back to Friday night
All Saturday showings
at the University of Winnipeg
9:00am – 10:15am
Venue 1 - Room 1L12
Kick Like a Girl
25 min. / 2008
Director: Jenny MacKenzie
This is the story of what happens when “The Mighty
Cheetahs”, an undefeated third grade girls soccer
team competes in the boys division. Refreshing
and triumphant, Kick Like A Girl reminds us how
sports has been one of the most effective instruments of social change in our lifetime.
Best Short Film; Danville International Children’s Film Festival/Best Children’s Short; Newport International Film Festival.
Two Spirits
52 min. | 2009 Cinema Guild
Director: Lydia Nibley
At age sixteen, Fred Martinez was one of the youngest hate-crime victims in modern history when he was murdered in Cortez, Colorado. This sensitively rendered film tells a nuanced story of what it means to be poor, transgendered, and Navajo.
Venue 2 - Room 1L13
Fresh
70 min. | 2009 McNabb/Connolly
Director: Ana Sofia Joanes
A ‘fresh’ look at the problems and consequences of
our current industrialized food system, something
that affects us all, Fresh illustrates how farmers and
visionaries are creating new approaches that address
environmental, health, and economic challenges
throughout the food chain.
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Venue 3 - Room 4M31
Black Wave: Legacy of Exxon
52 min. | 2009 Cinefete
Director: Robert Cornellier
For twenty years, Riki Ott and the fishermen of Cordova, Alaska have waged the longest legal battle in U.S. history against the world’s most powerful oil company, ExxonMobil, after a catastrophic oil spill in 1989. With the prospects of pipelines and greatly increased tanker traffic in our waters, this legacy of the Exxon Valdez is a cautionary tale for us today. Best Direction in a Documentary; 2009 Gemini.
Split Estate
15 min. | 2009 McNabb/Connolly
Director: Debra Anderson
Split Estate maps a tragedy in the making, as citizens in the path of a new drilling boom in the Rocky Mountains struggle against the erosion of their civil liberties, their communities and their health.
Emmy Award for Outstanding Research.
Venue 4 - Room 4M47
Water on the Table
79 min. | 2010 Kinosmith
Director: Liz Marshall
“Clean water must be delivered as a public service, not a profitable commodity” says Maude Barlow who is considered an “international water-warrior” for her crusade to have water declared a human right. She is featured in this character-driven, social-issue documentary that explores Canada’s relationship to its freshwater, arguably its most precious natural resource.
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10:30am –12:00pm
Venue 1 - Room 1L12
Grace, Milly, Lucy:
Child Soldiers
73 min. | 2010 NFB
Director: Raymonde Provencher
Over the past twenty years, more than 30,000 Ugandan children have been abducted by rebel troops and forced into armed conflict, many of which are girls. When they return from captivity, girls who were trained to kill and often forced to “marry” their captors must readjust to life within their community. Combining personal accounts and scenes from daily life, this documentary explores this little- known reality and dares to believe that a better future is within reach for these women.
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Venue 2 - Room 1L13
Chemerical
75 min. | 2010 Take Action Films,
McNabb & Connolly
Director: Andrew Niskar
Chemerical explores the life cycle of everyday
household cleaners and hygiene products to
prove that, thanks to our clean obsession, we are
drowning in a sea of toxicity. The film tackles the
“toxic debate” in a truly informative and entertaining
way by raising awareness, but more importantly,
by providing simple solutions.
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Venue 3 - Room 4M31
The Business of Gold
in Guatemala
54 min. | 2009 A Collectif Guatemala Production
Director: Gregorio LaSalle
Since the early 2000s, serious conflicts have broken out in Guatemala and elsewhere in Central America, due to the environmental and health effects and violations of human and indigenous rights caused by Canadian mining companies. This documentary follows one struggle, the resistance of the Mayan-Mam people of San Miguel Ixtahuacan against the Canadian company Goldcorp Inc.
Oil in Eden
17 min. | 2010 A Damien Gillis production
for Pacific Wild
Director: Damien Gillis
This short film offers an overview of the plan for the Northern Gateway Pipeline which will pump over half a million barrels a day of unrefined bitumen from the Alberta Tar Sands to the Port of Kitimat and the efforts of First Nations, conservation groups, and concerned citizens to oppose the project.
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Venue 4 - Room 4M47
Vanishing of Bees
86 min. | 2010
Director: Maryam Henein
Honeybees have been mysteriously disappearing across the planet, literally vanishing from their hives with devastating consequences for agriculture. As scientists puzzle over the cause, organic beekeepers discuss possible alternative reasons for this tragic loss. Conflicting opinions abound and after years of research, a definitive answer has not been found to this mystery. The bees have a message . . . but are we listening?
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NOON
Venue 1 - Room 1L12
Myths For Profit
60 min. | 2009 Wide Open Exposure
Director: Amy Miller
The Canadian government and the military would like us to believe that we are altruistic peacekeepers helping people around the world. But is this accurate? This film examines how these misconceptions are maintained and who stands to gain by perpetuating them.
Venue 2 - Room 1L13
Bogota: Building a
Sustainable City
27 min. | 2008 Green Planet Films
Director: Tad Fettig
As few as 10 years ago Bogotá, Colombia was characterized by drug cartels, senseless violence and a 30-year civil war. Today it is characterized by mega-libraries, greenways, 1,000 parks, over 70,000 trees and a state-ofthe art transportation system. This remarkable transition came because former mayor Enrique Peñalosa believed that cities should encourage walking and biking, which would promote community and make the streets safer for everyone.
1:00pm – 2:45pm
Venue 1 - Room 1L12
Afghan Star
88 min. | 2009
Director: Havana Marking
This timely film follows the dramatic stories of four contestants on the reality TV show ‘Afghan Star’ as they risk all to become the nation’s favourite singer. But will they attain the freedom they hope for in this vulnerable and deeply conservative nation?
World Cinema Audience Award & World Cinema Director Award; Sundance 2009.
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Venue 2 - Room 1L13
Dirt! The Movie
40 min. | 2009 McNabb/Connolly
Director: Bill Beneson & Gene Rosow
One teaspoon of dirt contains a billion organisms working in balance to sustain a series of complex, thriving communities that are invisibly a part of our daily lives. The filmmakers travel around the world to capture the stories of global visionaries who are discovering new ways to repair humanity’s relationship with soil and suggesting ways dirt can create new possibilities for all life on Earth.
Best Film for Our Future; Mendocino Film Festival/Best Green Documentary; Maui Film Festival.
Call of Life:
Facing Mass Extinction
60 min. | 2010 McNabb/Connolly
Director: Monte Thompson
If current trends continue, scientists warn that half or more of all plant and animal species on Earth will become extinct within the next few decades. Call of Life examines the collective and individual choices we have before us, and how the decisions we make -- or fail to make -- in the next decade will affect the habitability of Earth.
Best Communication Film, Reel Earth Festival, New Zealand.
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Venue 3 - Room 4M31
Dirty Business
89 min. | 2009 Center for Investigative Reporting
Director: Peter Bull
Half the electricity in the US still comes from coal, and guided by Rolling Stone reporter Jeff Goodell, this film examines what it means to be so dependent upon a nineteenth century technology that is the largest single source of greenhouse gases. Can coal really be made ‘clean’? Can renewables and efficiency ever replace coal?
Venue 4 - Room 4M47
Soundtrack for a Revolution
82 min. | 2009 Kinosmith
Directors: Bill Guttentag & Dan Sturman
Soundtrack for a Revolution tells the story of the American civil rights movement through its powerful music, the freedom songs protesters sang on picket lines, in mass meetings, in paddy wagons and in jail cells as they fought for justice and equality. The film features performances of the freedom songs by artists including John Legend, Joss Stone, Wyclef Jean, and The Roots.
Numerous awards include: Peoples’ Choice Award; Vancouver Int’l Film Fest / Peoples’ Choice Award; Toronto Int’l Film Festival / Shortlisted for Academy Award.
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3:00pm – 5:00pm
Venue 1 - Room 1L12
Topp Twins:
Untouchable Girls
84 min. | 2009 Kinosmith
Director: Leanne Pooley
New Zealand’s favourite singing, dancing and yodeling lesbian twin sisters reveal all in this rollicking film. From their “coming out” to Jools Topp’s recent brush with breast cancer, Pooley’s Untouchable Girls is bursting with music, hilarious archival footage and home movies, as well as interviews with the Topps’ infamous comedy alter-egos, including Ken and Ken, and the bowling ladies.
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Venue 2 - Room 1L13
Force of Nature:
The David Suzuki Movie
93 min | 2010 NFB
Director: Sturla Gunnarsson
This documentary follows scientist, broadcaster and environmentalist David Suzuki as he approaches his 75th year. The centrepiece of the film is a recording of his legacy lecture at University of British Columbia, in which he sums up a message of ecology and responsibility that, thanks to pioneers like him, is now a powerful international discourse.
Environmental Film Audience Award; 2010 Vancouver Int’l Film Festival.
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Venue 3 - Room 4M31
Reel Injun
85 min. | 2010 NFB
Director: Neil Diamond
Reel Injun is an entertaining and insightful look at the Hollywood Indian, exploring the portrayal of North American Natives through a century of cinema. Travelling through the heartland of America and into the Canadian North, Cree filmmaker, Neil Diamond, looks at how the myth of “the Injun” has influenced the world’s understanding, and misunderstanding, of Natives.
Green
48 min. | 2009 Green Planet Films
Director: Patrick Rouxel
Her name is Green; she is alone in a world that doesn’t belong to her. She is an orangutan, victim of deforestation and resource exploitation. This film, with no narration, is a visual ride presenting the devastating impacts of logging and land clearing for palm oil plantations, the choking haze created by rainforest fires and the tragic end of rainforest biodiversity.
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Venue 4 - Room 4M47
The Dark Side of Chocolate
47 min. | 2010 International Labor Rights Forum
Directors: Miki Mistrati & U. Roberto Romano
Is the chocolate we eat produced by trafficked children? Danish journalist, Miki Mistrati hunts for answers in Mali, West Africa where hidden camera footage reveals illegal trafficking of young children to the cocoa fields in neighbouring Ivory Coast.
Schooling the World
65 min. | 2010 Lost People Films
Director: Carol Black
Schooling the World takes a challenging look at the role played by modern education in the destruction of the world’s last intact indigenous cultures in Ladakh in the northern Indian Himalayas. The film questions our very definitions of wealth and poverty, and of knowledge and ignorance, as it uncovers the role of schools in the destruction of traditional sustainable agricultural and ecological knowledge, in the breakup of extended families and communities, and in the devaluation of ancient spiritual traditions.
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