justREEL: The Magnitude of All Things
CJFF Presents The Magnitude of All Things
September 26, 10:00 AM to September 28, 10:00 AM (Virtual Screening)
Release Year: 2020
Runtime: 85 Minutes
Director(s): Jennifer Abbott
Ticket Cost: $15 (All proceeds go towards our fundraiser)
Synopsis:
When Jennifer Abbott lost her sister to cancer, her sorrow opened her up to the profound gravity of climate breakdown. Abbott’s new documentary The Magnitude of All Things draws intimate parallels between the experiences of grief—both personal and planetary. Stories from the frontlines of climate change merge with recollections from the filmmaker’s childhood on Ontario’s Georgian Bay. What do these stories have in common? The answer, surprisingly, is everything.
For the people featured, climate change is not happening in the distant future: it is kicking down the front door. Battles waged, lamentations of loss, and raw testimony coalesce into an extraordinary tapestry, woven together with raw emotion and staggering beauty that transform darkness into light, grief into action.
Jennifer Abbott
Director:
Jennifer Abbott is a Sundance and Genie award-winning filmmaker who has been making films about urgent social, political and environmental issues for 25 years. She is best known as the co-director and editor of The Corporation, frequently described as the most successful documentary in Canadian history. She also co-directed, co-wrote and edited Us & Them; co-wrote and edited Sea Blind; executive produced and edited I Am; and made the short Brave New Minds, among other films. In 2020, Abbott will release two feature documentaries: The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel (co-director and supervising editor) and The Magnitude of All Things (writer, director, editor, sound design and co-producer)
justREEL: Sex, Sin & 69 and Key of T
MLJFF Presents: Sex, Sin & 69 and Key of T
Sex, Sin & 69 is an 80-minute historical, retrospective film about the 1969 legislation to ‘decriminalize’ homosexuality.
In Key of T, what happens when you have to choose between who you are and what you love?
June 8th 5:30 -11:55 PM Via XerbTV
Free Virtual Screening
Two incredible films will be showcased don’t miss out!
Sex, Sin & 69 (80 Minutes)
Release Year: 2019
Director: Sarah Fodey
Synopsis:
Told through contemporary voices including queer academics, historians, activists, educators, artists, and community builders, the film attempts to challenge our understanding of queer history by shining a light on widely adopted misconceptions surrounding decriminalization.
Key of T (12 Minutes)
Release Year: 2020
Director: Ashley Chugg
Synopsis:
Choral singer Ari Agha is faced with this dilemma when they consider testosterone therapy, which could cost them their singing voice. A dire lack of research on the topic makes it an even tougher decision. "Key of T" is the story of their decision, the journey of their voice transition, and what they did with the result.
Speaker: Kevin Allen
A fourth-generation Calgarian who has been documenting and profiling queer people and events for 30 years. Kevin started the Calgary Gay History Project in 2012 to uncover and preserve stories from Calgary’s LGBTQ2 past (www.calgarygayhistory.ca). The Project has achieved national recognition and led to the award-winning documentary film: Gross Indecency: The Everett Klippert Story; and the best-selling book Our Past Matters: Stories of Gay Calgary. Additionally, Kevin works as a senior election administrator for both Elections Canada and Elections Alberta.
justREEL: The Forbidden Reel
MLJFF Presents : The Forbidden Reel by Ariel Nasr
April 13th 5:30pm - 11:55pm via XerbTV
Driven to create amidst war and chaos, Afghan filmmakers gave birth to an extraordinary national cinema. Driven to destroy, Taliban extremists set out to torch that legacy. Marveling in the beauty and fragile power of movies, Afghan-Canadian director Ariel Nasr crafts a thrilling and utterly original story of modern Afghanistan
Sergeo Kirby
Biography
Filmmaker and producer; part of the ageless wave of activist filmmakers, some notable films he has directed include:
Student Politics: A one hour documentary about the realities of student activism at Concordia University
Wal-Town (NFB/Radio-Canada/TVO): A road trip expose on Wal-Mart’s effects on small towns in Canada.
Merge Left: A 16mm short experimental piece on travel and time.
Sergeo co-founded LoadedPictures, an independent documentary and dramatic film company. Where he produced:
Roadsworth (TeleQuebec/Bravo) and H2Oil (Global/ Discovery/Sundance) among other films.
Sergeo works on social and political documentaries that he hopes will challenge audiences to rethink our contemporary world.
Viral: Antisemitism in Four Mutations
justREEL: Viral: Antisemitism in Four Mutations
SYNOPSIS
Mass murders, vandalism, social media abuse, propaganda, assault – by virtually every yardstick, antisemitism in the U.S. and Europe is rising and worsening in ways not seen since the 1930s. Like a virus, it mutates and evolves across cultures, borders and ideologies, making it all but impossible to stop. Filmmaker Andrew Goldberg explores its infectious behavior in his film "Viral: Antisemitism In Four Mutations."
Film Information
Release Year: 2020
Runtime: 81 minutes
Director(s): Andrew Goldberg
Language: English, French, Hungarian
Subtitles: No
Featured Speaker
Our post-screening interview will feature representatives from the Calgary Jewish Federation. The CJF is working towards creating a vibrant, caring, welcoming, and inclusive Jewish community around the world. They are committed to ensuring that their heritage is handed down to future generation, and to provide opportunities for lifelong learning within a Jewish context.
Adam Silver has been the CEO of CJF since 2014. He is currently completing his doctorate in Education, specializing in community leadership.
David Busheikin is a local lawyer, and member of the CJF’s Community Relations Council.
Jared Shore is the co-president of CJF’s Board of Directors, and has sat on the board for the past 4 years. Previously, Jared served as Chairperson of CJF’s Community Relations Committee for 3 years, having been a member of the committee since 2003.
Jordan Balaban is the co-president ofCJF’s Board of Directors, and has served on the CJF board since 2013.
Lisa Libin is the chairperson of CJF’s Community Relations Council, and has recently been appointed to the City of Calgary’s Anti-Racism Committee.
CALL FOR ENTRIES: MLJFF 2021-22
We have now opened submissions for our 2021-22 programming year, which includes the MLJFF and our justREEL series. To submit your documentary visit https://filmfreeway.com/MardaLoopJusticeFilmFestival
Indebted to all women
Trailer
Synopsis
Abortion in El Salvador is punished with 20-40 years in prison. Indebted to All Women wants to give voice to those women suffering and struggling to change one of the most restrictive law in the world for sexual and reproductive rights.
FILM INFORMATION
Release Year: 2020
Runtime: 60 minutes
Director(s): Roi Guitián, María Lobo
Language: Spanish
Subtitles: English
Featured GUEST Interviewee
María Lobo is one of the directors of Indebted to All Women. She is interested in communication as a tool for participation and for social change. She works as an educator in projects that promote media literacy, active citizenship and inclusion.
Always close to Journalism, she also produces, writes and directs documentaries, reports and other content addressed to defend human rights and social justice.
Never Going Back
Trailer
Synopsis
When Explorer left Honduras, she left everything behind. In the middle of the night, she didn’t have the chance to ask where she was going, but she’s never afraid, her father is always there taking care of her. This Honduran family travelled to Mexico looking for a safe place. A place where their two daughters could grow, and their lives weren’t on the line. This is a brief chapter of this family’s journey to protect their daughters’ lives and their innocence.
FILM INFORMATION
Release Year: 2020
Runtime: 65 minutes
Director(s): Janette A. López
Language: Spanish
Subtitles: English
Alice Street
Trailer
Synopsis
Two Oakland artists, Pancho Peskador, a Chilean studio painter, and Desi Mundo, a Chicago-born aerosol artist, form an unlikely partnership to tackle their most ambitious project to date, a four-story mural in the heart of downtown Oakland. Their site is situated at a unique intersection where Chinese and Afro-Diasporic communities face the imminent threat of displacement and gentrification. Prior to painting, the mural faces numerous obstacles: complex negotiations with profit-minded property owners, satisfying a community of diverse residents, and resolving the artists’ own aesthetic conflicts.
As the mural takes shape on the wall, Oakland’s unique cultural legacies come to life through historical flashbacks. Past exclusionary policies replay themselves in the present as gentrification threatens to uproot long-term residents. The mural is fraught with its own challenges. A disgruntled neighborhood resident launches a vendetta against the artists, unleashing a blizzard of letters to city officials and newspapers. Simultaneously, the property owner of the mural site schemes to demolish it and construct the city’s largest luxury condo. Nonetheless, Desi and Pancho conclude the mural with great fanfare and a vibrant celebration.
Three months later, news comes that another forthcoming condominium development will obscure the mural, which has become a source of neighborhood pride. Despite last-ditch opposition to the condominium, it receives city approval, effectively dooming the mural. Meanwhile, the city unveils its urban planning process for the downtown district. Ultimately displaced, the mural becomes a spark for the community to rally to protect cultural arts, and coalescing the community resistance to gentrification.
FILM INFORMATION
Release Year: 2020
Runtime: 60 minutes
Director(s): Spencer Wilkinson
Language: English
Subtitles: n/a
Featured GUEST Interviewee
After a decade working with gang-involved and homeless youth in the California Bay Area, Spencer Wilkinson founded Endangered Ideas in Oakland, to focus on stories of resilience. In 2018, he directed the feature-length "ONE VOICE: The Story of the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir" which premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival, was a "Best Movie of the East Bay" in 2019 and featured on PBS' "Truly CA" 2020 season.
He is the director and producer of ALICE STREET which premiered in 2020. KQED Arts describes ALICE STREET as “set in just a few city blocks, it’s a story about intractable loss as well as collective refusal, depicting artists’ role in grassroots activism that builds power by bridging communities.” ALICE STREET won the Audience Choice Award for Feature Documentary at the Oakland International Film Festival.
From Durban To Tomorrow
Trailer
Synopsis
From Durban To Tomorrow is set as the International Aids Conference - the largest health conference in the world - comes to Durban, South Africa again in 2016, after first taking place there in 2000. The 2000 conference was a watershed, and led to huge breakthroughs in access to AIDS treatment globally. In the film, we visit five activists and learn about their work in South Africa, Guinea, Spain, Hungary, and India, to ensure access to treatment and quality health care for people who are most vulnerable and marginalized. We hear their hopes and visions for the future, their sense of what is possible, and their calls to a renewed commitment to the fight for universal health care.
FILM INFORMATION
Release Year: 2020
Runtime: 40 minutes
Director(s): Dylan Mohan Gray
Language: English, Hungarian, Spanish French, Hindi
Subtitles: English
Featured GUEST Interviewee
Dr. Patricia Connick is a family physician based in Calgary, Alta. In addition to being a clinical lecturer in the University of Calgary’s Department of Family Medicine, she also practises at the Mosaic Refugee Health clinic. She provides primary care to refugees and also teaches medical students and family medicine residents.
Dr. Connick is a medical aid worker with the Canadian Red Cross Emergency Response Unit (ERU) and worked in Jordan at a Syrian refugee hospital in 2014, and in Nepal following the 2015 earthquake, She was in Ecuador after the 2016 earthquake, where she worked in mobile clinics, providing healthcare to people in rural areas. Most recently, Dr. Connick worked at the cholera clinic in Mozambique following the 2019 hurricane. She has a special interest in global health, specifically in child/maternal health and skin diseases.
Dr. Connick obtained her MD from the University of Calgary, where she also completed her family medicine residency. In 2007, she completed her Diploma in Tropical Medicine (DMTH) in Lima, Peru, a dermatology diploma from Cardiff University in Wales in 2017, and a Professional Certificate in Skin Cancer Medicine in Melbourne 2020.
Sockeye Salmon, Red Fish
Trailer
Synopsis
Sockeye, a species of wild salmon, is born in Kamchatkan waters and spends its entire life in the Pacific Ocean. Only once does it return to fresh waters - to give offspring, start the circle of life, and die. It is an inexhaustible resource that feeds billions of people on the planet, restored every year! But soon, we may find ourselves facing the unimaginable: humans will exhaust the inexhaustible!
FILM INFORMATION
Release Year: 2020
Runtime: 51 minutes
Director(s): Dmitriy Shpilenok, Vladislav Grishin
Language: Russian
Subtitles: English
Featured GUEST Interviewee
Misty MacDuffee is a conservation biologist with a focus on fisheries ecology in salmon ecosystems. For the past 15 years, she has undertaken various types of field, laboratory, technical and conservation assessments in the salmon-bearing watersheds of the BC coast. She has a particular interest in the role of salmon as critical food sources for wildlife and incorporating their needs into salmon management decisions. She is also interested in historic stock assessment and run reconstructions in salmon watersheds.
The application of her work is to implement ecosystem considerations in fisheries management. This often requires her engagement with management, dialogue and stakeholder forums that affect fisheries and wildlife policy.
Servitude
Trailer
Synopsis
Many Brazilians think that slavery ended with the signing of the Golden Law. But the relations of slave labor exploitation continue to this day. It is estimated that at this very moment there are 369 thousand Brazilians living and working as slaves. Through the testimony of modern abolitionists and rural workers who were victims of contemporary slavery, Servitude (Servidão) investigates the slavery mentality of Brazilian society that dates back to 5 centuries. Narrated by Negra Li, Servitude is a resounding record of one of the greatest ills in Brazil.
FILM INFORMATION
Release Year: 2020
Runtime: 72 minutes
Director(s): Renato Barbieri
Language: Portuguese
Subtitles: English
Featured GUEST Interviewee
Renato Barbieri is the Creative Director in GAYA Films, a production company located in Brasília. He is a film director, producer and screenwriter. His directorial debut was in 1983, in the production company “Olhar Eletrônico”, in São Paulo. Renato was also the director of Jornal de Vanguarda, in the television network Band. His award-winning works include Cora Coralina – Todas as Vidas, Atlântico Negro – na Rota dos Orixás, Do Outro Lado da Sua Casa, As Vidas de Maria, Lendas Animadas, A Invenção de Brasília, Malagrida, Bianchetti, and others. He is a curator in the project Teste de Audiência and a director in CONNE (an association of production companies and producers from the Central-West, North and Northeast regions in Brazil).
SAFE HAVEN
Trailer
Synopsis
SAFE HAVEN weaves together the powerful stories of U.S. war resisters who sought safe haven in Canada during both the Vietnam and Iraq wars. The film explores the intersection of these two groups of men and women during the Iraq war as many Vietnam era resisters participated in a movement to support the younger generation. SAFE HAVEN shows the reality and the myth of Canada as a welcoming country to those seeking protection. It delves into the decision making of people deciding to leave home and escape military service. People who found safe haven, and those who were forced home discuss their lives on both sides of the border.
FILM INFORMATION
Release Year: 2020
Runtime: 78 minutes
Director(s): Lisa Molomot
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Featured GUEST Interviewee
Alison Mountz is the producer of Safe Haven. She is a geographer and Canada Research Chair in Global Migration at Wilfrid Laurier University. She first moved to Canada from the United States in 1998, and has spent much of her adult life crossing and researching the border between the two countries. She explores how people migrate across borders, access migration and asylum policies, survive detention, resist war, and create safe havens. Alison’s monographs include Seeking Asylum: Human Smuggling and Bureaucracy at the Border (University of Minnesota); Boats, Borders, and Bases: Race, the Cold War, and the Rise of Migration Detention in the United States (California, with Jenna Loyd); and The death of asylum: hidden geographies of the enforcement archipelago (Minnesota). Mountz directs Laurier's International Migration Research Centre and edits the journal Politics & Space.
The Great Disconnect
Trailer
Synopsis
We are living in a time that has been described as the age of loneliness. Despite Western advances in technology, living conditions, education and healthcare, we, as a society, are isolating ourselves from one another, and because of this, facing a health crisis that affects all ages, genders, races, and cultures.
But how have we become so disconnected? And what can we do to change the status quo and fulfill our potential for health and well-being?
Join wellness expert Tamer Soliman as he journeys through North American cities to meet with local citizens, community activists, and leading authorities on social, economic, and urban planning to discover the true factors that have profound and lasting impacts on our health and wellbeing.
This timely documentary invites us to reflect on the relationships we have with those around us and raises the question: is it possible to overcome our modern culture of disconnectedness and rediscover how truly essential we are to one other?
FILM INFORMATION
Release Year: 2019
Director(s): Tamer Soliman
Language: English
Subtitles: No
Featured GUEST Interviewee
Before producing health documentaries, Tamer Soliman built his career as a holistic nutritionist, personal trainer and wellness speaker. Making this film has changed the way Tamer understands true health. Moving beyond simply eating well and exercising, Tamer now believes that in order to live in a state of optimal wellness, you need to have a strong sense of community wellbeing. Currently living in Ottawa, Tamer is partnering up with community leaders locally and internationally to continue to spread the message of this film.