Protest and poetry as DOXA Documentary Film Festival launches free Summer Screenings, August 13 and September 5
Yintah captures Wet’suwet’en pipeline resistance, while La Laguna del Soldado conjures the sounds and mists of a fraught Colombia
Yintah.
DOXA Summer Screenings present Yintah on August 13 and La Laguna del Soldado on September 5, at 6 pm at the Montalbano Family Theatre on level 8 of VPL's Central Library
DOXA SUMMER SCREENINGS feature a two-film program of a duo of strong entries from this spring’s 2024 edition.
The free events at VPL Central Library kick off with Yintah—the title drawn from the Wet’suwet’en word for “land”—an audience prize-winner at Hot Docs Festival directed by Jennifer Wickham, Brenda Michell, and Michael Toledano. Filmed over a decade, it captures the conflict between the Wet’suwet’en people of northern British Columbia and TC Energy over the Coastal GasLink pipeline, building a damning indictment of the colonial approach to Indigenous sovereignty along the way. It is an epic portrait of the power of human resistance and resilience, especially as embodied by untiring activists Howilhkat Freda Huson and Sleydo’ Molly Wickham.
Later this summer, on September 5, check out the impressionistic La Laguna del Soldado, set to verses of Simón Bolívar's 1822 poem “Mi delirio sobre el Chimborazo”. The second installment in director Pablo Alvarez-Mesa’s trilogy following Bolívar’s journeys through Colombia, the documentary pushes the form into heady new territory, interweaving the stories of environmentalists, farmers, Indigenous guardians, biologists, miners, and soldiers with the sounds and visuals of the lush and misty natural habitat. Amid a landscape that feels like a fever dream (see the trailer below), it excavates a complex colonial history and the environmental impact of military presence.
Note that the Montalbano Family Theatre is an intimate venue with a capacity of 80 people; arrive early for a free seat. 
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