ReFrame’s 20th anniversary festival is here! The hybrid social and environmental justice documentary film festival opens January 25 and includes an abundance of ecologically focused programming, both on and off screen.
Don’t miss your chance to catch a talk, in person or online, with guests in attendance at the festival including Melanie La Rosa, director of How to Power a City and Chen Sing Yap and Rowan Mikolic-O’Rourke, director and animator of Feeling the Apocalypse.
There’s more to experience outside the theatre including Imagine. The city we want, installed in six locations around downtown Nogojiwanong/Peterborough.
Students from the Kawartha Pine Ridge School Board’s Youth Leadership in Sustainability (YLS) program have created 11 video vignettes (accessible by QR code) at the GreenUP Store, Artspace, the Peterborough Public Library, Market Hall, Showplace, and the Art Gallery of Peterborough.
In connection with the City of Peterborough’s current climate action plan update, the YLS class has created this series which envisions the fabulous city they live in — in 2044. Encounter these acts of civic imagination and imagine how 20 years of ambitious and creative action by the city, initiated by the progressive climate action plan of 2024, would create an attractive and livable city that has embraced climate justice.
“Much of our messaging around the climate crisis is understandably negative — fear, anger, and blame,” says Cam Douglas, YLS program teacher. “The class has spun the messaging around here: they instead chose a positive message focused on quality of life benefits arising from ambitious climate action. They’ve set their videos in 2044, and have invited us all to find and follow pathways that lead us to this beautiful future. It’s often easier to move forward if you know where you’re headed.”
Be sure to experience Underlying by Laurel Paluck, a part of the ‘Through Lines’ exhibition at Artspace. Featuring a multimedia whale sculpture created from salvaged plastic, Underlying is an exploration of the emotions we experience as we contemplate the concept and realities of climate change. The installation invites visitors to sit or lay by the whale, listen to their song and to take a gentle moment to interpret the feelings that emerge.
Paluck describes the history of Underlying, an installation that was born out of projects created alongside the community. Working with students in Nogojiwanong/Peterborough and in Mexico, Paluck began creating by exploring plastics, their history, and their utility.
“Plastic is a material that I cling to — it is found in abundance in the community,” Paluck says. “It was interesting to ask a group of 10 year olds about what they think the future of plastics is.”
Paluck’s work invites reflection on this and other prescient questions we face as individuals and communities.
“Leaving space for ambiguity is so important for art, to leave people to fill in the spaces themselves when they see the whale,” Paluck explains. “For me, they come to represent so many things. What I hope will come out of this is for us to hear ourselves. If we hear ourselves say ‘Oh, it’s hopeless’, that is important to reflect on too. It’s also important that we know that we are nature.”
Underlying is installed in Gallery 2 at Artspace, where you are welcome to write down your thoughts, or share them during two drop-in recording sessions from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, January 26th and 27th.
This is a perfect space to rest and reflect during the festival and consider films like Plastic Fantastic, which follows several people who deal with the disposal of plastic, as well as its production, and Deep Rising, which exposes the destructive machinations of an organization empowered to extract massive amounts of metals from the deep seafloor.
It all begins with Boil Alert, which illuminates the human dimension of the water crisis in Indigenous communities, on Thursday, January 25 at 7PM at Showplace with a Q&A featuring artist and activist Layla Staats, the subject of this opening night feature.
Celebrate 20 years of ReFrame! In-person, hybrid, and virtual festival passes are available now, as well as individual tickets for virtual screenings, through ReFrame’s website at reframefilmfestival.ca/festival/passes-tickets. Individual tickets for in-person screenings will be available at festival venues on a “rush” basis 15 minutes in advance of each scheduled screening from January 25 to 28.
For more information about the festival, including a guide to all the films, visit reframefilmfestival.ca.
