DOXA film fest returns for 15th year
From First Nations activism to a muckraking Blanchett, no shortage of content at DOXA
Have you ever heard of the Native Brotherhood? What about the Native Sisterhood, the Native Voice newspaper or the Constitution Express? No? Nothing?
Don’t be hard on yourself — these are subjects that have not been a part of the prescribed native studies school syllabus.
Thankfully, we have the wonderful and enlightening world of documentaries to open the door to a world of stories that deserve to be told.
Opening this year’s DOXA Documentary Film Festival is the innovative The Road Forward from North Vancouver filmmaker Marie Clements.
In this inspired musical documentary, writer and director Clements connects the beginnings of indigenous nationalism in the 1930s with today’s activist movement.
“There were parts of B.C. history, First Nations history and Canadian history that essentially I knew nothing about. So that part for me was mind blowing. I thought, ‘Oh, how did this story fly under the radar?’ ” said Dorothy Woodend, DOXA’s director of programming.
“It was such a Vancouver or B.C. story it just seemed entirely right and appropriate that we would open the festival with it.”
In the film, members of the Native Brotherhood and Native Sisterhood discuss the beginnings of their organizations (1931 and 1933 respectively) and how a little newspaper acted as a uniting and activist force for B.C. First Nations. The Native Voice newspaper was started by a white woman named Maisie Hurley in 1946 and continued to publish up until the early 1990s.
Inspired by the printed stories, the NFB-produced movie is a large ensemble piece that mixes documentary interviews and performances by top-notch First Nations actors, singers and musicians.
Clements, who is mostly Metis Dene with some Coast Salish family, started going through newspapers in 2009. She looked at 70 years worth of the Native Voice, which is archived in the offices of the Native Fishing Association of B.C.
“I was searching — you know how you do as a writer — and I came across this Native Voice newspaper, then came across the Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood and
then everything kind of unfolded in this huge wave,” said Clements.
“It was amazing that they were there. It was like some kind of magical tour. You just open the chest into a whole new world.”
Clements came to this project through the 2010 Cultural Olympics. She did a stage piece before deciding to expand it into The Road Forward.
“To be honest, there are just so many stories we haven’t heard from a First Nations perspective or a dual perspective in this country,” said Clements, who wrote the songs in the film along with composer Jennifer Kreisberg, one of the stars of the film.
“It’s hard to not be wholly invested or ignited by these stories. I just think ‘Wow, if we knew more stories in a way that was inspiring, what could we do? What would happen?’”
Festivals like DOXA and Hot Docs in Toronto are important curators of these wonderful and necessary stories.
“There is unbelievable amount of content now. Every year the number of submissions at DOXA keeps going up and up and this year I think we had over 1,500 submissions,” said Woodend.
In the end, 87 films were chosen to run at the 15th annual festival.
“This year has been so unbelievable. Every day there is something that makes you think ‘What?’ ” said Woodend.
“(Documentary) is a way of saying, ‘Yeah, everything is really, really crazy at the moment and here’s some ways to cope and here’s some explanation or rationale or here are some methods to fight back.’ I think they are a tri-part armament that you can pull from to deal with the things we have to deal with.”
Over its 15 years, DOXA has presented more than 1,000 films from over 50 countries, including more than 300 Canadian films. Last year, about 11,000 people attended.
“No one gets rich making documentaries. Nobody goes into it because you think you are going to get fame and glory,” said Woodend.
“You go into it because you really, really believe in it and I think that depth of commitment and dedication that comes from individual filmmakers is reflected in the genre itself because there is a sort of fundamental truth there that isn’t mediated by more corporate or more commercial concerns.”
While DOXA is loaded with examples of the commitment Woodend refers to, a standout is the festival’s closing film Manifesto.
Director and writer Julian Rosefeldt has taken what was originally going to be an art installation and turned it into a tour de force for Cate Blanchett and muckrakers in general. Blanchett plays 13 different characters that recite great cultural and political manifestos.
In the wrong hands, this film could have easily become a pretentious bore, but instead is thoughtprovoking and often very funny, as is the case of Blanchett as a 1970s mom delivering a pre-luncheon grace. But instead of thanking a higher power for her family’s fortune, she delivers American sculptor Claes Oldenburg ’s “I Am for an Art …” speech.
Amen.