From January 22 to 29, the first-ever virtual ReFrame Film Festival will connect the community when we need it most.

Tickets and passes can be purchased at reframefilmfestival.ca, where you’ll also find a helpful list of answers to frequently asked questions about the online-only format.

Whether you are a loyal participant in ReFrame, or a relative newcomer, I know you will miss the chance to connect with the ReFrame team, volunteers, and community members in person this year.

With that in mind, I’m going to hand the rest of this column off to Amy Siegel, creative director of the ReFrame Film Festival. I enjoyed the gift of a Zoom chat with Siegel, and I wish nothing more than to pass that gift on to you as directly as possible.

“I am happy to offer ReFrame at the same time of year it has been for the past 17 years,” Siegel said. “ReFrame brightens up the depths of winter each year, and this year that matters even more. We are looking forward to the conversations and actions that result from watching these films together.

“I am pleasantly surprised by how the online festival can connect us even more directly than face to face. I hope people make the connection between art and activism in these films and all the online festival has to offer.

“Those are the two things — art and activism — that ReFrame brings together. Not only is Peterborough home to great artists who care a lot about their work, but these artists are also passionate activists who care about their community. I love these relationships.

“These relationships are one of the best things about Peterborough and ReFrame. Those people who connect their art and expertise with how much they care about their community — those people help create an artistic and activist community.”

“A huge theme at ReFrame this year is water — water stories from around the world and close to home,” Siegel said. “I think it is imperative that we continue talking about water right now. ”

“I was actively interested in generating more conversation about water issues locally. I am always so excited by the local film projects at ReFrame. They locate the festival in community and connect the big issues to the local issues. I am excited by how these connections have emerged in the program.

“The opening address to the festival this year will be by Drew Hayden Taylor,” says Siegel, referring to the award-winning Canadian playwright, author, columnist, and filmmaker. He is also originally a resident of Curve Lake First Nation, one of several First Nation communities across Canada without clean drinking water.”

Siegel said Drew Hayden Taylor’s address will focus on the role of storytelling across different disciplines and media. His documentary Cottagers and Indians, which will screen during the festival, is based on the same topic as Taylor’s stage play by the same name.

In the documentary, Taylor examines issues of food sovereignty, property rights, racism, privilege, contract law, and Indigenous poverty in the conflict between Indigenous people and local home owners over large-scale changes in the Trent-Severn Waterway.

Siegel also provided details of some of the other local water-related films screening at this year’s festival.

“The film Sing them Home is a collaboration between filmmaker Cara Mumford and dancer Jenn Cole. This film is a personal essay about the waterways in our area and incorporates the words of local Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg writer Leanne Betasamosake Simpson.

“Rematriate: Passing the Seeds is a short film by Shelby Lisk, a filmmaker, artist, and writer from Kenhté:ke (Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory). The film follows the creation of a wampum belt as a treaty between the nuns who have been holding these seeds and who then give the seeds back to the Kenhté:ke Seed Sanctuary. It succinctly shows what can happen when you take the time and care to properly respect relations.

“This year’s festival will feature a Sacred Water Teaching by Elder Dorothy Taylor (Gichitwaa Nibi – Sacred Water), and Elder Doug Williams is also featured in a short film (On Treaties with Elder Doug Williams) about how Indigenous people were prevented from buying land that is now privately owned.”

“These local films are the things I’m really proud to present in ReFrame 2021,” Siegel said. “They connect global issues to local ones. The Sacred Water Teaching by Elder Dorothy Taylor was filmed as part of a GreenUP project. A film called Headwaters to Hearts: Education in Action, which will also be featured in the festival.”

“So many great people are doing amazing work to protect water in our community. I’m grateful that ReFrame can amplify those voices.

“ReFrame 2021 is also going to host an online trans-national dialogue by bringing together activists from Peterborough and other communities around the world.

“The River Guards is a documentary from the USA about a community on the Housatonic River. Activists there have been fighting for three decades against pollution from a GE plant.”

VIDEO: “The River Guards” trailer

“Following the screening of The River Guards, ReFrame will host an online conversation between activists who will talk about their respective fights in Peterborough and the USA for access to clean water and all the ramifications of living in a town polluted by a GE plant,” Siegel adds.

“Several of the films at ReFrame this year explore that global-local connection by focusing on the big players, how they are staying in control of industries, and how that affects communities on the ground.

“The New Corporation is a sequel to The Corporation, a 2003 exposé about how multinational corporations have taken over as unregulated global entities.

VIDEO: “The New Corporation” trailer

“The 2020 sequel looks at trends in rebranding and greenwashing that cover up underlying destructive and capitalist actions. This documentary asks how democracy plays into this.

“Because The New Corporation just came out this year, it ties in to the pandemic, the protests in response to the murder of George Floyd, and how dependent many people are on Amazon.”

“The Story of Plastic traces not only how plastic is made but also how it has evolved within our society over time. The film does an excellent job of examining exactly how the plastic industry is inseparable from the fossil fuel industry.

VIDEO: “The Story of Plastic” trailer

“The Magnitude of All Things is about climate grief. This film explores parallels between Abbott’s own experience of losing her sister to cancer and the grief of the entire planet as we live through climate breakdown. It is a heartbreaking and beautiful examination of grief.”

“The Magnitude of All Things is by Canadian filmmaker Jennifer Abbott, who is also one of the filmmakers behind The New Corporation.”

VIDEO: “The Magnitude of All Things” trailer

The complete film guide for the 2021 ReFrame Film Festival is available online at my.reframefilmfestival.ca/films.

ReFrame films are geoblocked, meaning that you will need to be in Ontario to watch the films. Selected screenings include prerecorded filmmaker Q&As and extended discussions. A full schedule of events, including filmmaker Q&As, will be released on Monday, January 18th.

kawarthaNOW is proud to be a sponsor of the 2021 ReFrame Film Festival.

The ReFrame Film Festival has unveiled the complete film lineup for its first-ever virtual documentary film festival, which runs for a full week beginning Friday, January 22nd.

With the festival going online this year because of the pandemic, nearly 50 films are available to anyone living in Ontario to stream from the comfort and safety of their own homes.

In recognition of the impact of the pandemic on Canada’s collective arts community, this year’s festival is focused on supporting Canadian films and filmmakers.

Canadian-made films include The Magnitude of All Things (an exploration of climate grief), Dope is Death (a documentary on how the Young Lords and Black Panther Party created the first acupuncture detoxification program), Softie (the story of Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi in his run for office), and Judy vs. Capitalism (a profile of the prolific women’s rights advocate, Judy Rebick, who will also be speaking at the festival).

VIDEO: “Judy Versus Capitalism” Trailer

Ontario audiences will also have a chance to see short films made by Peterborough-area filmmakers, including Benjamin Hargreaves’ The River (a profile of the Peterborough arts magazine produced by low-income artists), Julia Huynh’s We Dance at Home (an exploration of her family history of emigrating to Peterborough), Cara Mumford’s Sing Them Home (an artistic exploration of salmon migration in Michi Saagiig territory), and a ReFrame and Public Energy Performing Arts’ joint production of Pivot: Performance in a Pandemic, where Peterborough artists talk about life in lockdown.

International films include the Canadian premiere of We Hold the Line (the story of Maria Ressa, the fearless journalist defending freedom of speech in the Philippines), The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show (a documentary about the week Johnny Carson gave up his seat on the Tonight Show to activist and singer Harry Belafonte), 9to5: The Story of a Movement (the story of the women’s union that inspired the film, by Oscar-winning duo Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar), and The Earth is as Blue as an Orange (the story of a family who makes films together while under siege in the Ukraine).

The festival kicks off on Friday, January 22nd with a virtual opening night that includes a keynote address by Curve Lake playwright and author Drew Hayden Taylor.

This year’s ReFrame also features Q&As with documentary filmmakers, including Jennifer Abbott (The New Corporation, The Magnitude of All Things), Lulu Wei (There’s No Place Like This Place, Any Place), Sam Soko (Softie), Tiffany Hsiung (Sing Me A Lullaby, The Apology), and Deia Schlossberg (The Story of Plastic).

Listed below are all the films featured at this year’s virtual ReFrame Film Festival, with the complete detailed film guide (where films can be filtered by topic) available at my.reframefilmfestival.ca/films. A full schedule of events, including filmmaker Q&As, will be released on Monday, January 18th.

All-access passes, allowing you to see all the films and events, are available for $60. Festival 5-packs, allowing you to choose five films, are available for $40. Tickets for individual films will also be available for $10 each (or pay what you can). Buy passes and 5-packs at my.reframefilmfestival.ca/passes/buy.

2021 ReFrame Film Festival film lineup

For details about each film and to register for a virtual screening, visit my.reframefilmfestival.ca/films.

• 9to5: The Story of a Movement (86 minutes | United States | 2020) – The latest film from Oscar-winners Julia Reichert and Steve Bognar ( American Factory ) explores a pivotal but little remembered intersection of women’s rights and labour rights. In the early 1970s, secretaries and other female office workers were underpaid, undervalued, unable to advance, and often subject to sexual harassment. In the wake of the Women’s Liberation Movement, a group of women in Boston finally had enough, joining together to begin 9to5, a movement that would sweep the nation with irreverent, attention-getting actions to demand meaningful change—and later inspire the eponymous hit film and song.
• Abortion Helpline, This is Lisa (13 minutes | United States | 2019) – A revealing look at how economic stigma and cruel legislation determines who in America has access to abortion.
• Call Me Human (78 minutes | Canada | 2020) – An intimate portrait of Innu poet Joséphine Bacon.
• Canada’s Unchecked Racism (6 minutes | Canada | 2020) – Growing up as a non-white Canadian, you experience racism every day. What makes Canadian racism so unique, is that you almost don’t notice it.
• Chung Toi Nhay Dam O Nha (We Dance At Home) (7 minutes | Canada | 2017) – Through interviews and archival footage, the filmmaker explores her parent’s experience of being Vietnamese in Peterborough.
• Coded Bias (83 minutes | United States | 2020) – CODED BIAS explores the fallout of mit media lab researcher Joy Buolamwini’s startling discovery that facial recognition does not see dark-skinned faces accurately, and her journey to push for the first-ever legislation in the U.S. to govern against bias in the algorithms that impact us all.
• Cottagers and Indians (45 minutes | Canada | 2020) – James Whetung is claiming his Indigenous right to cultivate wild rice on Ontario’s Pigeon Lake, but local homeowners are furious about large-scale changes in the waterways.
• Dope Is Death (78 minutes | Canada | 2020) – The story of how the Young Lords and Black Panther Party—two inner-city human rights activist groups— created the first acupuncture detoxification program in America.
• The Earth is Blue as an Orange (74 minutes | Ukraine, Lithuania | 2020) – Director Iryna Tsilyk’s documentary follows single mother Anna and her four children as they document their lives under siege in Ukraine.
• êmîcêtôcêt: Many Bloodlines (11 minutes | Canada | 2020) – A Cree filmmaker and her white partner document their pregnancy and journey to parenthood.
• First We Eat (101 minutes | Canada | 2020) – First We Eat: Food Security North of 60 celebrates the ingenuity, resourcefulness & knowledge of Northern Canadians and our relationship to the land through the food that we hunt, fish, gather, grow and raise in the North.
• For the Love of Rutland (92 minutes | United States | 2020) – A small, blue-collar city struggles with the opioid crisis and with welcoming new refugees in an epic identity crisis that threatens to tear them apart.
• The Garden Collective (22 minutes | Canada | 2020) – The Garden Collective follows the Prison for Women Memorial Collective as they work to build a memorial garden on the grounds of the former prison in Kingston, Ontario.
• Gichitwaa Nibi – Sacred Water (Water Teaching with Dorothy Taylor) (15 minutes | Canada | 2021) – An Elder and a water activist, Dorothy Taylor shares Sacred Water Teachings that call for action to bring balance to the world.
• Granite Man of Gilmour (15 minutes | Canada | 2019) – A profile of David Hamel, who dedicated himself to building a flying saucer in his backyard.
• Headwaters to Hearts: Education in Action (7 minutes | Canada | 2021) – Headwaters to Hearts is a local story of education in action. Students and teachers at St. Anne CES came together with GreenUP to transform their relationship to water and protect the local watershed by transforming a flood-prone corner of their school yard.
• In the Shadow of the Pines (7 minutes | Canada | 2020) – An animated short documentary about a difficult father-daughter relationship. Drawing on childhood memories, Anne Koizumi, the filmmaker, explores her upbringing with her Japanese immigrant dad, who was also the janitor at the elementary school she attended. The film explores the idea of shame and how it can shape and define us while also concealing who we can truly become.
• Influence (91 minutes | Canada | 2020) – The story of controversial advertising and public relations executive Timothy Bell.
• John Ware Reclaimed (70 minutes | Canada | 2020) – JOHN WARE RECLAIMED follows Filmmaker Cheryl Foggo on her quest to uncover the complex story of John Ware, a Black cowboy who settled in Alberta during the ranching industry’s early years.
• Judy vs. Capitalism (62 minutes | Canada | 2020) – A portrait of the life of influential Canadian activist Judy Rebick, based in part on her memoir Heroes in My Head.
• Keyboard Fantasies: The Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story (63 minutes | United Kingdom | 2020) – Part biopic, part tour documentary, the film Keyboard Fantasies tells the mystical tale of cult musician Beverly Glenn-Copeland.
• Landfall (91 minutes | United States | 2020) – Chronicling the aftermath of Hurricane Maria and the fraught relationship between the US and Puerto Rico.
• The Magnitude of All Things (85 minutes | Canada | 2020) – The Magnitude of All Things merges stories from the front lines of climate change with recollections of the loss of her sister, drawing intimate parallels between personal and planetary grief.
• Manasie Akpaliapik (5 minutes | Canada | 2020) – This short film explores how renowned Inuk artist, Manasie Akpaliapik, shares his culture and relationship to land through his carvings.
• My Name is Anik (16 minutes | United Kingdom | 2019) – Bircan has decided to learn Kurdish, her once-forbidden mother tongue, with all the words her grandmother has forgotten and all the stories that have remained unspoken.
• The Need to Grow (96 minutes | United States | 2019) – The Need To Grow delivers alarming evidence on the importance of healthy soil – revealing not only the potential of localized food production working with nature, but our opportunity as individuals to help regenerate our planet’s dying soils and participate in the restoration of the Earth.
• The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel (106 minutes | Canada | 2020) – From Joel Bakan and Jennifer Abbott, filmmakers of the multi-award-winning global hit, The Corporation, comes this hard-hitting and timely sequel.
• No Ordinary Man (84 minutes | Canada | 2020) – No Ordinary Man is an in-depth look at the life of musician and trans culture icon Billy Tipton. Complicated, beautiful and historically unrivaled, this groundbreaking film shows what is possible when a community collaborates to honor the legacy of an unlikely hero.
• No Visible Trauma (95 minutes | Canada | 2020) – The lives of three men and their families are torn apart by the violent actions of Calgary police officers and a justice system that refuses to hold them accountable.
• On Treaties with Elder Doug Williams (7 minutes | Canada | 2018
  Elder Doug Williams discusses omissions in history and the importance of knowing the truth about treaties.
• The Painter and the Thief (102 minutes | Norway | 2019) – Czech artist Barbora Kysilkova develops an unlikely friendship with the man who stole two of her paintings.
• Pivot: Performance in a Pandemic (7 minutes | Canada | 2021) – Peterborough performance artists talk about life in lockdown.
• Prayer For A Lost Mitten (79 minutes | Canada | 2020) – Prayer For A Lost Mitten takes us to snowy Montreal, where transit riders file into the metro system’s lost and found centre to rummage for lost hand-knit tuques and missing house keys, or inquire after photos of departed loved ones tucked into missing bus pass sleeves.
• The Reason I Jump (82 minutes | United Kingdom | 2019) – Based on the book by Naoki Higashida this immersive film explores the experiences of nonspeaking autistic people around the world.
• Rematriate: Passing the seeds (6 minutes | Canada | 2020) – This short film follows the creation of the “Rematriate: Passing the seeds” wampum belt.
• The River Guards (20 minutes | United States | 2020) – Faced with the enormous environmental and health crisis of a contaminated river and city, “The River Guards” tells the intimate story of a dedicated community of grassroots activists fighting for 30 years against corporate negligence and government bureaucracy, and with a new and contentious cleanup plan for the Housatonic River on the table, how they are dealing with the uncertain future.
• River Queens: Highlight My Strengths (16 minutes | New Zealand | 2020) – New Zealand national coach and paddler Howard Hyland, 76, returns to his roots to start a competitive waka ama club for youth on the Whanganui River – the first river in the world to be granted personhood. His team, the River Queens, learn as much about paddling as they do life.
• The River (17 minutes | Canada | 2020) – The River Magazine is dedicated to showcasing the art, words, and stories of those who identify as part of the low-income community in Peterborough, Ontario.
• See Us (5 minutes | Canada | 2019) – A short, heartwarming documentary inspired by the efforts of Emilee and Hannah Schevers in the creation of their virtual community for celebrating disabilities called “Tru Faces.”
• Sing Me A Lullaby (29 minutes | Canada | 2020) – Captured over 14 years, across two continents a daughter’s search for her mother’s birth parents unravels the complex tensions between love and sacrifice.
• Sing Them Home (13 minutes | Canada | 2020) – Dancing the past and future waterways of salmon migration in Michi Saagiig territory.
• The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show (77 minutes | United States | 2020) – For one week in February 1968, Johnny Carson gave up his chair to Harry Belafonte, the first time an African-American had hosted a late night TV show for a whole week.
• Softie (96 minutes | Kenya, Canada | 2020) – As one of Africa’s most notorious activists, Boniface Mwangi, enters mainstream politics to challenge social injustice, he faces questions on the cost of his sacrifices from his country, family and himself.
• Starborn (16 minutes | Canada | 2020) – It is 50 years in the future. What will a grandmother tell her grandchildren about the time of pandemic? What can she teach them – about stories, about grief, about hope?
• The Story of Plastic (93 minutes | United States, Indonesia, China, India, Philippines, Belgium | 2019) – A detailed look into the environmental damage and human rights abuses that occur throughout the lifecycle of plastic. What can companies, countries and people do to fix the issues?
• There’s No Place Like This Place, Anyplace (75 minutes | Canada | 2020) – There’s No Place Like This Place, Anyplace profiles the issue of gentrification in Toronto through the history, demolition and redevelopment of the historic Honest Ed’s department store.
• A Walk in the Park (5 minutes | Canada | 2020) – A young girl describes the struggles of life under quarantine in letters to her grandparents.
• We Hold the Line (93 minutes | Germany | 2020) – In the Philippines, journalist Maria Ressa and her team from the news platform Rappler fight against a violent president who is turning the country into a dictatorship.
• Wintopia (89 minutes | Canada | 2020) – A box of tapes uncovered. A lifelong Utopian obsession. A daughter’s attempt to complete her father’s final film.

kawarthaNOW is proud to be a sponsor of the 2021 ReFrame Film Festival.