ReFrame Film Festival Announces Line-up of Social Justice Docs

Peterborough’s ReFrame Film Festival returns to spotlight social justice and human rights documentaries with a mix of local, Canadian, and international stories. This year’s festival, running in person January 30 to February 1 and online from February 3 to 8, includes some of the most acclaimed documentaries from the festival circuit, including Sepideh Farsi’s Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, a haunting portrait of 25-year-old Palestinian photojournalist Fatma Hassona, told almost entirely through video calls, as the late journalist shares updates on her life amid the occupation. Hassona was tragically killed earlier this year when artillery from an Israeli airstrike hit her family home just one day after the doc’s premiere was announced at the Cannes Film Festival.

Other docs with stories ripped from the headlines include the Ukrainian war film The Longer You Bleed, directed by Ewan Waddell. The film creates a portrait of Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion using social media videos from Ukrainians who document the history in the making, while others doomscroll the updates from afar. Viral stories also fuel #skoden, Damien Eagle Bear’s festival circuit favourite about the man behind the meme and a movement to reclaim the message and restore his dignity.

Meanwhile, women’s rights are front and centre in Writing Hawa, Najiba Noori’s acclaimed glimpse at a young woman in Afghanistan who yearns to read, but finds her dreams quashed by the Taliban’s return to power. The change in tides sees generations of women reckoning with a return of patriarchal rule after a brief window of hope. Directors Daisy-May Hudson and Sophie Compton also spotlight women’s rights in Holloway, an intimate film that goes inside the titular prison as former inmates heal past traumas by sharing their experiences from time behind bars.

On the Canadian front, ReFrame includes the hit documentary Endless Cookie from brothers Seth Scriver and Pete Scriver. The film sees the two half-brothers—one white, one Indigenous—collaborate as the former records the latter’s stories and brings them together in a wayward, rambling yarn. Endless Cookie recently won Best Animated Feature from the Toronto Film Critics Association’s annual awards vote and is one of three nominees for the TFCA’s Rogers Best Canadian Documentary prize, which carries a $50,000 purse.

ReFrame scores a very fresh get, too, with Lindsay Aksarniq McIntyre’s experimental short doc Tuktuit: Caribou, which was just announced as one of ten films in Sundance’s documentary short film competition. Tuktuit uses handcrafted caribou gelatin elusion to explore the relationship between caribous, lichen, and Inuit communities in an exploration of interconnectedness. The doc joins festival circuit staples including Shifting Baselines, Agatha’s Alamanc, and The Nest as they continue their runs on the Canadian circuit.

Other Canadian docs at ReFrame include Joseph Hillel’s acclaimed snapshot of Haiti’s art scene in At All Kosts, Caroline Monnet’s latest short Pidikwe, Sean Cisterna’s Silver Screamers about retirement home residents making a horror film, Jen Muranetz and Sepehr Samimi’s trip to the frontlines of a blockage in Fairy Creek, and Will Bowes and Linda Schuyler’s Home, which sees the Degrassi creator return to her family home and find it the site of an encampment for unhoused people.

Finally, the festival includes one of yesterday’s surprise additions to the Oscar shortlist for Best Documentary Feature: Yanuni, directed by Richard Ladkani. The film observes Indigenous warrior Juma Xipaia as she defends her Amazonian homeland from miners who threaten the Brazilian rainforest that has housed her people for generations. Tickets for this year’s festival are now available.

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