JOIN OR DIE traces social scientist Robert D. Putnam’s life work in studying the decline of civic engagement in the United States over the last half-century. The film offers Putnam an opportunity to reflect on two of his highly influential works, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000) and Making Democracy Work: …
For Indigenous people living under settler colonialism, the themes of NO MĀORI ALLOWED (2022) and STILL WE RISE (2022) feel more than familiar. In the former, director Corinna Hunziker (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu) interviews Māori elders and community members to confront—some for the first time publicly—the acute racial segregation that pervaded Pukekohe, a small township in …
Film For Thought: NO MĀORI ALLOWED + STILL WE RISE (HIFF43) Read More »
A feature debut and homage to coming-of-age films, nineties nostalgia, and awkward teenage transitions, MUSTACHE, written and directed by Imran J. Khan, won the Audience Award at SXSW and poses to be a new classic. The film begins with 13-year-old Ilyas’s (Atharv Verma) voiceover, as he contemplates the multiverse and whether there’s a place for …
THOUGHTS: WHINA // A Companion essay by scholar ‘Ihilani Lasconia // “She is the daughter of Heremia Te Wake, chiefly leader of Ngaati Manawa, Te Rarawa and Ngaapuhi. She is from Panguru, the sacred mountain, and the guiding stars. She is of the sacred tree that leans to the west”. WHINA is a timely …
THOUGHTS: MY SMALL LAND // A Companion essay by scholar Monisha Das Gupta // Earlier this year, the flight of 1.5 million refugees from Ukraine at the start of the Russian invasion captured international attention and garnered an outpouring of support. The mainstream media’s framing of the flight of Ukrainians immediately raises the question: …
THOUGHTS: MIDWIVES // A Companion essay by scholar L. Ayu Saraswati // MIDWIVES is director Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing’s first feature film, winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s Excellence in Vérité Filmmaking award. The film follows the lives of Hla, a Buddhist midwife, and her Muslim apprentice, Nyo Nyo, in Rakhine state, Myanmar. Their …
THOUGHTS: BATTLEGROUND // A Companion essay by scholar Grace Alvaro Caligtan // If the fall of Roe v Wade has become a moment to take a closer look at politics, power, and rights to bodily autonomy, then Cynthia Lowen’s documentary BATTLEGROUND offers a clarifying lens. Lowen gives viewers access to the inner workings of …
THOUGHTS / BAD AXE: A Companion essay by scholar Kim Compoc // Director David Siev’s riveting documentary BAD AXE takes its name from his predominantly white hometown in rural Michigan. Siev began the project in March 2020 to chronicle his family’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, namely the lockdowns and difficulties in keeping the …
THOUGHTS / NIGHT RAIDERS: A Companion essay by scholar Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada // There is a beautiful dream at the heart of the ramshackle brutal future Danis Goulet (Cree and Métis) conjures in NIGHT RAIDERS—that we don’t have to live like that. Our future can be one of pilina and possibility. In the film, …
THOUGHTS / KARMALINK: A Companion essay by scholar Ida Yoshinaga // Who remembers spiritual cinema, the early-2000s trend, which promoted feature films with messages of uplift and inspiration? Few of these spiritual-cinema entries addressed macro-societal aspects of living in the 21st century, such as globalization and unequal impacts of the digital era. These overlooked issues …
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