Living Proof is a documentary comprised of archival footage from the post-war years through to the 1980s, tracing the causes that led to the climate crisis. The documentary filmmaker never makes an appearance, nor adds any voiceover, the material is allowed to speak for itself. And speak it does. Comment by the filmmaker seems unnecessary…
Our People Will Be Healed is about the Cree First Nation reservation school at Norway House, Manitoba, Canada. It begins its story there and then spirals out to encompass the entire community, showing how change ripples out. This film is so uplifting, full of hope. So many stories told about indigenous peoples focuses on the…
I’ve been watching these films as part of the Take One Action Film Festival, and the recurring theme is colonialism is a living force in the world. People talk about the legacy of colonialism, as though that process of domination, cultural eradication, and extraction of wealth stopped, and we now live in a time after…
In My Blood It Runs is a documentary following Dujuan as he turns 10 and 11. Aboriginal Australian, of Arrente and Gurrwa heritage, he speaks 3 languages, can drive a car, and practices traditional healing. But at school, he is seen as being on the bottom rung, academically underachieving, truanting, and having behavioural issues. It’s…
Radio Silence is a documentary following Carmen Aristegui, a Mexican journalist and living folk hero, as she tries to get back on the air to report on government corruption after state censorship caused her to be fired. This is a documentary which wears its viewpoint on its sleeve. The filmmaker states openly that since she…
Coded Bias is one of those shit-yourself-with-fear documentaries. It’s about the propagation of artificial intelligence algorithms and facial recognition technology in a million unseen ways throughout our society right now, and how the racist and sexist biases existent in our societies are being replicated and compounded by those technologies. Almost nothing in the documentary is…
The Last Ice is a documentary about the Inuit people of the Pikialsasorsuaq region of the Arctic, a place that straddles Canada and Greenland. They fight to protect their communities and way of life against climate change and those who would profit from its effects. The most important thing to take away from this film…
A Voice Above Nature is a short film being shown as part of the Take One Action Film Festival. It explains the issue of oceanic noise pollution by expressing whale song and dolphin echolocation visually, filming in black and white the vibrations of water. And then it introduces man-made oceanic noise such as ship engines…
Pier Kids is a documentary about the queer kids of colour whose only real home, place of safety, place of acceptance, is the Christopher Street Pier. Instantly that places it in the same lineage of films as Paris Is Burning and Kiki, which does 2 things: It shows up the progress with this film being…