We love our cell phones, but the production of phones has a dark, bloody side. The minerals used to produce cell phones are coming from mines in the Eastern DR Congo. The Western World is buying these so-called conflict minerals and thereby finances a civil war that has been the bloodiest conflict since World War II: During the last 15 years the conflict has cost the lives of more than 5 million people and 300.000 women have been raped. The war will continue as long as armed groups can finance their warfare by selling minerals.
If you ask the phone companies where their suppliers get minerals from, none of them can guarantee that they aren’t buying conflict minerals from the Congo. Director Frank Poulsen travels to DR Congo to see the illegal mine industry with his own eyes. He gets access to Congo’s largest tin-mine, which is being controlled by different armed groups, and where children work for days in narrow mine tunnels to dig out the minerals that end up in our phones. www.bloodinthemobile.org
Film directors clandestinely enter one of Burma’s most dangerous zones, penetrating to the heart of the Karen Nation, where civil war has been waging for 60 years. We travel to the country’s interior to meet peasants, as well as clandestine networks of armed resistance living in exile in Thailand, where determined political and human rights activists are working to combat one of the world’s most bloody military dictatorships.
Breaking the Silence demonstrates the strength of the Burmese people’s resistance against one of the world’s worst dictatorships. We travel to the country’s interior to meet peasants, as well as clandestine networks of armed resistance living in exile in Thailand, where determined political and human rights activists are working to combat one of the world’s most bloody military dictatorships. www.informactionfilms.com
75 min.
In the Name of the Family - 2010
Director: Shelley Saywell
On December 10, 2007, a 16-year-old Toronto schoolgirl, Aqsa, was strangled to death; her father and brother are charged with murder. Three weeks later, teenage sisters were shot to death in Dallas; their father is wanted for murder. Six months later, a 19-year-old college student was stabbed by her brother; he was convicted and is now in jail in New York. Friends and family of the murdered girls paint a chilling portrait of the forces that led to their deaths, and Toronto schoolgirls talk about their lives of constant fear. While Muslim women organize to help girls at risk and the imam at a Toronto mosque teaches that violence has no basis in Islam, some men continue to justify these crimes through patriarchal beliefs about family honour. Award-winning director Shelley Saywell brings her consummate documentary skills and passion for human rights to challenge the traditions that lie behind the heartbreaking tragedies committed against young girls caught between two cultures in North America. www.bisharifilms.com
90 min.
Best Canadian Feature, Hot Docs, Toronto 2010
The Green Wave - 2010
Director: Ali Samadi Ahadi
The Green Wave, a documentary about the Green Revolution uprising in Iran in June 2009 follows the protests by the supporters of presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, after he lost the election to incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad among allegations of vote-rigging. It documents the violent crackdown on this dissent by government militias with videos shot first-hand on mobile phones and digital cameras by its victims. The film also includes animations based on Facebook reports, Twitter messages and blogs from those taking part. The film describes the protesters initial hope and curiosity, their desperate fear, and the courage to yet continue to fight. www.thegreenwave-film.com
80 min.
Selected World Cinema Documentary Competition, Sundance 2011
The Market - 2010
Director: Rama Rau
A slum in Chennai, India. Out here, survival means selling a kidney. Hema, a young mother of two, wants to sell her kidney so she can pay off the crippling debts of her family. Across the world in Nanaimo, Canada, forty year old single mom Sandra's kidneys are failing and she has been on a waiting list for 5 years now, for a new kidney. Her condition has left her chained to a dialysis machine, four times a day, every day, if she is to live. The Market follows individual stories that explore the larger issues surrounding the organ trade - and looks at these issues from both a Western point of view as well as from the point of view of people selling their organs. What are the ethics of organ buying and selling? And, what would we ourselves do if we were forced into a similar dilemma? www.themarketfilm.com
70 min.
Director Rama Rau received Hot Doc’s Don Haig Award, April 2011
Official Selection, International Documentary Film Festival, Amsterdam
The Red Chapel - 2009
Director: Mads Brugger
A journalist with no scruples, and 2 Danish-Koreans acting as a “theatre troupe” travel to North Korea with a mission. On a cultural exchange visit from Denmark, 'The Red Chapel' was given permission to travel to North Korea with the objective of performing at special events for selected audiences. But in reality the small troupe was had no such intentions. Two group members, Jacob and Simon, were both adopted from North Korea to Europe as infants. In this story they confront with their biological roots. The amusing and the often bizarre encounters between this Danish “theatre troupe” and their North Korean hosts in a one of a kind, East-meets-West-meets-East look at cultural exchange in the modern world's last anti-globalist bastion. www.theredchapel.com
88 min.
Sundance World Cinema Jury Prize, 2010
Reflecting Images, Best of the Fest, IDFA, Amsterdam, 2009
The Storytelling Class - 2009
Director: John Paskievich and John Whiteway
Gordon Bell High School in Winnipeg is comprised of rich and poor, aboriginals, Afghans, Arabs, Africans, refugees for war-torn countries, immigrants, and a recent influx of Burmese students. Marc Kuly, a teacher, set out to bring students together. In an effort to build bridges of friendship and belonging across cultures and histories, Marc initiated an after-school storytelling project whereby the immigrant students would share stories with their Canadian peers. By turns poignant, uplifting, angry and humourous, The Storytelling Class is a remarkable testament to the resilience of the human heart and it’s infinite capacity for forgiveness and redemption. www.mcnabbconnolly.ca
60 min.
Canada Award, Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television, 26th Annual Gemini Awards, 2011
Vanishing of the Bees - 2011
Director: George Langworthy
Honeybees have been disappearing across the planet. Colony Collapse Disorder has brought beekeepers to crisis in an industry responsible for pollinating crops that make up one out of every three bites of food on our tables.
The film follows David Hackenberg and Dave Mendes as they strive to keep their bees healthy, fulfill pollination contracts and struggle to plead their case on Capital Hill. Filmed across the US, in Europe, Australia and Asia, the alarming disappearance of honeybees and the greater meaning it holds about the relationship between mankind and our earth is examined.
90 min.
White Water Black Gold - 2011
Director: David Lavallee
“White Water, Black Gold” is an investigative point-of view documentary that follows David Lavallee on his three-year journey across western Canada in search of answers about the activities of the world’s thirstiest oil industry: the Tarsands.
As a mountaineer and hiking guide, David is on the front lines of climate change. Over the past 15 years he has worked in the Columbia Icefields of the Canadian Rockies, and has noticed profound changes in the mountains: climate change is rendering these landscapes unrecognizable.
When David discovers that his province is ramping up growth in an extremely water intensive industry downstream of his beloved icefields, he is surprised he knows so little about this industry. This necessitates a journey: from icefields…to oilfields.
In the course of his journey he makes many discoveries: new science shows that water resources in an era of climate change will be increasingly scarce (putting this industry at risk); first nations people living downstream are contracting bizarre cancers; the upgrading of this oil threatens multiple river systems across Canada and the tailings ponds containing the waste by-products of the process threaten to befoul the third largest watershed in the world. Additionally, a planned pipeline across British Columbia brings fresh threats to BC Rivers and the Pacific Ocean.
"White Water, Black Gold” is a sober look at the untold costs (to water and people) associated with developing the second largest deposit of “oil” in the world.
