UNAC-V Sponsors DOXA Film: The Cleaners

UNA-Vancouver is pleased to be sponsoring the May 9th screening of The Cleaners, a documentary film about the unseen impact of outsourcing the ethics of social media on workers, democracy and the role of technology in our lives. The Wednesday, May 9th screening is part of the Justice Forum Series and will include a post-film discussion with a selected voice from the field.

Directed by Hans Block (Germany) and Mortiz Riesewieck (Brazil), their work starts with investigations and end up as striking, complex narrations. In The Cleaners, they have revealed the dark underbelly of our globalized social media culture and the people employed to determine what is unacceptable.

Tickets are on sale now: Buy Tickets.

Venues for screenings of this documentary include:

 

 

 

To see other films included in DOXA’s 2018 program: See Festival Schedule. DOXA runs from May 3rd to May 13th. Watch the trailer below, and join us on May 9th.

DOXA Film Screening: Complicit

UNA-Vancouver is sponsoring the May 6th screening of Complicit, a documentary film about the detrimental health effects involved in the global electronics manufacturing industry in China.  Complicit is part of the festival’s Justice Forum; thus, it will host a Q&A after the screening. Directed by Heather White and Lynn Zhang, they aim:

to shine a light on what it’s really like for Foxconn factory workers, who produce devices for Apple and other companies.

The film, which was mostly shot undercover, follows Yi Yeting, a former Foxconn employee who was diagnosed with leukemia at the young age of 24. The cause? Benzene poisoning from a cleaning agent that was used while making the iPhone and iPad. Apple banned the substance, along with n-hexane, from its assembly lines back in 2014, following reports that it was leading to leukemia among factory workers. But Yeting is still fighting for Foxconn and other companies to acknowledge benzene poisoning and other issues.

Complicit debuted this past March at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in London.

Tickets for the May 6th, 2017 screening at VanCity Theatre @ 2pm are on sale through DOXA. Ticket prices range from $11-$15.

To see other films included in DOXA’s 2017 program click here. DOXA runs from May 4th to May 14th.

Lampedusa in Winter – DOXA 2016

We are pleased to announce that we have sponsored the screening of Lampedusa in Winter at this year’s documentary film festival, DOXA. This film is part of the festival’s Justice Forum which includes a post-film discussion. The film is described as follows:

A broken down ferry, an isolated island, a group of angry fishermen, and an influx of trapped refugees… This might sound like the beginnings of a thriller, but the situation is real. This is the challenging predicament for the Italian island of Lampedusa. As thousands of people try to escape war and oppression by fleeing across the Mediterranean, the result is an epidemic of death by drowning. Lampedusa is strategically close to Europe, and therefore the entry port for many refugees from Africa. This small island community is put to the test with the continuous arrival of new refugees. But when the only ferry that services the island breaks down, things get exponentially grimmer. The town’s mayor, Giusi Nicolini, is faced with the difficult job of attempting to solve everyone’s problems.

Tickets are on sale now: Buy Tickets.

The screening will be on Saturday May 7th, 6:30pm at Vancity Theatre.

Check out the trailer below:

UNAC-Vancouver sponsor’s DOXA film

The United Nations Association in Canada (Vancouver Branch) was pleased to sponsor a film at the 2015 DOXA Documentary Film Festival.

The screening of “Uyghurs: Prisoners of the Absurd” was held at the VanCity Theatre on Wednesday, May 6, 2015.   The screening was well-attended, and the audience was clearly engaged in the issues presented in the film.

The film charts the incredible journey of a group of 22 men who are members of the Uyghur community. The Uyghurs are a minority group of Turkic-speaking Muslims living in western China. In fleeing persecution in their own country, they were unwittingly caught up as victims in the so-called “war on terror” which began in the Middle East in 2001. They eventually found themselves transported to the American military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where they were detained for several years.

UNAC-Vancouver board members at the DOXA screening

The film was included in the festival’s Justice Forum, so it was followed by a thought-provoking question and answer session. The guest speaker was Dr. Nicole Barrett of the Faculty of Law at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Barrett has worked extensively in the international human rights arena, and has witnessed the difficult circumstances faced by prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

The evening concluded with informal discussions with audience members at the UNAC information table in the lobby of the theatre.

Our thanks to Dr. Nicole Barrett, Executive Director Kenji Maeda, Programming Coordinator Selina Crammond, and to all DOXA staff and volunteers for making this year’s festival such a success. We look forward to working with you again in the future!

Please click here to read UNAC-Vancouver Board Member Karen Truscott’s Opening Remarks at the event : DOXA Opening Remarks

UNAC proud to sponsor DOXA film Uyghurs: Prisoners of the Absurd

The United Nations Association of Canada – Vancouver branch is pleased to sponsor an upcoming film at the DOXA documentary festival.  The film is entitled Uyghurs: Prisoners of the Absurd and will be showing on Wednesday, May 6th at 6:00 PM at VanCity Theatre.  The film will be followed by a Justice Forum discussion.

The film follows twenty-two Muslims from China’s Uyghur minority who fled China, but were unfortunate enough to be rounded up in the months following the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan.  Patricio Henriquez’s film follows their journey from China to the Middle East and then to the detention prison at Guantánamo where they were imprisoned without trial for up to eleven years. Even after being proven innocent, they were stuck in a legal black hole.  In- depth candid interviews with three of the former detainees, now resettled in other countries around the world, bring to light the shocking injustices of these little-known victims of the War on Terror.  This documentary encourages us to closely consider the religious, political and cultural persecution of minority groups, many of which are ignored by the international community, swept under the carpet for larger political reasons.

To see a trailer of the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-S9eqBQeao

To go to the DOXA webpage on the film: http://www.doxafestival.ca/film/uyghurs

We hope to see many UNAC-Vancouver members there!