REFRAME LIVE EVENTS + TALKS
We’re honoured to be hosting live events and talks with over two dozen special guests from around the world at this year’s festival. Have a look at the lineup below!
REFRAME 2021 OPENING NIGHT LIVE
Friday January 22, 2021 | 7:00PM – 9:00PM | Reserve Tickets
Join us in a virtual gathering to celebrate our incredible community, the films, filmmakers, sponsors and activists that have collectively created a festival in the most difficult of times. We are still able to gather online, to listen to words that will anchor us in the work we are trying to do: to tell stories, to raise awareness and to incite action.
Keynote Address by Drew Hayden Taylor
Poetry by Ziysah and Sarah Lewis
Opening Song by the Unity Singers
Introduction by Angela Connors
Sponsored By
SO YOU WANT TO MAKE A DOCUMENTARY – LIVE WORKSHOP
Saturday January 23, 2021 | 2:00PM – 3:00PM | Reserve Tickets
Starting at 2PM in the ReFrame Virtual Theatre, we’ll be hosting a workshop for budding filmmakers of all skill levels, “So You Want to Make a Documentary”.
Co-presented by the Electric City Culture Council, this workshop will introduce filmmakers to the multitude of opportunities and resources available to them, from funding sources to festivals, media-making resources, and practical advice from experienced filmmakers in the field.
Registration is free, and if you can’t make it to the the live event, we’ll be hosting the recorded session throughout the festival.
Sponsored By
REACHING ACROSS GENERATIONS: LIVE PANEL DISCUSSION
Sunday January 24, 2021 | 2:00PM – 3:00PM | Reserve Tickets
Three filmmakers – whose families come from Japan, China, and Vietnam – reach across intergenerational relationships to tell immigration stories in their own lives. Whether using animation or home video footage, scripting imagined conversations or filming intimate, on-the-spot family talk, what decisions influenced their filmmaking choices? How did making intensely personal family films about memory, loss, and love, honour, heal, or reveal the pain of the past? Hear documentary filmmakers talk about what they cherish and what was challenging in turning their cameras on themselves and those closest to them.
Panelists: Tiffany Hsiung, Anne Koizumi, and Julia Huynh
Moderator: Ayesha Barmania
Sponsored By
LIVE STREAM Q&A w/ FILMMAKER CHASE JOYNT
Monday January 26, 2021 | 7:00PM – 8:00PM | Reserve Tickets
Chase Joynt is a writer and director whose films have won jury and audience awards internationally. Together with Aisling Chin-Yee, Chase co-directed No Ordinary Man, a feature-length documentary about jazz musician Billy Tipton, which was presented at Cannes Docs 2020 as part of the Canadian Showcase of Docs-in-Progress, and premiered at TIFF in 2020. You may recall his latest short film, Framing Agnes, which screened as part of ReFrame 2020.
Sponsored By
LIVE STREAM Q&A w/ CANADIAN ACTIVIST JUDY REBICK
Tuesday January 26, 2021 | 7:00PM – 8:00PM | Reserve Tickets
Since the 1960s, feminist, activist, and practical dreamer Judy Rebick has played a pivotal role in securing women’s rights over their own bodies here in Canada. She has served as President of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, sat as the Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy at Ryerson University, hosted CBC Television programs, is a best-selling author, and founding publisher of rabble.ca.
Sponsored By
LIVE STREAM Q&A w/ FILMMAKER JENNIFER ABBOTT
Wednesday January 27, 2021 | 7:00PM – 8:00PM | Reserve Tickets
Jennifer Abbott is a Sundance and Genie award-winning filmmaker who has been making films about urgent social, political and environmental issues for 25 years. She is best known as the co-director and editor of The Corporation, frequently described as the most successful documentary in Canadian history.
We are thrilled to host this live stream conversation with Jennifer, whose two films, The Magnitude of All Things, and The New Corporation: An Unfortunately Necessary Sequel have been high on the streaming lists of almost every ReFrame audience member this year. These are incredibly timely and important documentaries, so we highly recommend checking them out if you haven’t already!
Sponsored By
LIVE STREAM Q&A w/ CHERYL FOGGO + BLM NOGO
Thursday January 28, 2021 | 7:00PM – 8:00PM | Reserve Tickets
We’re honoured to host Cheryl Foggo for a live stream discussion about her incredible film, John Ware Reclaimed (if you haven’t seen it yet, you MUST check it out!). Hosting this informative conversation will be Black Lives Matter – Nogojiwanong’s Shaela Abbott-McLeod.
Cheryl is an award-winning author, playwright, and filmmaker whose work over the last 30 years has focused on the lives of Western Canadians of African descent. She is the recipient of the Sondra Kelly Award from the Writers Guild of Canada, as well as the 2015 Alberta Literary Award for Drama from the Writers’ Guild of Alberta.
Sponsored By
LIVE STREAM Q&A w/ FILMMAKER SUZANNE CROCKER
Friday January 29, 2021 | 7:00PM – 9:00PM | Reserve Tickets
Yukon filmmaker and award winning director Suzanne Crocker has become known for turning her camera on herself and her family as she takes them through some rather extreme adventure/experiments.
Suzanne’s previous feature doc, All The Time In The World (2014) won 22 Festival Awards from around the world, including Top 20 Audience Picks at Hot Docs, and Most Popular Canadian Documentary at VIFF.
Join host Amy Siegel as we learn a bit more about the ingenuity, resourcefulness and knowledge of Northern Canadians and their relationship to the land through the food they hunt, fish, gather, grow and raise in the North.
Sponsored By
POST-FILM Q&A – CALL ME HUMAN
w/ Kim O’Bomsawin | On-Demand | Reserve Tickets
Kim O’Bomsawin completed a Master’s degree in sociology before embarking on her documentary filmmaking career. From the Abenaki Nation, informing the public on First Peoples issues motivates her approach. She collaborated in the development and production of several documentary and web documentary series. Kim also gives lectures in schools and institutions on the issues that affect First Peoples.
POST-FILM Q&A – FOR THE LOVE OF RUTLAND
w/ Jennifer Maytorena, Stacie Griffin & Lisa Ryan | On-Demand | Reserve Tickets
Join director Jennifer Maytorena together with Stacie Griffin and Lisa Ryan who are featured in the film For the Love of Rutland for a frank discussion about filmmaking, representation and politics.
POST-FILM Q&A – INFLUENCE
w/ Diana Neille & Richard Poplak | On-Demand | Reserve Tickets
Diana Neille is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker from Johannesburg, South Africa. A 2011 alumna of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, Neille has subsequently co-founded two media startups with the intention of fostering long-form investigative storytelling and documentary filmmaking at a time when journalism is facing unprecedented challenges globally.
Richard Poplak is an award-winning author, journalist, and filmmaker. He has become one of the most widely read and controversial political journalists in South Africa, editing at large for the Daily Maverick. Poplak has reported from over 30 developing countries for news outlets across the world, and he was part of a team that won the prestigious Global Shining Light Award for investigative journalism.
POST-FILM Q&A – SOFTIE
w/ Sam Soko | On-Demand | Reserve Tickets
Sam Soko is an award-winning director, producer and editor based in Nairobi, Kenya. With his captivating approach to socio-political storytelling, he has developed content and collaborated with firebrand artists from around the world. His first feature documentary project Softie, premiered at the 2020 Sundance film festival, winning a special jury prize for editing.
POST-FILM Q&A – THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE THIS PLACE, ANYPLACE
w/ Lulu Wei | On-Demand | Reserve TicketsLulu is a Toronto based director and cinematographer whose work explores issues around urbanization, cultural identity and queerness. She has been working on this, her first feature film, for the past four years. In that time, Lulu and the film have been apart of the RIDM TalentLab, the Reelworld E20 program, Hot Docs Doc Accelerator and the DOC Breakthrough program.
POST-FILM Q&A – THE RIVER GUARDS
w/ Aaron Kalischer-Coggins, Jane Winn & Zach Ruiter | On-Demand | Reserve Tickets
Transnational discussion with the filmmaker and environmentalists from The River Guards in conversation with local activist Zach Ruiter from Citizens Against Radioactive Neighbourhoods (CARN). The group discusses General Electric, the environment and the fight for corporate responsibility.
POST-FILM Q&A – WE HOLD THE LINE
w/ Marc Wiese | On-Demand | Reserve Tickets
Marc Wiese, born in 1966, studied journalism at Dortmund University, Germany. He has been making documentaries for cinema and TV for over 20 years, often in conflict areas and under difficult and dangerous circumstances. He won the FACT:AWARD at CPH:DOX, Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, with this new documentary “We Hold the Line,” the first in a trilogy looking exactly at how democracies erode.
POST-FILM Q&A – WINTOPIA
w/ Mira Burt-Wintonick | On-Demand | Reserve Tickets
Mira Burt-Wintonick is an award-winning audio producer, story editor and documentary filmmaker. She is the senior editor, co-producer and co-creator of CBC’s Love Me. For 10 years, she helped shape CBC’s WireTap, in collaboration with host/creator Jonathan Goldstein. She recently directed Wintopia, a feature documentary film about her late father, filmmaker Peter Wintonick, and his search for Utopia. The film premiered at IDFA (International Documentary FilmFestival Amsterdam) in November 2019 and won the Colin Low Award for Canadian Feature at DOXA festival in Vancouver in June 2020.