Despite the growing persistence of environmental change, human resourcefulness remains alive and well as people across the globe experiment with adaptive methods on the ground. In ADAPTATION: Kentucky, scientist and National Geographic Explorer Alizé Carrère travels to a small town in western Kentucky to meet Angie Yu, a Chinese-American woman who is turning the Mississippi River’s invasive Asian Carp problem into an environmental and economic triumph. While Americans may want nothing to do with this bony fish, other parts of the world consider carp a resource – one to be cherished and celebrated. Can Americans learn to do the same?
2020
Official Selection
Documentary Short
United States
Runtime:
11 minutes
24 seconds
Director:
Alizé Carrère
REIFF 2020
Official Selection
Canada
Runtime:
7 minutes
52 seconds
Director:
The Bum Family
REIFF 2020
Lilly, a giant orange monster, embarks on an adventure at a lakeside fishing camp with her friend Fluffle. Will Lilly discover the mysterious secret that lurks below the surface of the lake?
Official Selection
Documentary Short
United States
Runtime:
20 minutes
19 seconds
Director:
Rachel Bickert, Emily Tapanes
REIFF 2020
A young queer woman in the American south comes to terms with her sexuality, shattering her deep-rooted religious beliefs and cultural stereotypes within her conservative community, family and self.
Official Selection
Narrative Feature
United States
Runtime:
1 hour(s)
32 minutes
Director:
Zach Schlapkohl, Jacob Kiesling, & Ethan Cartwright
REIFF 2020
A mockumentary about rehabilitated zombies (or necro-sapiens, to be politically correct) facing the adversities that come with living in a time when they aren't yet considered socially equal to homo-sapiens (aka, human beings).
Official Selection
United States
Runtime:
19 minutes
2 seconds
Director:
Chris Temple, Zach Ingrasci
REIFF 2020
Lizbeth Mateo is an attorney in Los Angeles—one who started a law practice, hired four employees, and took an oath to uphold the U.S. constitution. She also has no legal options to stay in the country. Lizbeth is undocumented.
Since crossing the border at age 14, Lizbeth hasn’t let her immigration status hold her back. Frustrated by an unjust system, she’s drawing from her own experiences to fight for immigrant rights in the streets and in the courts.
Her latest client is Edith Espinal, a woman avoiding deportation by taking sanctuary in a church. As the months turn to years, Lizbeth is running out of legal options to help. Lizbeth returns to her activist roots and teaches Edith to fight back—because sometimes you need to ignore the law in order to change it.
Official Selection
Narrative Short
United States
Runtime:
14 minutes
30 seconds
Director:
Brenna Malloy
REIFF 2020
Left behind in the wake of the Civil War, the women of the homefront have a battle of their own that deems itself equally as desperate, challenging and bloody as the soldiers on the front lines.
Official Selection
Documentary Feature
United States
Runtime:
1 hour(s)
10 minutes
Director:
Karla Murthy
REIFF 2020
Among the industrial ruins of America, a new generation is rebuilding home.
When the steel mills shut down in Youngstown Ohio, it shattered a way of life. Over half the population left. Thousands of empty blighted homes were left behind, eroding the social fabric of this once mighty industrial base. Like many post industrial towns, persistent joblessness, crime and poverty plague the city.
Filmed over the course of 2 1/2 years, this film weaves the lives of a new generation of residents who have grown up in a world of post industrial decline. Unlike their parents generation, haunted and traumatized by watching their way of life crumble around them, this generation is able to envision a new future, and they are working to make a life for themselves in their hometown.
This film is an inspiring testimony to the modest but profound resilience and dedication it takes to transform a community. A crucial story to be heard at a time of extreme inequality, divisiveness, upheaval and uncertainty, "The Place That Makes Us" is a meditation on the meaning of home in America today.
Official Selection
Australia
Runtime:
1 hour(s)
25 minutes
Director:
Selina Miles
REIFF 2020
In 1970s New York, photographer Martha Cooper captured the some of the first images of graffiti appearing on the city’s subway carriages. Decades later, she realises she’s become an unexpected icon of the street art world. Now, at age 75, must navigate her way through this vastly
Official Selection
Narrative Feature
Runtime:
1 hour(s)
29 minutes
Director:
Lee Cummings, Mitchell Altieri
REIFF 2020
While skateboarding, a kind hearted teenager, Dylan, crashes into a beautiful young woman who secretly turns out to be the World Famous Popstar, Bebe A. Love. Keeping her identity under wraps, Dylan takes Bebe to his best friend’s house for help. While he and his group of friends try to help this mysterious woman, unexplained events begin to occur within the home. And they only intensify when Bebe’s handler, Anton, shows up at their door and demands the teenagers return her immediately. When Dylan refuses fearing for Bebe’s safety, he unleashes a barrage of dire consequences that turns a fun graduation party into a night of living hell.
Official Selection
Documentary Feature
United Kingdom
Runtime:
1 hour(s)
26 minutes
Director:
Various
REIFF 2020
In the middle of an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe a young poet raps in the forest.
My Blood Is Red is a music documentary with a very dark heart. It follows the fortunes of a young indigenous rapper as he tries to make sense of the violence being meted out against his people. His name is Werá and his lyrics are fuelled by the anger and sadness he feels, confronted by the state-condoned genocide of the disenfranchised indigenous of Brazil. On his journey he is adopted by Criolo – one of Brazil’s most famous music artists and godfather of Brazilian hip-hop. He’s also comforted and counselled by Sonia Guajajara, the internationally recognised indigenous leader and charismatic figurehead of the indigenous struggle.
Driven by beats and lyrics we descend into a world of official violence and end up at the largest assembly of indigenous people in Brazil – a demonstration against the government’s barbaric policy of arming farmers, loggers and miners. Thousands of painted and feathered indigenous people – men, women and children – hurl coffins at the Senate building and are repelled with tear gas and rubber bullets.
So actually, this is a film about genocide. And one young artist's response to it.
Because we present as a music documentary we are able to carry this message of the indigenous struggle to commercial and world-music audiences that otherwise might never hear of it. That is the power and the duty of the documentary form – to take an audience on an emotional journey that leaves them with a deeper understanding of the variety, and yet also the shared space of the human experience.
Like Werá says: “We are all Guarani Kaiowa”.
He’s still rapping in the forest today …
As it burns down around him.