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| Hot Docs champ Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World screens OWFF |
The festival run features a few notable Ottawa premieres, including the screening of Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World by Charles Wilkinson (Oil Sands Karaoke), which comes to Ottawa after winning the prize for Best Canadian Feature at Hot Docs this year. (Check back after TIFF for a review of that one.) The fest also includes the Danish Hot Docs hit Democrats and the eco doc Landfill Harmonic, which won the Audience Award at SXSW. The shorts front includes My Enemy, My Brother, which’ll also hit up the Ottawa International Film Festival in October, and a selection curated by festival/re-blog site Ottawa Indie Fest. Overall, the diverse program features a mix of green issues, human rights sagas, and stories from both LGBTQ and First Nations communities.
New changes to OWFF include a ‘Pay-what-you-can’ admission
and a change in venue to the National Gallery and St. Paul University. The
latter place hosts an OWFF panel “Actions Speak Louder than Words,” which asks
how audiences can put the lessons of these films into practice.
The films playing at this year’s One World Film Festival are:
My Enemy, My Brother
Directed by Ann Shin | Canada | 2015 | 15 min
A chance encounter during the Iran-Iraq War forges a lasting
bond between two enemy soldiers that transcends national borders.
Democrats
Directed by Camilla Neilsson | Denmark | 2014 | 109 min
What happens when a ruler and a political party that are
accustomed to staying in power are forced to share it? Follow the
representatives of Zimbabwe's ruling and opposition parties as they attempt to
forge a new constitution in a politically-divided nation where human rights are
not always respected and many people are afraid to speak their minds.
The Year We Thought About Love
Directed by Ellen Brodsky | United States | 2014 | 68 min
With wit, grace, and attitude, a diverse troupe of LGBTQ
teens transforms their personal struggles into theatre for social change. Ellen
Brodksy's documentary is an inspiring portrait of youth demonstrating the power
of living a life honestly and out loud.
Landfill Harmonic
Directed by Graham Townsley, Brad Allgood, Juliana
Penaranda-Loftus | United States | 2014 | 85 min
Under the guidance of their music director Favio Chavez, the
young musicians of the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura journey from a small
community located next to a landfill in Asuncion, Paraguay to the world stage. As
they learn to make beautiful music with classical instruments fashioned out of
garbage, they bring hope to their families, community and audiences worldwide.
-Audience Award winner, SXSW 2015
-Audience Award winner, SXSW 2015
Honour Your Word
Directed by Martha Stiegman | Canada | 2013 | 59 min
Indigenous activists in Canada are raising awareness and
forging alliances with communities across Canada and around the world and
demanding respect for indigenous rights. Martha Stiegman's documentary takes us
behind the barricades of Barriere Lake, where an inspiring Algonquin First
Nation is working to make sure that governments honour their word.
After the Last River
Directed by Victoria Lean | Canada | 2015 | 88 min
Downstream from a De Beers diamond mine, Attawapiskat is a
community grappling with urgent environmental and economic issues that are
compounded by a lack of access to resource revenues. Filmed over 5 years, After
the Last River is a point-of-view documentary that follows Attawapiskat’s
journey from obscurity and into the international spotlight during the protests
of Idle No More.
Haida Gwaii On the Edge of the World
Directed by Charles Wilkinson | Canada | 2015 | 74 min
In this irreverent, intimate, funny, beautiful, occasionally
troubling but always intriguing story of Canada’s world-renowned archipelago -
Haida Gwaii - a First Nations community and their non-native neighbours are
winning key victories in the campaign to combat the urgent global threats
facing us all.
-Winner: Best Canadian Feature, Hot Docs 2015
The One World Film
Festival runs Sept. 24-27.
Please visit www.oneworldfilmfestival.ca for
more information on this year’s festival.
