Stir Cheat Sheet: 4 highlights of KDocsFF 2023

The social-justice film festival returns in person with its largest run to date

By Gail Johnson

The Cost of Freedom: Refugee Journalists in Canada.

Alice Street.

KDocsFF runs from February 22 to 26

TWENTY-FIVE FILMS, a series of double features, several panel discussions and Q&As, and more over five days: KDocs Film Festival is back in-person for the first time since the pandemic, with its biggest edition yet.

Among the highlights is the opening night’s Canadian premiere of director Alex Winter’s The YouTube Effect, paired with Backlash: Misogyny in the Digital Age. (Read Stir’s feature about The YouTube Effect here.) Here’s a glimpse at a handful of others.

#1

Live painting of the KDocsFF Alice Street Mural

February 15 to 17, February 23 to 28, and March 1 to 3 at KPU’s first-floor Fir Lounge

Following their appearance on the Alice Street panel at KDocsFF 2022 (see below for more detail), Chilean-born Oakland-based painter Pancho Pescador, Chicago-born aerosol artist Desi Mundo, and KPU Arts artist and writer-in-residence Brandon Gabriel formed an enduring creative collaboration. Now, the trio is creating a 25-foot mural that will be installed in the KPU Surrey Library. The mural will have a Coast Salish background with a series of images layered on top and will pay tribute to KPU’s Indigenous peoples, cultural diversity, and inclusivity. The artists, who will paint be in the Downtown Eastside for the Vancouver Mural Festival this summer, are being supported by their KDocsFF co-panelists: anti-poverty advocate Jean Swanson and Alice Street director Spencer Wilkinson. People are invited to engage with the artists while they work.

#2

The Monopoly of Violence and The Cost of Freedom: Refugee Journalists in Canada

February 25 at VIFF Centre’s Vancity Theatre

Both films in this double feature are having their Vancouver premiere.

In The Monopoly of Violence (12:30 pm), director and keynote speaker David Dufresne examines police powers and shares raw footage of clashes between law enforcers and protestors alongside compelling interviews with academics, police officers, and victims of police assault.

At 2:30 pm, it’s The Cost of Freedom: Refugee Journalists in Canada by director and keynote speaker James Cullingham. Focusing on the lives of Syria’s Abdulrahman Matar, Mexico’s Luis Nájera, and Arzu Yildiz from Turkey, the film investigates why they fled their countries and are seeking to rebuild their lives in Canada. It also takes a broader look at the global struggle for free speech in a time of increasing threat to journalists.

Yildiz and the films’ two directors will participate in the 4 pm joint panel discussion/Q&A, which also hosts Wade Deisman, director of academic programs at the Justice Institute of BC.

#3

Co-Extinction

February 24 at 3:20 pm at VIFF Centre’s Studio Theatre

First-time feature-length documentary filmmakers Gloria Pancrazi and Elena Jean explore the crisis facing Southern Resident killer whales, journeying to the ancestral homelands of more than 15 First Nations in present-day Canada and the United States. “We want people to be motivated to action,” Jean shared with Stir. (Read more about the release here.) Swaysən (Will George), a film co-collaborator and subject, is the keynote speaker.

#4

Alice Street + “Jean Swanson: We Need a New Map” + Closing Reception

February 26 starting at 5:20 pm

The fest wraps up with this double feature that opens with director and keynote speaker Teresa Alfeld’s short “Jean Swanson: We Need a New Map” about the veteran anti-poverty activist and former Vancouver city councillor. Next up, at 6 pm, is director and keynote speaker Spencer Wilkinson’s Alice Street, which follows the story of a significant four-story mural in gentrifying downtown Oakland. (Read more about Alice Street in Stir’s feature from its 2022 KDocsFF screening here.)

A post-screening joint panel discussion/Q&A takes place with Wilkinson, Alfeld, and Swanson as well as some of both films’ subjects; also joining is artist-muralist Brandon Gabriel, a Kwantlen First Nation council member. Michael Ma, of KPU’s department of criminology moderates. The KDocsFF closing reception follows in the theatre lobby.

“Jean Swanson: We Need a New Map”

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