CINEMA POLITICA Dawson College
Fall 2017 - Winter 2018CINEMA POLITICA is a Montreal-based media arts, non-profit network of community and campus locals that screen independent political film and video by Canadian and international artists throughout Canada and abroad. Cinema Politica – Dawson will promote documentaries and engage students in discussions on political cinema by independent artists, with an emphasis on Canadian works. The main goal is to expose students to the variety of social justice issues that affect people here and worldwide as well as engage them in meaningful dialogue after the screenings. The screenings and accompanying activities are tailored to meet the objectives of multiple academic certificates and programs: for example, Peace Studies Certificate, the First Peoples’ Initiative and North-South, all of whom will have students engaged in the Cinema Politica events as a way to fulfill course requirements. In addition, these screenings will also bring about an opportunity to challenge student perception, raise awareness and encourage critical thinking.
No Land No Food No Life is a hard-hitting film which explores sustainable small scale agriculture and the urgent call for an end to corporate global land grabs. This feature length documentary gives voice to those directly affected by combining personal stories, and vérité footage of communities fighting to retain control of their land.
Fall 2017 semester screening dates:
Friday September 15, 11:30am
Friday September 29, 11:30am
Friday October 27, 11:30am
Friday November 10, 11:30am
Friday November 24, 11:30am.
Address: Dawson Theater, 2000 Atwater. Note that the entrance is located on Atwater ave. There is no access via inside the school. Thank you!
Project Update
Screenings
Resistencia: the fight for the Aguan Valley
It is June 28th, 2009. The people of Honduras are preparing to vote in their country's first-ever referendum. However, instead of waking up to ballot boxes they rise to find their streets full of soldiers. The first coup d'état in Central America in three decades.
An unprecedented nationwide resistance movement is born, known simply as La Resistencia. Without question, the most daring arm of the movement is that of the farmers of the Aguan Valley. With the president that promised to help them get their land back overthrown, they decide to take control of their own destiny. In a matter of minutes they seize control over 10,000 acres of palm oil plantations belonging to the country's most powerful landowner. Located on some of the most fertile land in all of Central America, the farmers announce that they have no plans of ever giving the plantations back.
WE ARE NOT FISH LIVING IN THE WATER,
NOR BIRDS LIVING IN THE AIR;
WE ARE HUMANS LIVING ON THE LAND.
Slogan of the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguan (MUCA)
Beginning with the historic moment of the coup, 'Resistencia: The Fight for the Aguan Valley' follows three key members of the farmers' resistance over four years as they attempt to implement participatory democracy in their new communities. All while trying to survive the violent reaction of the landlord and the coup regime.
Trailer: Hope exploded with Director Nadia Hausfather
Ten-minute video compilation from dissertation video interviews about emotional experiences of participants in Quebec student strike campaigns from 2005-2012. This first part is about the more 'positive' collective-oriented emotional experiences.
Street Politics 101 with Alain Savard, Association pour un Solidarité Syndicale étudiante
In the spring of 2012, a massive student strike in opposition to a tuition hike, rocked the streets of the Montréal for over six months. Protests and militant street actions became part of the daily and nightly reality of this Canadian metropolis. Several times during this tumultuous spring, the numbers in the streets would reach over one hundred thousand. Police routinely clubbed students and their allies, and arrested them by the hundreds. Some were even banned from entering the city. But every time the cops struck, the student movement got bigger and angrier.
This is a story about how the arrogance of a government, underestimated a dedicated group of students, who through long term organizing laid the foundation for some of the largest mass demonstrations in Canada’s history. But it is also a story of how a crew of determined anarchists, educated a new generation of students, in the importance of owning the streets.
In Street Politics 101, subMedia.tv features some of the best footage from what some called “the maple spring.” It also features interviews with students, teachers and anarchists involved in one of the most militant rebellions in Quebec.
Music by MIA, Cairo, CJ Boyd, Di Nigunim, Jordan Brown, Mise En Demeure, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Joy Division, Lee Reed, FreqMan, Bar 9
Filmed over 211 shoot days in nine countries and five continents over four years, This Changes Everything is an epic attempt to re-imagine the vast challenge of climate change.
Directed by Avi Lewis, and inspired by Naomi Klein’s international non-fiction bestseller This Changes Everything, the film presents seven powerful portraits of communities on the front lines, from Montana’s Powder River Basin to the Alberta Tar Sands, from the coast of South India to Beijing and beyond.
Interwoven with these stories of struggle is Klein’s narration, connecting the carbon in the air with the economic system that put it there. Throughout the film, Klein builds to her most controversial and exciting idea: that we can seize the existential crisis of climate change to transform our failed economic system into something radically better.
The extraordinary detail and richness of the cinematography in This Changes Everything provides an epic canvas for this exploration of the greatest challenge of our time. Unlike many works about the climate crisis, this is not a film that tries to scare the audience into action: it aims to empower. Provocative, compelling, and accessible to even the most climate-fatigued viewers, This Changes Everything will leave you refreshed and inspired, reflecting on the ties between us, the kind of lives we really want, and why the climate crisis is at the centre of it all.
Will this film change everything? Absolutely not. But you could, by answering its call to action.
Few things on Earth are as miraculous and vital as seeds. Worshipped and treasured since the dawn of humankind. SEED: The Untold Story follows passionate seed keepers protecting our 12,000 year-old food legacy. In the last century, 94% of our seed varieties have disappeared. As biotech chemical companies control the majority of our seeds, farmers, scientists, lawyers, and indigenous seed keepers fight a David and Goliath battle to defend the future of our food. In a harrowing and heartening story, these reluctant heroes rekindle a lost connection to our most treasured resource and revive a culture connected to seeds. SEED features Vandana Shiva, Dr. Jane Goodall, Andrew Kimbrell, Winona Laduke and Raj Patel.