Baljit Sangra’s Because We Are Girls
A B.C. film about three sisters from a conservative Indo-Canadian family coming to terms with the sexual abuse opens the 18th annual DOXA Documentary Film Festival.
On May 3, Baljit Sangra’s Because We Are Girls kicks off the festival, which runs May 2 – May 12. Western Canada’s largest documentary film festival, DOXA will present 82 films (shorts and features) from across Canada and around the world. See below for more highlights of this year’s DOXA.
On May 4, DOXA hosts a live documentary presentation, Postings From Home by Toronto-based filmmaker Kelly O’Brien. O’Brien combines the collective sharing of one’s personal life with the 20th-century tradition of a family slideshow.
Kelly O’Brien’s Postings from Home.
The gala screening of nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up on May 8 marks the 10-year anniversary of DOXA’s Justice Forum. Tasha Hubbard’s film goes beyond the headlines behind the 2016 shooting death of First Nations man Colton Boushie to explore systematic First Nations injustice in the Prairies.
Closing the festival on May 11, Hepi Mita’s Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen is a tribute to the filmmaker’s mother Merata Mita. She was the first Māori woman — and one of the first Indigenous women in the world — to write and direct a narrative feature film.
Hepi Mita’s Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen
Meanwhile, jazz fans will get a kick out of Birth of the Cool, a 2019 UK doc about the American jazz pioneer. It includes never-before-seen footage and photographs.
Miles Davis, Juan les Pins, France, September 1963. Photo Jean-Marie Périer(1926-1991).
DOXA Documentary Film Festival
When: May 2–12, 2019
Where: various venues, including Vancouver Playhouse, VIFF’s Vancity Theatre, The Cinematheque, The Post at 750, Museum of Vancouver, and SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts
Tickets: at doxafestival.ca
Info: 604.646.3200
