EVENT: Global Justice Film Festival
Film and documentary lovers rejoice – the Global Justice Film Festival is here! Enjoy a weekend full of inspiration, meaningful connections, and thought-provoking films.
THE BASICS
The Global Justice Film Festival is a coalition of organizations and individuals who support a better vision for our world. Seeking to engage people in dialogue and information sharing, the festival screens films that feature major emerging human development issues in our changing world.
The films at the festival are from the Travelling World Community Film Festival, an organization that is dedicated to fostering greater awareness of the social, economic, and environmental consequences of human activity at both the local and global levels.
Come with a friend, your students, a family member or by yourself!
Friday night Facebook event | GJFF Facebook event
The festival is held at the University of Winnipeg in various rooms throughout Lockhart Hall. For specific room assignments, please see the schedule below.
SCHEDULE & FILMS
*A list of the films and their showtimes can be found below or online.
Friday – September 28, 2018, 7:00-9:00 PM
My Year with Helen
7:00-9:00 PM, Lockhart Hall – Room 1L11
With unique access to high-ranking candidate Helen Clark, award-winning filmmaker Gaylene Preston casts a wry eye on proceedings as the United Nations turns itself inside-out choosing a new Secretary-General.
Her cameras explore the cracks between the diplomats, the embedded press and feminist activists as they push for change while caught up in a power process as secretive and patriarchal as the selection of the Pope.
An observational documentary, My Year with Helen travels alongside Clark as she works on global development issues as head of the UNDP while also campaigning for Secretary-General and staying in daily contact with her 94-year-old father back in New Zealand.
Saturday – September 29, 2018, 12:00-5:00 PM
The Silent Land
12:00-1:15 PM, Lockhart Hall – 1L11
In Cambodia, more and more fertile land is being taken over by large-scale farming industries while small-scale farmers are fighting to keep ownership of their land in order to maintain local food security. Silent Land tells the story of one young farmer, Moon, who wants to continue to grow organic rice. Since she can’t count on the legal system, she organizes a cooperative with other farmers in her village in order to improve their chances of resisting land grabs.
Vancouver: No Fixed Address
12:00-1:15 PM, Lockhart Hall – 1L12
What’s going on with exploding housing costs in key cities around the world? Vancouver: No Fixed Address focuses on the global housing bubble in a city often voted to be the ‘Best City in the World’. It puts a human face on the housing crisis and the gross inequality it has left in its wake. The conclusions are pretty straightforward, but what about the solutions?
Finding Kukan
12:00-1:15 PM, Lockhart Hall – 1L13
Using 16mm Kodachrome color film, Li Ling-Ai and Rey Scott captured citizens in China and their perspectives in a 1930’s war-torn country. Their film KUKAN screened for President Roosevelt and received one of the first Academy Awards for a feature documentary in 1942. Despite all this, Li Ling-Ai is not well known and copies of KUKAN have disappeared. Filmmaker Robin Lung went on a 7-year quest to find the answers in Finding Kukan.
Our People Will Be Healed
1:30-3:15 PM, Lockhart Hall – 1L11
Our People Will Be Healed, Alanis Obomsawin’s 50th film, reveals how a Cree community in Manitoba has been enriched through the power of education. The Helen Betty Osborne Ininiw Education Resource Centre in Norway House, north of Winnipeg, receives a level of funding that few other Indigenous institutions enjoy. Its teachers help their students to develop their abilities and their sense of pride in their culture. This positive story illustrates what is possible with proper funding and support.
Waking the Sleeping Giant
1:30-3:15 PM, Lockhart Hall – 1L12
Waking the Sleeping Giant: The Making of a Political Revolution is the story of the attempt to build a 21st century progressive movement in the US. Five remarkable individuals wrestle with persistent racial injustice, growing economic inequality, and the corrupting influence of money in politics against the backdrop of an extraordinary 2016 presidential race. In crisis, there is also opportunity.
Birthright: A War Story
1:30-3:15 PM, Lockhart Hall – 1L13
In the US today, a radical movement has tightened its grip on state power, seeking to control whether and how women bear children. Birthright: A War Story tells stories of women caught up in a frightening new legal system, which criminalizes and physically violates women, threatens lives, and challenges their constitutional protections.
Birth of a Family
3:30-5:00 PM, Lockhart Hall – 1L11
In Birth of a Family, four of the 20,000 Indigenous children taken from their families between 1955 and 1985 are reunited. Three sisters and a brother, adopted as infants into separate families across North America, piece together their shared history and deepen their connection.
Evolution of Organic
3:30-5:00 PM, Lockhart Hall – 1L12
Evolution of Organic is the story of organic agriculture, told by those who built the movement. Organic has now gone mainstream, split into an industry oriented toward bringing organic food to all people and a movement that has realized a vision of sustainable agriculture. The next generation of organic farmers is broadening their scope to include methods such as “no till” and carbon farming as a climate solution.
Rebels On Pointe
3:30-5:00 PM, Lockhart Hall – 1L13
Exploring universal themes of identity, dreams and family, Rebels on Pointe celebrates the world famous Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, an all-male, comic, drag ballet that was founded 40 years ago. The film is a creative blend of gender-bending artistic expression, diversity, passion and purpose. A story which ultimately proves that a ballerina is not only a woman dancing— but an act of revolution in a tutu.
Sunday – September 30, 2018, 1:00-5:00 PM
Freightened: The Real Price of Shipping
1:00-2:15 PM, Lockhart Hall – 1L11
The cargo shipping industry is a key player in world economy bringing 90% of the goods we consume in the West. Yet the functioning and regulation of this business remains largely obscure to many, and its hidden costs affect us all. Due to their size, freight ships have moved out of the public’s eye, behind barriers and checkpoints. Freightened: The Real Price of Shipping answers the questions: Who pulls the strings in this multi-billion dollar business? To what extent does the industry control our policy makers? How does it affect the environment above and below the water-line?
The Right to Remain
1:00-2:15 PM, Lockhart Hall – 1L12
The Right To Remain is a look at Vancouver’s Downtown East Side residents and their fight to save their community from development. The documentary is told from a Japanese-Canadian perspective of those who remember their own displacement and internment and are guided by solidarity with their neighbors. The film follows Tom and others who sense homelessness knocking at their doors as rents skyrocket while the city lays out its development plans for the next 30 years.
A Silent Transformation
1:00-2:15 PM, Lockhart Hall – 1L13
A Silent Transformation explores the innovative self-help efforts of different communities across Ontario and the transformative power of the co-operative enterprise model. In these communities are the seeds of economic democracy, global solidarity, and a movement to transform society.
Pre-Crime
2:15-4:15 PM, Lockhart Hall – 1L11
We are the first generation to hand over to computers the control over our freedom for the promise of total security. Pre-Crime is a chilling wake-up call to the technology that makes predicting future crime and murder prevention possible. However, as citizens are transformed into carriers of recorded data; our every move, message and purchase are tracked and mapped. The film exposes the creators of this technology, how they work and who really benefits from their invention.
The Road Forward
2:15-4:15 PM, Lockhart Hall – 1L12
The Road Forward, a musical documentary, connects a pivotal moment in Canada’s civil rights history—the beginnings of Indian Nationalism in the 1930s—with the powerful momentum of First Nations activism today. The Road Forward’s stunningly shot musical sequences, performed by an ensemble of some of Canada’s finest vocalists and musicians, seamlessly connect past and present with soaring vocals, blues, rock, and traditional beats. This is a rousing tribute to the fighters for First Nations rights, a soul-resounding historical experience, and a visceral call to action.
Denial
2:15-4:15 PM, Lockhart Hall – 1L13
With stunning access to intimate family moments and behind-the scenes energy deals, and with unique humor in the face of overwhelming events, Denial manages to present insights into two important topics – one global and one personal – and at the same time to throw light on the messy business of change.
Seeking Wisdom: Students and Elders in the Sea to Sky
4:30-5:00 PM, Lockhart Hall – 1L11
In Seeking Wisdom, Students from School District 48’s Aboriginal Leadership Group travel throughout the Sea to Sky to interview Elders from both the Squamish and Lil’wat Nations. The teachings empower the students for their 3rd annual 24 Hour Drum event. Elders share stories, poetry, and deep wisdom surrounding issues of language revitalization, reconciliation and forgiveness.
19 Paper Cranes
4:30-5:00 PM, Lockhart Hall – 1L12
19 Paper Cranes follows the life of a letter. In 2016, a Japanese center for people with disabilities was attacked by a young man, killing 19 and wounding 26. The young man sent a letter to the Japanese Parliment expressing his belief that people with disabilities cannot be happy and only bring misfortune to their guardians. Sachiko Tanaka, a woman living with an intellectual disability, has now made 19 paper cranes from the letter – discover why.
Love the Sinner
4:30-5:00 PM, Lockhart Hall – 1L12
This is a personal documentary exploring the connection between Christianity and homophobia in the wake of the 2016 shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Love the Sinner probes our responsibility to face bias in our communities and push for dignity and equality for all.
116 Cameras
4:30-5:00 PM, Lockhart Hall – 1L13
116 Cameras follows Eva Schloss, a Holocaust survivor and stepsister of Anne Frank, as she tells her story. This creative project addresses the pressing question of what might happen when witnesses are no longer with us using 3D digital hologram technology.
The Forger
4:30-5:00 PM, Lockhart Hall – 1L13
It’s 1944 in occupied Paris. Four friends spend their days in a narrow room atop a Left Bank apartment building. The neighbours think they’re painters — a cover story to explain the chemical smell. In fact, the friends are members of a Jewish resistance cell. They’re operating a clandestine laboratory to make false passports for children and families about to be deported to concentration camps.
PRICING & TICKETS
Tickets can be bought online or at the door (cash or cheque).
Full Festival Pass: $25.00
Full Festival Pass (student/low-income): $15.00
Friday: $10.00
Friday (student/low-income): $5.00
Saturday: $20.00
Saturday (student/low-income): $10.00
Sunday: $20.00
Sunday (student/low-income): $10.00
MORE INFORMATION
For more information visit the Global Justice Film Festival website, call the MCIC office at 204-987-6420, email gjff@mcic.ca
PARKING/TRANSIT
University of Winnipeg maps & parking
Winnipeg Transit
SPONSORS
