Organizers of the 16th annual ReFrame Film Festival have announced the festival’s opening night feature film, along with several other documentaries including three showcasing local filmmaking talent.
A community celebration of documentary film and media art, ReFrame opens on Thursday, January 23rd and runs until Sunday, January 26th at various venues in downtown Peterborough.
The opening night feature film is Máxima, which tells the incredible story of 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize winner Máxima Acuña, a farmer from the Peruvian Andes who is standing up to the largest gold mining company in the world. Directed by U.S. filmmaker Claudio Sparrow, Máxima was the winner of the Audience Award at the Hot Docs Canadian international documentary festival in Toronto in May 2019.
Máxima will be shown on Thursday, January 23rd at Showplace Performance Centre. The screening is sponsored by Nibi Emosaawdamajig and Camp Kawartha.
VIDEO: “Maxima” Trailer
Also announced is nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up. Written and directed by Tasha Hubbard, a First Nations/Cree filmmaker and educator living in Saskatoon, the documentary tells the story of Colten Boushie, a young Cree man from Saskatchewan who was killed on Gerald Stanley’s farm in 2016.
The high-profile trial and Stanley’s subsequent acquittal drives Boushie’s family to confront the racism embedded within Canada’s legal system and take the international stage in their pursuit of justice.
nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up was the winner of the Best Canadian Feature Documentary Award at Hot Docs in May 2019, the Colin Low Award at the Doxa Documentary Film Festival in Vancouver in May 2019, the Audience Choice Award for Best Feature at Toronto’s imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival in October 2019, the Discovery Award from the Directors Guild of Canada Awards in October 2019, and the Magnus-Isacsson Award at the RIDM Montreal International Documentary Festival in November 2019.
As part of the screening, ReFrame audiences will receive a special presentation by Jade Tootoosis, Colten’s cousin and a leading activist.
VIDEO: “nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up” Trailer
Other award-winning docs that will be screened at ReFrame in January include For Sama by Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts, One Child Nation by Nanfu Wang and Lynn Zhang, and The Hottest August by Brett Story. And acclaimed Indigenous director Alanis Obomsawi will be coming to Peterborough with Jordan River Anderson, The Messenger, her 53rd film.
Local projects this year at ReFrame include the world-premiere of a feature-length version of Town of Widows, the incendiary film by Rob Viscardis and Natasha Luckhardt about the fight by Peterborough GE workers for compensation for health-related conditions incurred on the job. A version of the documentary was broadcast earlier this year on CBC Docs POV.
Filmmakers Viscardis and Luckhardt, along with several subjects featured in the film, will be in attendance at the ReFrame screening.
VIDEO: “Town of Widows” Trailer (CBC version)
ReFrame alum Lester Alfonso returns to this year’s festival with a sneak preview of his short documentary Circus Boy.
The moving film about family dynamics features Peterborough’s Academy for Circus Arts founder Thomas Vaccaro, who finds reconciliation with his mother when he and his husband adopt a boy that he’s training for circus school.
A live circus performance at the screening will be sure to delight festival-goers.
VIDEO: “Circus Boy” Teaser
Also screening at ReFrame is award-winning filmmaker Yung Chang’s This Is Not A Movie, an intimate portrait of Robert Fisk, the rabble-rousing writer famous for his no-holds-barred international reportage of current events.
POV Magazine describes the film as “a necessary portrait of journalism in action.” The film was edited by local resident Mike Munn.
Chang, who was born in Oshawa, will be attending the screening. ReFrame audiences will have the opportunity to learn more about Chang and his work as part of ReFrame’s expanded program of talks in Showplace’s Nexicom Studio.
VIDEO: “This Is Not A Movie” Clip
ReFrame organizers will be making more announcements in the coming weeks including schedule details, volunteer opportunities, evening feature films, and programming in VentureNorth’s Virtual Reality hub.
ReFrame 2020 promises to be a weekend full of eye-opening cinema celebrating art, confronting injustice, looking back on cultural trailblazers, and searching for ways to change the world.
ReFrame passes and tickets make great holiday gifts! They are available online at reframe.tickit.ca. A festival pass costs $60 ($50 for students, seniors, and the underwaged), opening night tickets cost $15 ($10 with a festival pass), and day passes (all films on either Friday, Saturday, or Sunday) cost $25.
Tickets are also available at the GreenUP Store (378 Aylmer St. N., Peterborough, 705-745-3238) and Watson & Lou (383 Water St., Peterborough, 705-775-7568), and in Lakefield at Happenstance Books and Yarn (44 Queen St., Lakefield, 705-652-7535).
As always, rush pay-what-you-can tickets will be available at the door for every screening (subject to availability).
Make sure to visit the ReFrame Film Festival website at reframefilmfestival.ca for festival updates. You can also follow ReFrame on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
kawarthaNOW is proud to be a sponsor of the 2020 ReFrame Film Festival.
