Music and sexuality, the reality of cultural appropriation, and reproductive rights take the screen at this year’s DOXA festival, which kicks off tonight (Thursday, May 3).
Presented by The Documentary Media Society, a Vancouver-based society devoted to presenting independent and innovative documentaries to Vancouver audiences, DOXA screens several films over select venues for 10 days each year.
Running from May 3 to May 13, DOXA opens with Canadian film The Rankin File: Legacy of a Radical at Vancouver Playhouse, with films also being screened at Pacific Cinematheque, Vancity Theatre, and SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts in the following days.
Loose Lips has rounded up our most anticipated women-centric and female-directed films showing at this year’s DOXA Festival.
Roller Dreams
Roller Dreams is a fascinating and unexpected story of a utopian scene created by African Americans in the late 1970s. Roller skate dancing briefly blossomed into a genuine national craze, but when Hollywood represented the culture, it was white actors who played all the roles and white dancers who took the credit. -KR
Thursday, May 10, 2018 – 6:15pm
Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour St.)
Sunday, May 13, 2018 – 7:15pm
Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour St.)
Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution
Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution is a story about music, sexuality, and politics that is not afraid to ask the hard questions. Has gay culture lost its roots and vitality by trying to be like mainstream society? The film is not afraid to suggest that the dominant paradigm still needs to be further subverted, and perverted. It is the spirit of irreverence, camp, and shock value that makes the film a delight to watch, as it makes a case for rejecting the status quo and embracing full on weirdness. -KR
Sunday, May 6, 2018 – 7:45pm
Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour St.)
To Wake Up The Nakota Language
To Wake Up the Nakota Language: A tender portrait of Armand McArthur, the last fluent speaker of the Nakota language in Pheasant Rump First Nation, Treaty 4 territory in southern Saskatchewan. “When you don’t know your language or your culture, you don’t know who you are,” explains Armand. Directed by Louise BigEagle is a First Nations filmmaker and recent graduate of the University of Regina (BA Film Studies). -SC
Saturday, May 12, 2018 – 4:30pm
Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour St.)
Kasuma – Infinity
Kusama – Infinity: At age 88, Yayoi Kusama is one of the world’s most successful living artists and one of the top-selling female artists in history. For those unfamiliar with her prolific body of work, her gargantuan polka dot paintings, phallic soft sculptures, and nude performance anti-war protests cleverly straddle pop art and the avant-garde. Her selfie-crazed Infinity Mirrors exhibitions have seen a whopping 5 million museum visitors since 2013. However, Kusama’s journey to the top of the art world wasn’t an easy climb. -SC
Saturday, May 12, 2018 – 7:00pm
SFU-GCA (149 W Hastings St)
Saturday, May 12, 2018 – 9:00pm
Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour St.)
Maternité secrète (Secret Nest)
Maternité secrète (Secret Nest): An anonymous woman remembers her first glimpse of the Château Bénouville in Normandy, a home for unwed mothers, who came to wait out their pregnancies, and give birth in secret. As one of the nurses who worked at the Château recalls, young women were often convinced to abandon their newborn babies and hide their pregnancies for fear of bringing shame on their families. –DW
Saturday, May 5, 2018 – 4:30pm
Cinematheque (1131 Howe St.)
Monday, May 7, 2018 – 6:30pm
Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour St.)
