Program 9: It Takes A Village
Sunday, February 25, 2022
3:30 p.m. Varsity Center
The spirit of repair, unity and the conviction that humans working together can create a better world underlies this program of documentary shorts.
Ohana And Aiena: Connecting Family, Farming, And Freedom (d. Jade Onaka)
Animation – 6 minutes
For almost 1,000 years Hawai‘i had a sophisticated agricultural system capable of producing over 1 million tons of food each year, according to research. That’s enough to feed almost everyone who lives on the islands today. But now, almost 90% of Hawai‘i’s food is imported. Join 16-year-old high school student Jade Onaka in Kona, Hawai‘i, as she explores her family’s history to learn about the farming practices that sustained Hawaiians for generations. Through her journey, Jade discovers a deeper connection to the land she calls home and how traditional Indigenous food systems might lead to a more sustainable future in Hawai‘i.
The New Life Guards Of West Las Vegas (d. Faviola Leyva)
Documentary – 7 minutes
Drowning is the fourth leading cause of unintentional death for children in Clark County, Nevada. Meet the students like Elijah Garcia and Beamber Davis, who are learning to swim and hoping to become lifeguards in this historically Black community of Las Vegas, where the legacy of segregation and discrimination have exposed children to unequal risks.
Living Water (d. Brandon Yadegari Moreno)
Documentary – 12 minutes
While much of the Crow Nation grapples with limited access to clean drinking water, three generations of Apsáalooke (Crow) study the waters of the Little Bighorn River in search of solutions and new ways to protect their tribe’s water from agriculture and climate change.
Stitch By Stitch (d. Samuel St. Pierre)
Documentary – 13 minutes
As a global pandemic is tearing apart the social fabric in the heart of Montreal’s working-class Hochelaga neighbourhood, a young woman has gathered a small army of seamstresses from diverse backgrounds to initiate a wave of collective change around a cooperative.
Tibetan Harvest (d. Jasraj Padhye)
Documentary – 18 minutes
Following in the footsteps of the 14th Dalai Lama more than 150,000 Tibetan refugees fled to India in 1959. 2019 marks 60 years since the Tibetian community has lived in India.
The largest Tibetian Refugee community in the world inhabited is located at Doeguling, 50 km from Hubli, in the Mundgod panchayat, Karnataka. Doeguling is a challenging place to stay for the Tibetans with its hot and arid climate and a scarcity of water. According to a report by the NITI Aayog, Karnataka is the second state after Rajasthan where water levels are depleting at an alarming scale.
To tackle the water crisis, Tenzin Thakpo, Chairman of the RDTS water committee successfully implemented rainwater harvesting projects in the Tibetan refugee camp which recharged their bore wells.
Realizing that neighboring Indian villages are also facing the same water crisis, Tenzin, then, reaches out to the parched Indian villages and offers help to recharge their bore wells using the technique they developed.
This initiative by the Tibetan community is not only staged to benefit over 3,000 village households but also has strengthened ties between the two communities.
Our Town (d. Doug Lehmann)
Documentary – 12 minutes
douglehmann.com
Our Town is a short Documentary film about a public art project that took place in Nashville, Tennessee. An artist collective seeks to make a portrait of Nashville using the citizens of the city as artists themselves.
Marcela (d. Caitlin Manning)
Documentary – 22 minutes
caitlinmanningfilms.com
Marcela grew up in a remote indigenous village in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico, with parents who were healers, and surrounded by a wild natural world that she was taught to love and respect. She learned about autonomy from the Zapatistas, and studied women’s liberation with the women’s groups organized by Nachita, the local parish nun. Nachita helped her to escape from the oppressive patriarchy of her village to become a powerful healer and organizer. Now she and her husband share their knowledge and healing practices as they struggle, along with the National Indigenous Congress, against the capitalist megaprojects that are threatening nature and life itself.
In A Whole New Way (d. Jonathan Fisher)
Documentary (John Michaels) – 31 minutes
inawholenewway.com
Ensnaring almost four million Americans, probation has evolved from a second chance to avoid prison to a sanction actually feeding mass incarceration. Supported by neighborhood allies, some people of color set out in a whole new way to change all this—equipped only with cameras.