DOXA Documentary Film Festival, Western Canada’s largest documentary film festival, returns for its 23rd edition, screening May 2 to 12, 2024.
Last night, DOXA announced its program of crucial and thought-provoking documentaries to be presented in-person at theatres across the city, bringing filmmakers and audiences together for a communal cinema experience.
The 23rd annual DOXA Documentary Film Festival will showcase a total of 48 features and mid-lengths, 34 short films, as well as Industry events and multiple opportunities for filmmakers, audiences and industry professionals to connect. Screenings will take place at The Vancouver Playhouse (Opening), The Cinematheque, VIFF Centre and SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, with industry events held at SFU’s World Art Centre and The Post at 750.
Some of the highlights of the DOXA 2024 program include:
Saturday, May 4th at The Vancouver Playhouse, DOXA’s Opening Presentation screening is Shannon Walsh’s Adrianne & The Castle.
Inventive and whimsical, Adrianne & The Castle is the story of Alan St-Georges and the ornate castle he built by hand with his beloved late wife Adrianne, which now stands as a “temple” to their transcendent love.
Wednesday, May 8th at VIFF Centre, The Mid-week Gala film is nanekawâsis, directed by Conor McNally, which 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. A proud Two Spirit person, Littlechild has channeled his desire for healing into the bold and colourful works of art that characterize his unique artistic vision. This World Premiere screening will take place on.
Saturday, May 11th at SFU’s Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema The Closing Presentation wraps up the festival with Michael Mabbott, Brenda Michell and Michael Toledano’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 Jackie Shane as she fearlessly navigates music and life.
This year, DOXA also features a guest curated program from Dennis Lim, an acclaimed New York-based film curator and writer. Currently the Artistic Director of the New York Film Festival, he has selected the film Anna (Alberto Grifi and Massimo Sarchielli, 1975), a film virtually unseen outside Italy until its restoration in 2011. In Lim’s words:
“The film is an extraordinarily precise record of a particular time and place: the mythical tinder box of militancy, rage, repression, paranoia, and nihilism that was Italy in the 1970s. It’s also a movie that overflows its bounds at every turn… Anna seems to hold all the possibilities of cinema—even as it acknowledges its limits.”
The festival program will also feature a retrospective of the work of Cedric Dupire, whose documentary work is intensely sensorial, diving deep into music, performance, ritual and art.
Beyond the festival’s cornerstone Justice Forum and Rated Y for Youth programs, DOXA 2024 will include four Spotlight programming streams: Paint Me a Film, featuring 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; True Lies, a selection of experimental and hybrid films that blur the lines between narrative and documentary forms; The Devil Stole Our Laughter, which 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; and Children of the Sun, titled after the late Lebanese painter and poet Etel Adnan’s work of the same name, featuring a collection of films from both Lebanon and Palestine, two places which are deeply and historically intertwined.
In addition to the works from around the world, DOXA 2024 also find several Canadian filmmakers launching their world premieres over the 11 days of the Festival.
The 23rd DOXA Documentary Film Festival runs May 2-12, 2024 on screens across the city. Full festival program details and festival tickets and passes are available online at doxafestival.ca