. But how can you build utopia if no one is taking out the garbage? Welcome to "Survivor" for social change addicts where consensus is the only way to make any decision. Anyone can speak. For as long as they like about whatever they want. And they do. Out of the 400 who volunteered, only a quarter actually show up to work. Culture clashes abound in a group that can't even agree to go by the Gregorian or the Mayan calendar (significantly, the latter ends on December 21, 2012). But despite the seemingly unwieldy process, consensus slowly builds, dialogue happens, the garbage is dealt with and attitudes shift. A fascinating exploration of the challenges in organizing for social change. |
Sponsor: Gzowski College, Trent University |
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Caves
Saturday January 26 at 12:00 (Library)
| | Distributor: Huw Gordey, BBC Planet Earth | | Released: 2006 Britain/USA | | Film Length: 50 minutes | Narrator: David Attenborough
** FAMILY FRIENDLY ** |
Caves are remarkable places-a hidden world of stalactites, stalagmites, snotites, and troglodytes-but also much else. The Cave of Swallows in Mexico-a 400-metre vertical shaft-is deep enough to contain the Empire State Building. The Lechuguilla cave system in the United States is 193 kilometres long with astonishing crystal formations.
Cave habitats are home to equally bizarre wildlife. Cave angel fish cling to the walls behind waterfalls with microscopic hooks on their fins. Cave swiftlets navigate by echo-location and build nests out of saliva. The Texas cave salamander has neither eyes nor pigment. The film offers a unique access to a largely unknown and mysterious world below ground.
Banff World Television Awards, 2006. |
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City of Cigars
Sunday January 27 at 10:00 am (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2005 Nicaragua/Denmark | | Film Length: 29 minutes | | Directors: Jens Pedersen |
 Tobacco is an important export article for Nicaragua. But the tobacco workers and farm labourers producing the cigars and cigarettes often fall ill as a result of pesticide poisoning. In a tobacco plant in Estelí, Luz, Alex, and Felix talk about their experiences of working with chemicals, and the impact this has on their health. |
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Cocalero
Friday January 25 at 3:30 (Showplace)
| | Released: 2007 Bolivia | | Film Length: 86 minutes | | Directors: Alejandro Landes |
 In recent years the U.S. government has directed its war on drugs against Bolivian coca-growing regions, and the Bolivian government has responded by attempting to eradicate coca crops, devastating the livelihood of the indigenous peoples who cultivate the plant. For their part the farmers formed a powerful union, led by the Aymara Indian Evo Morales. In 2005 this unwavering, unpretentious socialist made a historic bid for the presidency.
A lively story about geopolitics, people's movements, indigenous culture, and one man's impressive determination, Cocalero closely follows Evo's campaign, getting up close and personal with the candidate and the union organization backing him, although not without taking critical views of both |
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Cottonland
Sunday January 27 at 1:45 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2007 Canada | | Film Length: 53 minutes | | Directors: Nance Ackerman |
 In collaboration with recovering addict Eddie Buchanan, celebrated photographer Nance Ackerman traces the impact of a closure in Glace Bay, Cape Breton, and the subsequent prescription drug epidemic (OxyContin-street name, Cotton) that riddled the community. The film explicitly and powerfully reveals the social costs of the closure. But, in a deft move, Ackerman also turns her attention to the neighbouring Native town of Membertou, where an inspiring collective movement has revitalizd the community and its economy, forcing questions about how to take action and responsibility.
Winner, Best Documentary, Direction, and Cinematography, Atlantic Film Festival. |
Sponsor: PARN: Your Community AIDS Resource Network & Trent Anthropology |
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Dead in the Water
Friday January 25 at 2:15 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2006 Canada | | Film Length: 52 minutes | | Directors: Neil Docherty |
 One-quarter of the world's population has no access to clean drinking water, and many governments lack either the resources or the will to provide this essential commodity to their citizens. In recent years a number of powerful companies have spotted this crisis and seen a business opportunity. In thousands of cities and towns throughout the world, often with the involvement of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, these corporations have attempted to privatize the water supply. Dead in the Water investigates the results of these efforts at privatization in several key locations, and chronicles what many see as the first in a wave of battles in the years to come. |
Sponsor: Jamaica Self Help & Kairos |
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Documenting Issues Facing Queer Youth in the Peterborough Area
Friday January 25 at 5:30 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2007 Canada | | Film Length: 15 minutes | | Directors: The Queer Youth Community and their Allies |
This film explores the issues facing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth in our community. See what members of the queer community have to say and discover just how important the "Pride Celebrations" really is. This local documentary has been written, filmed and directed by the queer youth community and their allies in Peterborough. It is intended to helps us all understand, what can be done to fight homophobia in our front yards. |
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Driven by Dreams
Friday January 25 at 3:30 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2006 Canada | | Film Length: 83 minutes | | Directors: Serge Giguere |
 "I guarantee you that if this were your last summer, you wouldn't be here shooting this film. You'd be in Montreal making love like crazy." - 81-year-old Marc-André Péloquin, from his hospital bed, where he is recovering from a heart attack.Cantankerous, passionate, funny, erotic and wise, five people between the ages of 74 and 92 give singing lessons, paint, play in a swing band, build model airplanes to fly at races, collect antique furniture, and run a sanctuary for animals hurt in the wild. In this film, shot over several years with consummate skill and superb respect for human dignity, Serge Giguere gathers together wonderful and poignant moments from these separate lives and weaves them into a luminous mosaic that celebrates pleasure in all the stages of human life and insists on the joy of living. The 11th documentary by a celebrated Quebec director. Winner of Quebec's Jutra Award for best feature documentary. |
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Enemies of Happiness
Saturday January 26 at 12:00 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2006 Afghanistan/Denmark | | Film Length: 58 minutes | | Directors: Eva Mulvad |
 For Westerners the image of everyday life for the women of Afghanistan is shaped by news coverage of the Taliban's atrocities; and the eerie image of the burka stands as a metaphor for a cloaked existence, of life seen and lived through the filter of a mesh veil. Danish filmmaker Eva Mulvad turns the metaphor on its head in this extraordinary documentary about the final weeks of activist Malalai Joya's campaign to be the first woman elected to the Afghani Parliament. Here, the burka shelters Joya from recognition by enemies who want to silence her, perversely providing her the freedom of movement she needs to reach out to her constituents.Joya has many reasons to hide, including her defiance of ultraconservative ideas about women's place in public life. Her passionate advocacy for the rights of individuals against the tribal power structures of the warlords earned her powerful enemies and death threats. She is an ideal spokeswoman for democracy-using the campaign process to educate herself and her stature as a public figure to advocate for women's rights and the needs of those she hopes to represent. A seat in Parliament hasn't protected her from the "enemies of happiness." In May 2007, after the film was completed, Parliament voted to suspend Joya from her seat, citing a rule forbidding members from criticizing each other. Her voice, ringing out in this film and elsewhere despite such opposition, is one of the most hopeful noises in Afghanistan today. |
Sponsor: Peterborough Friends of Afghanistan |
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Favela Rising
Sunday January 27 at 10:00 (Showplace)
| | Released: 2005 USA/Brazil | | Film Length: 80 minutes | | Directors: Jeff Zimbalist & Matt Mochary |
 Favela Rising documents a man and a movement, a city divided and a favela (Brazilian squatter settlement) united. Haunted by the murders of his family and many of his friends, Anderson Sá is a former drug-trafficker who turns social revolutionary in Rio de Janeiro's most feared slum. Through hip-hop music, the rhythms of the street, and Afro-Brazilian dance he rallies his community to counteract the violent oppression enforced by teenage drug armies and sustained by corrupt police.Winner, Best Emerging Documentary Filmmaker, Trebeca Film Festival; Best Documentary, Sydney International Film Festival; Film of the Year, International Documentary Association. |
Sponsor: Peterborough Coalition for Social Justice |
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Finding Dawn
Saturday January 26 at 2:15 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2006 Canada | | Film Length: 74 minutes | | Directors: Christine Welsh |
 Dawn Crey. Ramona Wilson. Daleen Kay Bosse. These are just three of the estimated 500 Aboriginal women who have gone missing or been murdered in Canada over the past thirty years. Directed by acclaimed Métis filmmaker Christine Welsh, Finding Dawn is a compelling documentary that puts a human face to this national tragedy.This is an epic journey into the dark heart of Native women's experience in Canada. >From Vancouver's skid row, where more than 60 women are missing, we travel to the "Highway of Tears" in northern British Columbia and onward to Saskatoon, where the murders and disappearances of Native women remain unresolved. Along the road to honour those who have passed, we uncover reason for hope. It lives in Native rights activists Janice Acoose and Fay Blaney. It drives events such as the annual Women's Memorial March in Vancouver and inspires communities all along the length of Highway 16 to come together to demand change. Finding Dawn illustrates the deep historical, social, and economic factors that contribute to the epidemic of violence against Native women in this country. It goes further to present the ultimate message that stopping the violence is everyone's responsibility. |
Sponsor: Kawartha Sexual Assault Centre & Niijkiwendidaa Anishnaabe-Kwewag Services Circle |
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Frankensteer
Sunday January 27 at 1:45 (Showplace)
| | Released: 2005 Canada | | Film Length: 48 minutes | | Directors: Merrin Cannel & Ted Remerowski |
Frankensteer is a disturbing documentary that reveals how the ordinary cow has been turned into an antibiotic-dependent, hormone-laced, potential carrier of toxic bacteria, all in the name of cheaper food. This benign, grazing herbivore has undergone a transformation in how it is raised, fed, and slaughtered. Consumers, by and large, are totally unaware of the dangers lurking in their beef. According to Mike McBane of the Canadian Health Coalition, "When you bring a package of hamburger home from a supermarket, you have to treat it as toxic material." Recent changes in inspection rules have shifted the responsibility for food safety from government inspectors to the workers who do the slaughtering and packing. |
Sponsor: Ontario Public Research Interest Group (OPIRG) |
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Garlic and Watermelons
Friday January 25 at 1:00 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2006 USA/Greece | | Film Length: 56 minutes | | Directors: Cameron Hickey & Lauren Feeney |
Garlic and Watermelons chronicles the lives of Prokopis Nikolau and his extended family in the year leading up to the Olympic Games. Their struggle to find a new home, to extract the subsidies that they were promised from the local municipality, and to rebuild their lives represents a humble battle against racism and poverty. But their story is bittersweet. While Prokopis deals with unresponsive bureaucrats, family disputes, and several evictions, his wife has a beautiful new baby girl, his sons learn to read and write, and the entire family savours a traditional Easter feast.A prizewinner at film festivals from Montreal to Macedonia. |
Sponsor: Peterborough Coalition Against Poverty (PCAP) |
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Hell's Grannies
Friday January 25 at 3:30 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2007 Canada | | Film Length: 24 minutes | | Directors: Jason Gileno |
One day 75-year-old Sybil Rampen realized that she was growing old-and she decided she wouldn't go quietly. So she wrote a book and formed a motorcycle gang of grannies: they wear leather, have a clubhouse, do TV shows, pose for photographs, and generally raise hell, love, and laughter.Featured at Hot Docs 2007. |
Sponsor: Older Women's Network (OWN) |
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I Know I'm Not Alone
Sunday January 27 at 11:50 (Library)
| | Released: 2006 USA/Iraq/Palestine/Israel | | Film Length: 86 minutes | | Directors: Michael Franti |
 Michael Franti, world-renowned musician and human rights worker, travels to Iraq, Palestine, and Israel to explore the human cost of war with a group of friends, some video cameras, and his guitar. A compelling soundtrack, visual and musical montages, and Franti's intimate commentary make this film appeal to a multigenerational audience. This is an opportunity to hear the voices of everyday people living, creating and surviving under the harsh conditions of war and occupation. With its guerrilla-style footage captured in active war zones, the documentary is unlike the many academic and politically driven pieces provided by the mainstream media. I Know I'm Not Alone is an antidote to despair. It.celebrates the strength of the human spirit to assert itself in the face of human rights violations, social injustice, and unexpected adversity. Gritty and inspiring.
Numerous awards, including Film of the Year, International Documentary Association; Best Emerging Documentary Filmmaker, Tribeca Film Festival. |
Sponsor: Kawartha World Issues Centre (KWIC) |
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Independent Intervention: Breaking Silence
Saturday January 26 at 4:30 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2006 USA/Iraq | | Film Length: 75 minutes | | Directors: Tonje Hessen Schei |
 An award-winning documentary about the importance of independent media in times of war and corporate control of the media. Contrasting the mass media's coverage of the invasion of Iraq with non-embedded independent investigative reporting, Independent Intervention lays bare the brutal realities of war. As the major U.S. networks remove human suffering from their presentation of war, Operation Iraqi Freedom is portrayed as a success for the spread of democracy and freedom. This film shows the absolutely critical role of the independent media, which, in a culture dominated by corporate wealth, gives us hope for democracy.Awards include Bronze Audience Award, Amnesty International Traveling film Festival, Vancouver, 2006; and the Roy W. Dean Finishing Award, Los Angeles, 2005. |
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Invisible Son
Saturday January 26 at 2:15 (Library)
| | Released: 2005 Canada | | Film Length: 11 minutes | | Directors: Ed Lee |
A short film about a young man's struggle to come to terms with his cultural heritage and sexuality through a letter to his parents. |
Sponsor: Affirmed United, Rainbow Service Organization & Trent Queer Collective |
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Kibera Kid
Saturday January 26 at 10:00 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2006 Kenya | | Film Length: 11 minutes | Directors: Nathan Collett
** FAMILY FRIENDLY ** |
 Otieno (the KIBERA KID) is an orphan living in Kibera, one of the world's largest slums. Otieno lives with the Razors, a gang of petty thieves. After a theft gone bad, he is forced to choose between saving an innocent man's life and the Razors, the only family he knows. |
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Killer's Paradise
Friday January 25 at 12:00 noon (Showplace)
| | Released: 2006 Canada/UK/Guatemala | | Film Length: 83 minutes | | Directors: Giselle Portenier |
 In this powerful film, the award-winning team of reporter Olenka Frenkiel and director Giselle Portenier (Murder in Purdah, Israel's Secret Weapon) document the story of the brutal killings of women in Guatemala. Since 1999 more than 2,000 women have been murdered in that country, and the numbers have been rising every year. In 2005 alone, 640 women, nearly two a day, were killed-one woman in every 12,000. That is almost ten times as many, per capita, as in Britain; and in Guatemala the murders are rarely investigated. Three generations of killers have gone free; though the country is trying to show it has changed, old habits die hard. Killer's Paradise documents the story of Claudina Isabel Velasquez, a 19-year-old law student murdered in summer 2005, as her family urges the authorities to find her killers and bring them to justice. |
Sponsor: Horizons of Friendship, and New Canadian Centre Peterborough |
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Latex (Zoom Films)
Friday January 25 at 5:30 (Market Hall)
| | Distributor: Cobourg West District Collegiate Institute | | Released: 2007 | | Directors: Katya Lameiras and Kyla Wilson |
This year students were asked to make a film on the theme, "What Have You Got to Say?" (about equity and diversity). These films were winning entries in the Zoom Film Festival at Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board. |
Sponsor: Peterborough Collegiate & Vocational School Student Group: Africa Connections |
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Lights for Gita
Saturday January 26 at 10:00 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2001 Canada | | Film Length: 7 minutes | Directors: Michel Vo
** FAMILY FRIENDLY ** |
 Eight-year-old Gita can't wait to celebrate Divali, the Hindu festival of lights, in her new home. But it's nothing like New Delhi, where she comes from. The weather is cold and grey and a terrible ice storm cuts off the power, ruining her plans for a party. Obviously, a Divali celebration now is impossible. Or is it? As Gita experiences the glittering beauty of the icy streets outside, the traditional festival of lights comes alive in a sparkling new way. |
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Like a Ship In the Night
Sunday January 27 at 10:00 (Library)
| | Released: 2006 Ireland/UK/USA | | Film Length: 30 minutes | | Directors: Melissa Thompson |
 Abortion is illegal in Ireland, North and South, potentially punishable by life imprisonment. Yet at least 8,000 Irish women a year travel to England for abortions. They make this journey in secret and return in silence, some of them never telling a soul. Like a Ship in the Night follows a young painter, a working-class mother of five, and a self-proclaimed country girl as they plan their secret journeys across the Irish Sea. Along the way we hear from community workers, doctors and counsellors about the history of the laws and social attitudes that make their journey necessary. Louise, Mary, and Siobhan are welcomed in England by grassroots activists who support Irish women during their stay. After their abortions the women head home, each armed with a "catalog of lies" to explain their absence. At the end of a long, often emotional journey, they are afraid to tell anyone where they have been or what they have been through. Although the three women begin their journeys with different views on abortion rights, they all return silenced, terrified, and angry at their country. |
Sponsor: Trent Women's Centre |
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Magic Cellar
Saturday January 26 at 12:00 (Library)
| | Released: 2006 Canada/South Africa | | Film Length: 10 minutes | Directors: Firdaus Kharas
** FAMILY FRIENDLY ** |
 The first animated series based on African culture, Magic Cellar also marks the first time that Africa's children have been able to see themselves reflected in an animated series. The stories, based on African folktales, were partially collected from interviews conducted with elders in villages across South Africa. |
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Mind Me Good Now
Saturday January 26 at 12:00 (Library)
| | Released: 2005 Canada | | Film Length: 8 minutes | Directors: Chris Cormier & Derek Cummings
** FAMILY FRIENDLY ** |
Childhood is a land we all share. But when Guyana, Trinidad, Mozambique, and Canada pool their talents, the land is pure enchantment.Mind Me Good Now is an animated folktale about Tina and Dalby. When the two children disobey their mama, the consequences are almost tragic. However, Tina's resourcefulness and cunning outwit the wicked cacoya and send them running back into their mama's forgiving arms. Author Lynette Comissiong draws her tale from generations of Trinidadian storytellers. Their stories have built-in moral values to help guide the children. With its brilliant colours, Caribbean flavour, and African score, Me Good Now serves up a useful lesson in bright wrappings- multicultural style. |
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Mitumba, The Second Hand Road
Saturday January 26 at 4:30 (Library)
| | Released: 2005 Italy/Germany/Tanzania | | Film Length: 53 minutes | | Directors: Raffaele Brunetti |
 The story of a T-shirt ... about how it travelled from the north to the south of the world. It's the inside-out story of a piece of clothing's first and second life and everything that happens in between. The tale is told by the people involved in the second-hand clothes trade and by the thoughts of a traveller. He starts out from Hamburg, shadowing a T-shirt that belonged to Felix, a 10-year-old football fan. Four months later he arrives in Tanzania, at the village of Ilambilole. Along the way he encounters an incredible number of people who had something to do with the T-shirt and whose livelihoods revolve around the buying and selling of second-hand clothes and shoes: wholesalers, retailers, transporters, sorters ... until it reached nine-year-old Lucky, another football fan with a passion for T-shirts that have a number on the back. Gradually personal stories and unusual places create the patchwork of "the second-hand road," a charitable-commercial journey with a strong impact on the people involved.Awarded Globo d'oro 2004-05 for best documentary; Legambiente Prize, 10th Environmental Film Festival - Turin, Italy. |
Sponsor: Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG) |
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My Back Yard Was a Mountain
Saturday January 26 at 10:00 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2005 USA | | Film Length: 24 minutes | | Directors: Adam Schlachter |
A compelling, personal story with emotional resonance for anyone with a loving heart. In the late 1950s, in a rural town in Puerto Rico, ten-year-old Adan lives a carefree life. He is surrounded by his friends, his caring mother, and beloved pet goat Chivo. After a brief absence Adan's father returns home from New York City, bringing the news that he has found employment there - and will be moving the family to the distant city immediately. At first Adan thinks the trip will be fun and exciting. Then he finds out that he won't be able to take his goat along with him. So, with the help of his childhood friend Denise, Adan embarks on a quest to find a new home for Chivo. |
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No More Poverty (Zoom Films)
Friday January 25 at 5:30 (Market Hall)
| | Distributor: Clarington Central Secondary School | | Released: 2007 | | Directors: Marshall Orendt and Jordan Shaw |
This year students were asked to make a film on the theme, "What Have You Got to Say?" (about equity and diversity). These films were winning entries in the Zoom Film Festival at Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board. |
Sponsor: Peterborough Collegiate & Vocational School Student Group: Africa Connections |
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No More Tears Sister
Friday January 25 at 1:45 (Showplace)
| | Released: 2004 Canada/Sri Lanka | | Film Length: 78 minutes | | Directors: Helene Klodawsky |
 In Sri Lanka in 1989, Tamil human rights activist Rajani Thiranagama, a brilliant professor of anatomy and a revolutionary, feminist, and mother of two girls, was gunned down at the age of 35. Was she killed by the Sinhalese ethnic majority in power in Sri Lanka or by the Liberation Tigers of the Tamilrity, rumoured to consider her "too dissident"? Both sides in the conflict-the Sinhalese military and the internally divided Tamil Tigers-have been accused of torture, illegal detention, and extrajudicial executions. Helene Klodawsky's film retraces the exemplary life of this political activist against the background of violent conflict that has been tearing Sri Lanka apart for decades. According to Klodawsky, No More Tears Sister is "about as far as you can get from cinéma vérité." Most of the locations and witnesses were inaccessible-the risk of loss of life was too great-and she relied on rare archival footage, excerpts from Thiranagama's letters, and evocative re-enactments of events. Only a few fellow activists forced underground and Thiranagama's sisters took part in remembering the tragic and touching fate of this extraordinary woman. |
Sponsor: OPSEU and Elizabeth Fry Society of Peterborough |
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Old Men Dancing
Friday January 25 at 5:30 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2007 Canada | | Film Length: 15-20 minutes | | Directors: Diane Romerein |
Who would imagine what a bunch of old farts in Peterborough could do if someone put them up to it? The diversity of the group is enough to raise questions about their viability-or not. Fortunately, the forming notion of the group's identity was loose enough to allow anything to happen. Life is good if you dare to dance. This film introduces the members of the group and follows their improvisational energy through several recent projects. |
Sponsor: Peterborough New Dance |
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On a Tightrope
Saturday January 26 at 10:00 (Library)
| | Released: 2006 Canada/USA/China | | Film Length: 91 minutes | | Directors: Petr Lom |
 In an orphanage in the Chinese province of Xinjiang, children study tightrope walking. The children are Uyghurs, the largest Muslimrity in China, and walking the tightrope is an age-old Uyghur tradition. The tightrope feats performed are spectacular. Filmmaker Petr Lom follows four children in the orphanage in their struggle to build a better life for themselves.The children in the tightrope course look up to their coach, but his intentions are dubious. Fearing the Uyghurs' separatist movement, China rules with an iron fist in Xinjiang. Youngsters are forbidden to profess their religion, and the regime jumps at every opportunity to glorify the unity of China. After nine months of intense training, most of the children are told that they have failed and will not be able to continue the course. The four children talk about the frustration of having to practise so hard, only to find out that it was all for nothing. But they also discuss their life in the orphanage and the required loyalty to communism. Their dreams for the future come up on a regular basis. Though not all of them really want a career in tightrope walking, they still feel that they have failed. Later an elderly retired tightrope walker shows up and becomes their new coach. Lovingly and patiently, he teaches the children to walk the tightrope, this time with success. |
Sponsor: Peterborough Collegiate & Vocational School Student Group: SMAC |
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Only the Devil Speaks Cree
Saturday January 26 at 2:15 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2002 Canada | | Film Length: 32 minutes | | Directors: Pamela Matthews |
The life of the Cree filmmaker's mother inspires this piece on the boarding school: an education in loneliness, intolerance, and abuse for generations of First Nations people. Fictional passages capture Sadie's experiences at a religious school, in contrast to the film's life-affirming view of Native survival. |
Sponsor: Community and Race Relations Committee of Peterborough, and New Canadian Centre Peterborough |
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Peace Begins . . . in the Year 2010
Friday January 25 at 7:30 (Showplace)
| | Released: 2007 Canada | | Film Length: 5 minutes | | Directors: Slater Jewell-Kempers |
"All we are saying . . . is give peace a chance," declare the students of the P.C.V.S. Integrated Arts Class in this wonderful montage of efforts to celebrate-and push forward-the end of the UN Decade of Peace. |
Sponsor: Peterborough Collegiate & Vocational School Student Group: SMAC |
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Pies
Saturday January 26 at 12:00 (Library)
| | Released: 1983 Canada | | Film Length: 13 minutes | Directors: Sheldon Cohen
** FAMILY FRIENDLY ** |
 Based on a short story by Canadian author Wilma Riley, this animated film is about ethnic prejudice in all its blind viciousness. Mrs. Cherwak is Polish and owns a cow. Mrs. Meuser is a German with entrenched notions of cleanliness. She does not appreciate the cow's inevitable by-product. The film describes their conflict and its curious resolution over coffee andemeat pie. While the author chose to write about the Germans and the Poles she grew up with on the outskirts of Regina, the situation she describes could apply anywhere in the world. |
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Profit Motives and the Whispering Wind
Friday January 25 at 1:45 (Library)
| | Released: 2007 USA | | Film Length: 58 minutes | | Directors: John Gianvito |
 An astonishingly elegant and elegiac chronicle of the history of the progressive movement in the United States - as inventively told through its cemeteries, plaques and monuments, and a symbolic and physical landscape. Whisking us along us on this journey is an ever-present wind of change summoning the images that lend voice not just to a few familiars - Malcolm X, Mother Jones, Cesar Chavez - but to the legions of radicals who might otherwise disappear from cultural memory. Working in a materialist mode in the tradition of Straub-Huillet, Gianvito has crafted a beautiful film that pays homage to those who historically fought long and hard for their beliefs. The work is a call to arms compelled by the perfidious acts committed by the current government of the United States. |
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Radiant City
Friday January 25 at 12:00 noon (Library)
| | Released: 2006 Canada | | Film Length: 86 minutes | | Directors: Gary Burns |
 Canada's king of surreal comedy, Gary Burns, joins journalist Jim Brown on an outing to the suburbs. Venturing into territory both familiar and foreign, they turn the documentary genre inside out, crafting a vivid account of life in the Late Suburban Age.Urban sprawl is eating the planet. Across the continent the landscape is being levelled-blasted clean of distinctive features and overlaid with zombie monoculture. Politicians call it growth. Developers call it business. The Moss family call it home. While Evan Moss zones out in commuter traffic, Ann boils over in her dream kitchen and the kids play sinister games amidst the fresh foundations of monster houses. A chorus of cultural prophets provides insight on the spectacle. James Howard Kunstler, author of The Geography of Nowhere, rails against the brutalizing aesthetic of strip malls. Philosopher Joseph Heath fears the soul-eating suburbs but admits they offer good value for money. Urban planner Beverly Sandalack dares to ask, "Why can't we walk anywhere anymore?" Burns and Brown rummage through a toybox of cultural references, from Jane Jacobs to The Sopranos, to create a provocative reflection on why we live the way we do. Riffing off sitcoms and reality TV, they play fast and loose with a range of cinematic devices to consider what happens when cities get sick and mutate. |
Sponsor: Downtown Business Improvement Association (DBIA) |
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Red Without Blue
Saturday January 26 at 2:15 (Library)
| | Released: 2006 USA | | Film Length: 74 minutes | | Directors: Brooke Sebold, Benita Sills, & Todd Sills |
 An artistic and groundbreaking portrayal of gender, identity, and the unswerving bond of twinship despite transformation.An honest portrayal of a family in turmoil, Red Without Blue follows a pair of identical twins as one of them takes the painful steps from male to female. Following events over a period of three years, the film documents the twins and their parents, examining the Farleys' struggle to redefine their family. Awards include Audience Choice Award, Slamdance Film festival; Jury Award, Best Documentary, San Francisco LGBT Film Festival; Audience Choice Award, Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival; Festival Directors Award, SilverLake Film Festival. |
Sponsor: Affirmed United & Rainbow Service Organization & Trent Queer Collective |
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Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre Present The Hijab
Saturday January 26 at 11:50 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2006 Canada | | Film Length: 6 minutes | | Directors: Nila Zameni & A.J. Frick |
In this work by the Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre, a group of preteen girls explore their own beliefs and values while providing fresh insights into the wearing of the hijab and its role in Islam. In doing so they raise fundamental questions about Canada's commitment to multiculturalism and diversity. Duration. |
Sponsor: Community Race Relations Committee of Peterborough, and New Canadian Centre Peterborough |
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Ripe for Change
Sunday January 27 at 1:45 (Library)
| | Released: 2005 USA | | Film Length: 57 minutes | | Directors: Emiko Omori |
 The future of U.S. agriculture depends on California, one of the wealthiest and fastest-growing states in the union. Inspired by the social revolution of the sixties, farmers, viticulturalists, and restaurateurs have unleashed a revolution in food.Rejecting pesticides and big machines, veteran farmers such as David Masumoto are embracing organic production. Restaurateurs such as California Cuisine pioneer Alice Waters insist on seasonally grown, organic ingredients. Migrant workers continue to push for their rights. Informative yet not preachy, cautious but hopeful, Ripe for Change presents what's happening in Southern California as the way in which Western agriculture must go if it is to survive a future with fewer fossil fuels and more mouths to feed. |
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Shameless: The Art of Disability
Friday January 25 at 5:30 (Library)
| | Released: 2006 Canada | | Film Length: 72 minutes | | Directors: Bonnie Sherr Klein |
 Art, activism, and disability are the starting point for what unfolds as a funny and intimate portrait of five surprising individuals. One of them, director Bonnie Sherr Klein, has been a pioneer of women's cinema, and this film marks her return to a career interrupted by a catastrophic stroke in 1987. She now turns the lens on the world of disability culture and the transformative power of art. Joining Klein are artists with diverse (dis)abilities: humorist David Roche, poet and scholar Catherine Frazee, dancer and impresario Geoff McMurchy, and sculptor and writer Persimmon Blackbridge. The film, in helping us get to know these remarkable people, all of them driven by a passion for art and transformation, exposes the everyday complexities and unexpected richness of life with a disability. |
Sponsor: Women's Events Committee & Peterborough Communication Support Systems |
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Sounds of Sand
Saturday January 26 at 7:30 (Showplace)
| | Released: 2006 Belgium/France | | Film Length: 92 minutes | | Directors: Marion H nsel |
 Water is life! A dire shortage of water leads the people of a sub-Saharan village to pack up their goats and cattle and head off across the sands in search of a more dependable source. Travelling without a map, village school teacher Rahne (Issaka Sawadogo) makes the courageous decision to go east with his wife Mouna (Carole Karemera Umulinga-HBO's Sometimes in April, 2005) and their three small children.Sounds of Sand is a dramatic tale of exodus, survival, and hope. It is also a parable about determination that takes us along in the footsteps of Shasha, a nomad child full of the joys of life. Her tenacity and strength will conquer her father's love when everything else seems lost. The film is based on the novel Chamelle by Marc Durin-Valois. |
Sponsor: KWIC & CHEX TV |
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Tambogrande
Saturday January 26 at 2:15 (Showplace)
| | Released: 2006 Canada/Peru | | Film Length: 87 minutes | | Directors: Ernesto Cabellos & Stephanie Boydr |
 In 1999 the residents of Tambogrande, a small town in northern Peru, learned that the Fujimori government had secretly grantedng concessions on their land to the Canadian-based multinational corporation Manhattanral. The company's plans for an open-pit gold would involve relocation of half of the town's residents, and contaminate the soil and ground water in this agricultural region famous for its fruit orchards.The film traces the history of the region, including the pioneering efforts of mango farmer Godofredo Garc a Baca, who had helped transform Peru's northern desert into an important agricultural region. Garc a Baca, who became the leader of a protest movement, was assassinated in 2001. |
Sponsor: Amnesty International & Council of Canadians, Peterborough and Kawarthas, Development and Peace |
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The Devil Comes on Horseback
Sunday January 27 at 11:50 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2007 USA/Darfur | | Film Length: 86 minutes | | Directors: Annie Sundberg & Ricki Stern |
 Can one man make a difference? Former U.S. Marine Captain Brian Steidle hopes so. When he first signed on as an unarmed military observer for the African Union, Steidle was largely motivated by money. Yet his intentions changed dramatically when he made a life-altering decision in 2006 to transfer to the strife-ridden Western Sudanese region of Darfur. Armed with nothing more than a still camera he became witness to a horrifying genocide-a conflict that displaced 2.5 million people and claimed 400,000 lives. At first Steidle could hardly register the brutality that surrounded him, but he persevered with his mission nonetheless, finally boldly smuggling his photographs (over 1,000 of them) out and thereby inciting a media frenzy back home. This astonishingly devastating glimpse of a raging genocide follows Steidle's personal journey from Darfur to the United States, revealing the transformation of a soldier into an activist.Full Frame/Working Films Award, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, 2007 |
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The Digital Dump: Exporting Re-Use and Abuse to Africa
Saturday January 26 at 4:30 (Library)
| | Released: 2005 USA/Africa | | Film Length: 23 minutes | | Directors: Jim Puckett |
 This photo-documentary exposes the ugly underbelly of an escalating global trade: toxic, obsolete, discarded computers and other e-scrap are collected in North America and Europe and sent to developing countries by waste brokers and so-called recyclers. In Lagos, Nigeria, a legitimate, robust market exists for old electronic equipment, and people there have the ability to repair and refurbish the material. But of the estimated 500 40-foot containers of these goods shipped to Lagos each month, as much as 75 per cent is "junk." This hazardous e-waste is being discarded and routinely burned in what environmentalists call yet "another cyber-age nightmare now landing on the shores of developing countries." |
Sponsor: Peterborough Green-Up & ReBoot |
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The Fight for True Farming
Friday January 25 at 3:30 (Library)
| | Released: 2005 Canada | | Film Length: 90 minutes | | Directors: Eve Lamont |
 Driven by the forces of globalization, rampant agribusiness is harming the environment and threatening the survival of farms. The proliferation of GMO crops is a further threat to biodiversity as well as to farmers' autonomy. In The Fight for True Farming crop and animal farmers in Quebec, the Canadian West, the U.S. Northeast and France offer solutions to the social and environmental scourges of factory farming. In Europe and North America a current of resistance, bringing together farmers and consumers, insists that it is possible, indeed imperative, to grow food differently. The Fight for True Farming is a film of grim lucidity-and irrepressible hope. |
Sponsor: Peterborough Federal Green Party |
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The Railroad All Stars
Sunday January 27 at 3:00 (Library)
| | Released: 2006 USA/Guatemala | | Film Length: 90 minutes | | Directors: Chema Rodríguez |
 Exhilarating, endearing, and often deeply humorous, The Railroad All Stars features Valeria, Vilma, and Mercy, three prostitutes in search of a better life. The women live and work in La Linea, a destitute neighbourhood next to a railroad track in Guatemala City. The area houses poor families and is overrun by thievery, gangs, and prostitution. Fed up with the abuse they get from customers, lovers, and the police, the three women decide to take matters into their own hands and form a football team, Las Estrellas de la L nea, in hopes of bringing attention to their plight. After the first game against a local high-school team, Las Estrellas are banned from future competitions because of their profession. But this controversy brings enormous media attention-precisely what the women were hoping for. Filmmaker Chema Rodriguez exhibits a strong bond with his characters, drawing out their exuberance and inspiring strength as they fight for basic human rights and a better life through the most unusual of channels - football.Official selection Berlinale 2006, Panorama Dokumente. |
Sponsor: Chicks with Balls |
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The Tobacco Conspiracy
Sunday January 27 at 10:00 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2005 Canada/France | | Film Length: 52 minutes | | Directors: Nadia Collot |
 A trip behind the scenes of the huge tobacco industry, whose economic power has been expanding for five decades at the expense of public health. A gripping investigation covering three continents, Nadia Collot's film exposes the vast conspiracy of a criminally negligent industry that conquers new markets through corruption and manipulation. The next target for marketing: young Africans.With its diverse viewpoints, shocking interviews, and riveting images, The Tobacco Conspiracy deftly defines the issues in a complex situation in which private interests and the public good collide. Enlightening and engrossing, this documentary is a hard-hitting critique of an industry gone mad. |
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Toxic Bust
Sunday January 27 at 10:00 (Library)
| | Released: 2006 USA | | Film Length: 41 minutes | | Directors: Megan Siler |
 A thought-provoking and visually compelling documentary that uncovers the growing evidence linking breast cancer to chemical exposure.The film follows a 40-something woman who finds a lump in her breast. But, like the majority of women with breast cancer, she has none of the "established" risk factors. As she questions what might have caused her cancer, the film focuses on three cancer "hot spots" (Cape Cod, Mass., San Francisco Bay area, and hi-tech manufacturing workers) to more fully explore the connection between breast cancer and chemical exposure in the home, community, and workplace.
CINE Golden Eagle Award. |
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Toxic Trespass
Sunday January 27 at 11:50 (Showplace)
| | Released: 2007 Canada | | Film Length: 80 minutes | | Directors: Barri Cohen |
 "I am polluted."-A powerful statement. They are three words that you would never want to hear from any child, let alone your own. But this is the reality for Ada Cohen, daughter of Barri Cohen, director of Toxic Trespass. The documentary investigates the growing evidence of a large-scale toxicological experiment being conducted on our children. Together, Barri and Ada confront polluters, a researcher who sees no conclusive link between environmental poisoning and childhood diseases, and the government officials who are supposed to be protecting us. Official selection at Planet in Focus. |
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Traditions in Transition
Friday January 25 at 5:30 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2007 Canada | | Film Length: 10 minutes | | Directors: Women's Intercultural Network |
This educational video explores six senior immigrant women's transformation to being 'Canadian' without losing the core of their homeland culture, and features Peterborough's Renee Castro. |
Sponsor: New Canadian Centre Peterborough |
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Trespassing Poets
Friday January 25 at 5:30 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2007 Canada | | Film Length: 15 minutes | | Directors: Lan Anh Thi Ha |
This short film shows how four women-Ziysah, Jes, Lebo, and Anu-interweave their passions for poetry and political activism. Poetry becomes their weapon of creation to trespass oppressive spaces and the social construction of race, gender, and abilities. Trespassing poets reclaim these spaces to transform themselves and others. |
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Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad (a little bit of so much truth)
Sunday January 27 at 3:00 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2007 USA/Mexico | | Film Length: 93 minutes | | Directors: Jill Freidberg/Corrugated Films |
 When the people of Oaxaca decided they'd had enough of bad government, they didn't take their story to the media . . . They TOOK the media.In summer 2006 a broad-based, non-violent, popular uprising exploded in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Some compared it to the Paris Commune, while others called it the first Latin American revolution of the 21st century. But it was the people's use of the media that truly made history in Oaxaca. The documentary Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad captures the unprecedented media phenomenon that emerged when tens of thousands of school teachers, housewives, indigenous communities, health workers, farmers, and students took 14 radio stations and one TV station into their own hands, using them to organize, mobilize, and ultimately defend their grassroots struggle for social, cultural, and economic justice. |
Sponsor: Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation District 14 Equity and Diversity (OSSTF) |
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Vanaja
Sunday January 27 at 3:00 (Showplace)
| | Released: 2006 India | | Film Length: 91 minutes | | Directors: Rajnesh Domalpalli |
 Set in rural South India, a place where social barriers are built stronger than fort walls, Vanaja explores the chasm that divides classes as a young girl struggles to come of age.First-time feature filmmaker Domalpalli began this touching spin on sexual awakenings as his Masters thesis. Convinced of her destiny to become a dancer, 15-year-old Vanaja imposes herself on the household of the wealthy landlady Rama Devi, an expert at Kuchipudi dance. Just as she secures her place in the mistress's household, Rama Devi's 23-year-old son Shekhar returns from the United States. As sexual tensions between the two escalate, Vanaja's blossoming curiosities get her into a world of trouble. |
Sponsor: Peterborough New Dance |
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Wapos Bay: Journey Through Fear
Saturday January 26 at 10:00 (Market Hall)
| | Released: 2007 Canada | | Film Length: 24 minutes | Directors: Melanie Jackson
** FAMILY FRIENDLY ** |
 T-Bear and his father Jacob become local celebrities when they get stranded atop the fire tower-because they are too afraid to come down. Raven ventures into open water. In this episode of the Wapos Bay series, Raven and T-Bear discover the importance of honesty, patience, and courage, especially when you're scared. Wapos Bay is a light-hearted stop-motion animation series about the adventures of three Cree children living in remote northern Saskatchewan. |
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War/Dance
Friday January 25 at 7:30 (Showplace)
| | Released: 2007 USA | | Film Length: 105 minutes | | Directors: Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine |
 In War/Dance, a profoundly moving cinematic work of art, an indomitable beacon of light shines within a world of darkness. For the last 20 years Northern Uganda has been at war with a rebel force, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). In this war zone children are not just the victims of the rebels, they are the rebels. The LRA employs a horrifically effective process to fill its ranks-the abduction of children. War/Dance follows the historic journey of three of these children, Dominic, Rose, and Nancy, and their school in the Patongo refugee camp, the first school from the northern war zone to make it to the finals of Uganda's national music and dance competition.Documentary Directing Award, Sundance Film Festival, 2007. |
Sponsor: PCVS African Connections |
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Weather Report
Saturday January 26 at 10:00 (Showplace)
| | Released: 2007 Canada | | Film Length: 75 minutes | | Directors: Brenda Longfellow |
 We have 10 years. Tops. Climate change is already here. In another decade, the damage will be irreversible.Weather Report is a sneak peek into the future. This year-long road trip takes us around the world to places where global warming is having an immediate effect. We'll meet people for whom climate change already has life-and-death implications. In India city planners brace for more flooding disasters. In Northern Kenya tree-planting activists try to fend off the extreme drought that is sparking armed conflict over water and land. In the Canadian arctic elders are baffled by unpredictable weather patterns and animal behaviour. Many of the characters we meet are tireless fighters: people like Nobel Peace prize winner Wangari Maathai, whose Green belt Movement marries conservation with community economic growth. |
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