Films about the environment, sustainability, human behaviour and historically disenfranchised people are on offer at the 16th annual Nanaimo Global Film Festival.
The event, taking place at Vancouver Island University from Feb. 6 to 8, is part of the travelling World Community Film Festival, which begins each year in Courtenay before touring the province.
NGFF co-organizer Maurice Gallant said this year’s crop of films from around the world is particularly varied.
“You see quite a cross-section of social activism-type films,” Gallant said. “The film content might not be the same, but you are looking at different forms of social activism.”
One film that may catch the eye is A**holes: A Theory, by prolific, award-winning Halifax-based filmmaker John Walker.
The documentary is inspired by the New York Times bestselling book of the same name by a professor of moral philosophy and asks what can be done about people who “because of their entrenchment in their sense of entitlement, they feel that they can take special advantages over others because they feel they are smarter, that they’re richer,” Walker said. “They justify their behaviour and certainly they’re unwilling to listen to the complaints of others.”
Walker said being around those kinds of people, especially if they’re in positions of authority, can make for a “really toxic environment” and he soon realized that “on some level, it was like I was making film about the environment.”
“In making an environmental film you want to look for solutions. Like, ‘What can we do about this?’ Not just to state how terrible it is…” Walker said. “I see it as an activist film and it’s a push-back film. It’s identifying this behaviour as something unacceptable.”
The documentary features interviews with people who have been the victims of such conduct, as well as those who choose to embrace it.
“These are young people who think it’s absolutely fine to act this way and feel that it’s necessary,” Walker said. “And primarily that crowd that’s in the film are operating through social media, where clicks are important and attention is important and the more outrageous your behaviour is then the more clicks you get.”
The film goes on to investigate whether that kind of behaviour is indeed necessary for one to be successful.
Since being released in 2019 the documentary has been screened at festivals across Europe, Southeast Asia and North America. Walker said at nearly all of the screenings he’s attended audience members have stayed behind to discuss the film.
Walker said there’s a “collective disturbance in the culture” caused by the behaviour addressed in the film and that his film has had a cathartic effect of viewers.
“We have our personal experiences and I think there is a kind of a collective relief that we can talk about it, name the behaviour and have a strategy to push back,” Walker said.
NGFF co-organizer Robin Davies said all the entries in this year’s festival share the feeling that “people are recognizing that there’s something that’s not quite right around them and looking to try and make a change.”
“Even when these films are happening on the other side of the world, I think we’re encouraging our viewers to act locally,” he said.
WHAT’S ON … The 16th annual Nanaimo Global Film Festival comes to Vancouver Island University from Feb. 6 to 8. Festival pass $30, $20 for students and seniors. Six-film and two-film packages also available. For a list of films, screening times, locations and to purchase tickets, click here.
arts@nanaimobulletin.com
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