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Creative imaginings on screen

DOXA celebrates documentaries that break convention in its 23rd annual film festival, showcasing artists who challenge traditional norms and forms of filmmaking

September 5, 2024

The 23rd annual DOXA Documentary Film Festival (May 2–12) showcases artists and films pushing the traditional boundaries of documentary filmmaking.

“This year’s program is eclectic. We have films that play with form, hybrid films, documentary re-enactments, docufiction, animation and more,” said Sarah Ouazzani, director of programming for DOXA.

With a program that includes 48 features and mid-lengths, and 34 short films, the festival brings filmmakers and audiences together for a communal, thought-provoking cinema experience in theatrical venues across Vancouver.

“The festival is not just about screening the films, but bringing the community together to create dialogue and critical thinking. This is what we’re hoping to foster,” said Ouazzani.

The beginning, the middle and the end

The festival opens with local filmmaker Shannon Walsh’s inventive and whimsical Adrianne & the Castle at The Vancouver Playhouse, Saturday, May 4. Created in collaboration with Alan St-Georges, a mascot maker and artist in rural Illinois, the film features the ornate castle he built by hand with his beloved late wife Adrianne. Through fantastical music sequences — a re-enactment of Alan and Adrianne’s first meeting and Alan’s immediate infatuation; opulent theatrical productions in the castle hallways; dreamy visions of Adrianne in the afterlife, appearing as a bejewelled angel floating in kaleidoscopic light — the film tells Alan and Adrienne’s fairy tale love story.

This year’s Mid-week Gala film will be the world premiere of nanekawâsis on Wednesday, May 8 at VIFF Centre. Directed by Conor McNally, the documentary chronicles the life and work of celebrated and beloved Nêhiyaw (Cree) artist George Littlechild, who at 65 years of age shares his wisdom, perspectives on social issues and Indigenous history, and artistic insights. 

“Historically, documentary filmmaking has a pattern of exploitation, but I wanted this project to be collaborative,” said McNally, who felt it was important to build a relationship with Littlechild.

Over the course of production, the two became good friends, visiting each other’s families and cooking dinners together. 

For McNally, it was crucial to ensure the film, including its title, captured Littlechild.  nanekawâsis is a name gifted to the artist in ceremony more than 20 years ago.

“People suggested I add an English subtitle so that audiences don’t have to with pronunciation, but that was not an option for me,” said McNally, who is Métis. “If we actually want to be serious about living in a decolonial world, then we should learn how to pronounce Indigenous names and words.”

Closing DOXA on Saturday, May 11th at SFU’s Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema is Michael Mabbott and Lucah Rosenberg-Lee’s Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story, a mesmerizing journey from the R&B of 1950s Nashville to the nightlife of Toronto in the ’60s, following trailblazing transgender performer.

In 1971, Jackie Shane suddenly disappeared from public view.

“Nobody knew what happened to her. There was nothing but rumours. Every few years I would kind of poke around to find out if anything was there. There was nothing until 2016, when a re-issue came out of all her recordings, and through that we found out that she was alive and living in Nashville,” said Mabbott. 

The filmmaker spent a year trying to get through to her through various gatekeepers until he was eventually let in. What ensued was a deep relationship developed over time.

“We spoke for four or five hours once a week about her story, but also how she envisioned a film about her herself, and what she wanted an audience to feel.”

Unfortunately, the performer passed away before the project could start in earnest, but her presence and wishes were honoured in the documentary. The result is a remarkable story told through stunning rotoscope animation, intimate testimonies from fellow artists, and Shane’s own poignant artifacts, words and voice. 

“This is an extraordinary Canadian story and one that so many of us didn’t know about, so the idea that it might have been lost or not told is very upsetting,” said Rosenberg-Lee. “Jackie talked about coming back, and to have this film close a festival in Vancouver, it’s bittersweet.”  

Festival spotlights

In addition to the festival’s cornerstone Justice Forum and Rated Y for Youth programs, DOXA 2024 will include four Spotlight programming streams. 

• Paint Me a Film features works that engage critically with the camera’s role as both disruptor and co-creator, examining the mediums of film and photography in and of themselves.

Against the backdrop of Canada’s complex history, Between Pictures: The Lens of Tamio Wakayama celebrates the resilience and victories of marginalized Asian communities. Director Cindy Mochizuki weaves together lively interviews, Wakayama’s evocative imagery, and her own whimsical animation to unveil not just the artistry of a Vancouver photographer, but also a shared quest for cultural self-awareness and validation. 

• The Devil Stole Our Laughter takes its name from a quote by Mexican land defender Isela González Díaz and features films that follow individuals and communities living in the aftermath of change and disruption, as they search for meaning in the landscape.

In The World is Family, acclaimed Indian documentarian Anand Patwardhan offers a poignant perspective on India’s struggle for independence from British colonial rule, filled with intimate recollections from a network of family and friends.

• Children of the Sun, titled after the late Lebanese painter and poet Etel Adnan’s work of the same name, features a collection of films from both Lebanon and Palestine, two places which are deeply and historically intertwined. Diaries from Lebanon weaves together the lives of three impassioned citizens as they face the tides of political corruption, national trauma and revolution. 

• True Lies showcases a selection of experimental and hybrid films that blur the lines between narrative and documentary forms. In this Spotlight, stories take the form of psychedelic portraits and re-imagined cities; revived mothers and ghostly liberators; and fictional ethnographies and true performances that both horrify and enlighten.

A Man Imagined by filmmakers Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky follows Lloyd, a man in his late 60s who has spent many decades unhoused. 

“Our work looks at people who have been disregarded. But in our films, none of their experiences are mediated by experts. Instead, we feel there’s value in letting people speak for themselves,” said Cassidy.

The filmmakers originally intended to feature multiple subjects, but after meeting Lloyd they changed their approach and decided to include him in the filmmaking process.

“We never saw him as the subject of a documentary in a journalistic way, where we were studying him and reporting on him. It was an active collaboration,” explained Shatzky.

In A Man Imagined, Lloyd’s strength and resourcefulness are revealed, along with an acknowledgement of personal tragedy and loneliness. We see Lloyd panhandling on a busy road, collecting discarded items to sell and navigating the physical brutality of winter, sleeping on a patch of scrubby nature. We witness Lloyd’s own gaze as he makes sense of ever-present juxtaposition of his internal world, saturated with dreams and visions, and the bleak urban landscape that surrounds him.

“This is a film that reflects, in part, the imagination of someone with schizophrenia, but it’s also a film about a man that has been imagined by us, through our role as creators with a subjective experience. The title A Man Imagined came about as a means of expressing this double perspective,” said Cassidy.

DOXA is presented by The Documentary Media Society, a Vancouver-based non-profit organization devoted to showcasing independent and innovative documentaries to local audiences. The festival is comprised of public screenings, panel discussions, public forums, and educational programs. 

This year’s DOXA takes place May 2– 12.  See doxafestival.ca for full details.