FILM & PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
Saturday December 12
CLASSICS
>Festival Opening
12:00pm
>Musical Opening
12:10pm
>Dr. Strangelove
12:30pm
Director Stanley Kubrick
An American/British black comedy loosely based on Peter George's Cold War thriller novel Red Alert (aka Two Hours to Doom), satirizing a nuclear scare.
>Battle of Algiers
2:05pm
(1966) 121 minutes
Director Gillo Pontecorvo
One of the most influential political films in history, vividly re-creating a key year in the tumultuous Algerian struggle for independence from the occupying French in the 1950s. Shot in the streets of Algiers in documentary style, the film is a case study in modern warfare, with the brutal techniques used by occupying French troops.
>Hearts and Minds
4:10pm
(1974) 112 minutes
Director Peter Davis
With Introduction by Gerry Condon, Veterans for Peace (Seattle, WA)
Hearts and Minds is a documentary about the Vietnam War based on a quote from President Lyndon B. Johnson: "the ultimate victory will depend on the hearts and minds of the people who actually live out there.” The film premiered at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival and was chosen as Best Feature Documentary at the 47th Academy Awards presented in 1975.
Intermission:
6:05- 6:15pm
>Full Metal Jacket
6:15pm
(1987) 116 minutes
Director Stanley Kubrick
A superb ensemble cast falls in for action in this brilliant saga about the Vietnam War and the dehumanizing process that turns people into trained killers. The action is savage, the story unsparing, the dialogue spiked with scathing humor. From its rigors of basic training to its nightmare of combat in Hue City, this film scores a cinematic direct hit.
Sunday December 13
DOCUMENTARIES
>Musical Opening:
11:00am
>Incident at Restigouche
11:05am
(1984) 46 minutes
Director Alanis Obamsawin
On June 11 and 20, 1981, the Québec Provincial Police (QPP) raided Restigouche Reserve, Québec. At issue were the salmon-fishing rights of the Micmac people. Using a combination of documents, news clips, photographs and interviews, this powerful film provides an in-depth investigation into the history-making raids that put justice on trial.
>Here No One Will Surrender: Honduras Resists the Coup
11:55am
This collection of short films highlights their inspiring struggle of Honduran people against the US-backed coup d'etat and US intervention in their country.
>Occupied Iraq: Soldiers' and Civilians' Stories
12:15pm
This collection of short films opens a window to life in occupied Iraq today. From children who have lost their parents to the war to US soldiers who have turned against the occupation, these films are a poignant expression of the terrible human cost of the occupation of Iraq.
>Mountain of Light
12:35pm
(2005) 53 minutes
Director Guillermo Centeno/Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry
A heartwarming film that follows Cuban doctors serving in humanitarian missions in Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Burkina Faso, Mali, Botswana and Namibia. This film captures a glimpse of the inspiring role Cuba is playing in building a better world with justice and dignity for all.
Intermission:
>Slingshot Hip Hop
Short documentary examining Canada’s demonization of Native activists and the label of ‘terrorist’ being used by the major media to describe Indigenous people who stand up for their rights.
>Against the Silence: Families of the Cuban 5 Speak Out
>Cocalero
Intermission:
>Thomas Sankara: The Upright Man
1:35pm - 1:45pm
1:45pm
(2008) 83 minutes
Director Jackie Reem Salloum
This film braids together the stories of young Palestinians living in Gaza, the West Bank and inside Israel as they discover hip hop and employ it as a tool to surmount divisions imposed by occupation and poverty. From internal checkpoints and separation walls to gender norms and generational differences, this is the story of young people crossing the borders that separate them.
>Business as Usual // Education is a Right: Fighting for Attawapiskat
3:25pm
~Business as Usual
(2009) 9 minutes
Director Jay Cardinal Villeneuve
~Education is a Right: Fighting for Attawapiskat
Series of short films that follow the Cree community of Attawapiskat in Northern Ontario in their ten-year-long struggle for a school and their basic right to education.
3:50pm
(2009) 31 minutes
Directors Sally o'Brian and Jennifer Wager
Five Cuban men are being held in the U.S. as political prisoners for fighting against terrorism and for protecting their homeland from right wing terrorists based in Miami, supported and endorsed by the US government and elite. This new documentary follows their families struggle to free their sons, husbands and fathers, as they are denied visas to visit them in prison.
4:25pm
(2006) 94 minutes
Director Alejandro Landes
Cocalero is an award-winning film that tells the story of Evo Morales, an Indigenous Bolivian farmer who rose out of the struggle of coca farmers against their government's US-supported effort to eradicate their livelihood of coca crops to become President of Bolivia today.
5:55pm-6:05pm
6:05pm
(2006) 52 minutes
Director Robin Shuffield
Released twenty years after his assassination, The Upright Man tells the story of Thomas Sankara, one of Africa's most celebrated anti-colonial leaders. Sankara stepped to the forefront of the African liberation struggle when he became president of Burkina Faso in 1983, charting the country on a course for independence from colonialism and a more just society.
>Rethink Afghanistan
7:05pm
(2009) 71 minutes
Director Robert Greenwald
This groundbreaking new film on Afghanistan is one of the first to take an in-depth, critical look at the eight year long occupation of Afghanistan. Rethink Afghanistan features experts from Afghanistan, the US, and Russia answering questions like: Is the US/Canada/NATO military presence helping the people of Afghanistan? Does it help Afghan women? What does military escalation mean for Afghanistan? How will this escalation affect Pakistan and the surrounding region?
