shapes of defiance

YINTAH
Three films, three dif­fer­ent forms of civil defi­ance, rebel­lion and resis­tance. All over the world, people are fight­ing back to pro­tect the land, the air, our future. These are exam­ples that encour­age us.  It is often young people who are the dri­ving force in oppos­ing the pre­vail­ing con­di­tions. And often they are women, like the two pro­tag­o­nists in the film ONCE UPON A TIME IN A FOREST by Virpi Suu­tari. They are con­cerned with pre­serv­ing the forests in Fin­land, which are seen as an eter­nal­ly renew­able resource and exploit­ed by the forest indus­try. At the fore­front of a move­ment, they oppose the machines. They know that their form of civil dis­obe­di­ence can have consequences.  In west­ern Canada, two strong women are also on the front line of a move­ment oppos­ing the Cana­di­an gov­ern­men­t’s plans. Their fight against the con­struc­tion of a pipeline high­way through their ances­tral ter­ri­to­ry has been going on for over ten years. Film­mak­ers have been fol­low­ing this strug­gle just as long. The result is a unique doc­u­ment of a coura­geous rebel­lion that has hardly been noticed in Europe. … read more

ONCE UPON A TIME IN A FOREST

Yirpi Suutari
Finland 2024 | 93 Min. | DCP, EN subs

Sat, 31-May-25 10:00 PM
Q&A via zoom with:
Idamari Korhonen, Minka Virtanen, Otto Sellman
Ticket

How do you stop a forestry worker who is taking advan­tage of the dark­ness at night and starts work­ing with his har­vester in the forest? Ida and Minka, both in their early 20s, know how: If there are people in the sur­round­ing area of the machine, the work must be stopped imme­di­ate­ly. And that’s exact­ly what happens.

This is just one action by the two women, who get togeth­er with other young people to fight for the preser­va­tion of the forest and against exten­sive Finnish forestry. Under the flag of Extinc­tion Rebel­lion move­ment, they orga­nize protests in front of paper fac­to­ries, at access roads for log­ging trucks and on the city streets of Helsin­ki. Even within the family the con­vic­tion is deeply rooted that the forest is a resource that should first and fore­most secure the coun­try’s prosperity.

For­tu­nate­ly, Finnish film­mak­er Virpi Suu­tari also has an eye for more than bitter con­flicts and harsh con­fronta­tions. In the spirit of its young activists, her film is also a har­mo­nious and thought­ful homage to nature itself.

Virpi Suu­tari is an award win­ning doc­u­men­tary film maker. She has worked in this field for almost 30 years and she is now one of the main owners of Eupho­ria film, Helsin­ki. Films: AALTO: ARCHITECT OF EMOTIONS, 2020,  ENTREPRENEUR 2020, GARDEN LOVERS 2014, THE IDLE ONES 2001

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MY DAD

Marta Kovářová
Czech Republic, Slovakia 2023 | 77 Min. | DCP, EN subs

Sun, 01-Jun-25 04:30 PM
Q&A via zoom with:
Jiří Svoboda, Marta Kovářová
Is it pos­si­ble to find a solu­tion to save the planet? A father, Jiří - a Czech physi­cist and vision­ary handy­man - and his daugh­ter have taken it upon them­selves … read more

YINTAH

Brenda Michell, Jennifer Wickham, Michael Toledano
Canada 2024 | 125 Min. | DCP, EN subs

Wed, 28-May-25 04:30 PM
Q&A via zoom with:
Dr. Karla Tait
Home to five dif­fer­ent clans, the Wet’­suwet’en ter­ri­to­ry in west­ern Canada covers an area of 22,000 km². This land has always been unced­ed. Only the chiefs of the five clans … read more