DOXA Justice Forum creates space for dialogue and sows the seeds for social change
DOXA Documentary Film Festival 2017: Justice Forum
The 2017 Justice Forum films encompass a broad range of social justice issues including workers’ rights, environmental activism, new journalism, and the ongoing battle for human dignity and freedom.
Heather White and Lynn Zhang’s Complicit uncovers the poor wages, abysmal working conditions, and horrific health effects of the global electronic manufacturing industry. Yan Chun Su’s Drokpa captures the last years of Tibet’s drokpa (nomads) people caught inside a political and ecological landscape beyond their control. Unconditional basic income, guaranteed annual income, and negative income tax, are just a few of the names for the social security program that has been gaining momentum around the world in Christian Tod’s Free Lunch Society.
For two years, Belgian director Jérôme le Maire followed the members of a surgical unit at one of Paris’ biggest hospitals: the result is Burning Out, a gripping and infuriating expose on the medical industry. The dirtiest thing in director Ovidie’s investigation of the global porn business is not the sex, but the money in Pornocracy: The New Sex Multinationals. Cyrus Sutton’s Island Earth examines how Hawaii has become an open air field-testing of restricted-use pesticides. Director Santiago Bertolino follows journalist Jesse Rosenfeld, as he moves swiftly between countries and areas of conflict in Freelancer on the Frontlines.
On December 18, 1968, members of the Akwesasne Mohawk community blockaded the international bridge near Cornwall, Ontario. The intent was to bring public attention to treaty violations by the Canadian government. Michael Kanentakeron Mitchell captured the moment in You Are on Indian Land. Mohamed Jabaly’s Ambulance opens on a community in panic. A bomb has just fallen, turning a Palestinian neighbourhood into a pile of rubble. So begins a close-up view of war that barely gives us time to catch our breath, let alone consider the broader context.
DOXA Documentary Film Festival runs May 4 –14, 2017. Tickets are available online HERE.
