ReFrame Film Festival 2021

By Leif Einarson, Communications and Marketing Specialist at GreenUP

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. 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. 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 programme.

“The opening address to the festival this year will be by Drew Hayden Taylor,” says Siegel.

Drew Hayden Taylor is an 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.

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

“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, and Elder Doug Williams is also featured in a short film 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. 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

“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.

“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 multi-national corporations have taken over as unregulated global entities.

“The 2020 sequel looks at trends in re-branding 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.

“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.”

The film guide will be online January 13. ReFrame films are geo-blocked, meaning that you will need to be in Ontario to watch the films. Selected screenings include pre-recorded filmmaker Q&As and extended discussions. Visit reframefilmfestival.ca to learn more.