By Hadiyya Mwapachu

Rebels with a Cause, the inaugural film festival organized by the Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG) at York, took place in the week of October 24-28, 2011 at various locations around the York campus. The festival successfully screened films that are artistically, politically, and socially critical, combined with artist’s talks, panel discussions, and Q&A’s. The films represented the voices of York students, alumni and faculty, as well as independent filmmakers from the larger Toronto community. OPIRG’s Rebels with a Cause aims to (re)introduce its audiences to the political and social spheres at York and its community, while inciting action and educating through the avenue of film. For recorded discussions and list of films, visit www.opirgyork.ca/node/161

The following article reviews highlights from the festival.

Artist’s Talk: Bear Witness, a talk on his works as video artist and experimental filmmaker.

Woodcarver – Bear Witness

This short, by artist and DJ Bear Witness, is a video that chronicles the murder of an Indigenous man called John T. Williams by a police officer on August 20th 2010 in Seattle. The piece uses footage filmed from the officer’s dashboard interlaced with a shot of a man running from the film Thunderheart. The video documents the events that took place. John T. Williams had a knife which he used for woodcarving. The most striking aspect of the film is the atmosphere of normalcy that is constructed as the day continues after the murder takes place.

During his talk on October 24th that kicked off Rebels with a Cause, Bear Witness discussed how he DJ’s video-like tracks create a political form of audio visual performance in which he affixes images onto found footage. In Woodcarver, the image of the man running both displays the horror of the murder and the inability of John T Williams to flee. Bear Witness spoke of how he grappled with the decision to include the piece within the imagineNative Film + Media Arts Festival as he feared that the content and imagery would further traumatize Indigenous audiences. He discussed how an audience member at the imagineNative screening observed that the piece found a way to examine violent events without further traumatizing Indigenous audiences. Through projecting a sense of dissonance in the juxtaposition of image and sound, Bear Witness and the collective A Tribe Called Red participate in a decolonial project which stirs audiences to contemplate the events critically, forcing them to recognize the systematic violence which is exercised within our public spaces.

REact:G20, Co-presented by Parkdale Film + Video Showcase; a collection of films which are artistic responses to the G20 events which took place in June 2010.

Victory Salute – Trevor Tureski

This film features a shot of former President George Bush making a profane gesture towards the camera during a test shot which took place before he addressed the nation. This image is repeated along with the sound from his speech. Through emphasizing Bush’s crude body language juxtaposed with his practiced words, the film draws allusions to the vulgarity inherent within his false justifications of the veracity behind military invasion. This is expressed by exposing a gesture that would otherwise be redacted. It is apparent that this act of mockery negates a belief in the authenticity of Bush’s words. It locates his speech within an arena of performance, where the actors are given impunity once they leave the stage.

Left to eat Cake – Ananya Ohri

The film chronicles a woman eating a decadent cake in the middle of the protest. The scene conjures a sense of greed, apathy and entitlement with the contrast between the woman eating the cake and the crowd who have gathered to watch, there is an allusion to the iconic remark by Marie Antoinette and the character in the book “Matilda” who eats a large piece of cake in order to defy authority. The director spoke of how the project is used to “invoke sensations” within an audience, providing an opening in which to discuss the social critique embedded within the act. She spoke of the discussions, which have arisen from the project in online media. The film expresses the way in which performance can be employed to stimulate a sense of participation, which has been excluded within dominant discourse.

Afghanimation – Allyson Mitchell

This film uses stop-motion animation to depict the creation of rugs which are woven by women in Afghanistan. The film explores how war is perceived through a different lens. The inability to frame the intention of the women who make the rugs illustrates how their ability to function is a subversive act, one which cannot be easily understood and molded to fit into Western narratives. The film serves as antidote to the use of Afghani crafts and design that are distributed by the occupying forces in an attempt to present them as examples of women’s independence after the war. These false depictions use cultural productivity as a way to justify conquest; the film encourages us to contemplate the intention behind those who buy these pieces along the women who make them. In a description of the film, the director depicts the complacency of the public who are not aware of Canada’s role in Afghanistan. Therefore the interplay between the threading and tapestry mirrors the tales that are spun by different interests. As viewers, we are asked to recognize how we become embedded within nationalist projects.

Raw Memory – Jorge Lozano

The film shows images of planes flying ahead during an airshow in Toronto. Lozano discussed how the film is a commentary on how the advancement of technology has been used predominantly to wage war. The film examines the privilege of those who benefit from the use of technology in wars in foreign lands. The short illustrates how the auditory presence of planes during bombing raids and their display within air shows appear quite similar. The sense of complicity is pronounced in the director’s use of a park which alludes to the disjuncture in public leisure within public parks, in contrast within the areas of land which are destroyed within wars.

Dis(orient)ation, curated by Victoria Moufawad-Paul and comprising several approaches to radical aesthetics that deal with the problems of visual representation of Palestine.

Chronicle of a Disappearance – Elia Suleiman

The film chronicles the filmmaker Elia Suleiman’s journey to the West Bank and Israel. The film is structured as a diary with different vignettes; there is a repetition of images and events and a lack of linear time. The mediation on the stagnation of time and restlessness evokes the quelling of possibility within an occupation. The film depicts the regulation of movement within the public and private sphere. It provokes viewers to examine how people live in a sense of statelessness. Curator Victoria Moufawad-Paul encouraged the audience to regard the film as contributing to an anti-colonial project rather than being regarded as a film promoting liberation. The film displays how an emphasis on ambivalence can be used as an artistic strategy against narrow representations. It is clear that the complexity within the structure and content prevents the film from being malleable to conventionality.

Queer and Trans Activism, Co-presented by the Centre for Women and Trans People at York University; a collection of films by queer and trans artists and activists.

Red Lips [Cages for Black Girls] – Kyisha Williams

This film explores the criminalization of trans communities and people of color by the prison industrial complex. Through the documentation of experiences, the film highlights the policing within these communities by the state. The film produces the nation as a site of monitored spaces in which those who are viewed as abhorrent are targeted and punished. By foregrounding her personal narrative, the director examines the need to reveal the layers of self-regulation which are enforced through dominant culture. The piece discloses the disparities within incarceration rates and the marginalization of these perspectives. The film intervenes into this exclusion by showing spaces where different identities celebrate their acts of resistance.

Camp – Alexis Mitchell

Camp redresses the Jewish narrative of “Purim” through a queer retelling which transgresses history by emphasizing the parts of the story which have been hidden. The filmmaker spoke of addressing the silences within Jewish communities surrounding Purim and the occupation in Palestine. The film examines how camps serve as sites that discipline order and control. Through an exploration of historical censure within texts, political and personal histories, the documentary offers radical strategies on transforming instruments of imprisonment, in its diverse forms.

The Personal and Political Story of Activism
Mountains That Take Wing: Angela Davis & Yuri Kochiyama – A Conversation on Life, Struggles & Liberation – C.A. Griffith & H.L.T. Quan

A review of this film has been published in DisOrientation (YU Free Press, Vol 4, Iss 1). It can be found here.

For recorded discussions and list of films, visit www.opirgyork.ca/node/161