Judy, I'd like your permission to repost the list of films you recommend on this posting. I'm not so sure my limited blog readership would be interested in the opening suggestion about an NDP film club, but the movie suggestions are so good that I'm sure a few of my readers will view some of them. I remember finally watching "Goin' Down the Road" many decades after it was released. As I was living in the east end of TO, and occasionally hanging out with Cabbagetown poet Ted Plantos, the local scenes especially resonated : )
A recent Canuck film I really enjoyed was "Sleeping Giant". It's a summertime coming of age film about 3 teenage boys in the sleeping giant region near Thunder Bay. On my two recent visits to my friend Sylvia in TBay we visited the sleeping giant park, which is an awe inspiring place. The drive to TBay on the trans-Can highway reminded me of what a thinly populated country we inhabit, and how vulnerable we are to Amerikan control or - our old paranoia - invasion!
The Film Club
What if the NS NDP posted a list of films and programs they recommend we watch in the next few weeks. Every four or five days, at a regular time, the NDP could ask a prominent professor, or media personality, or writer or comedian to host a one hour webinar to field questions and comments and start a discussion about each show we have recently watched.Example in week one: We could all watch the excellent Four Feet Up (2008) by award winning filmmaker Nance Ackerman.
Four Feet Up is about a poor family in rural Nova Scotia today. It focuses on the 8 year old son, whose short life is hemmed in by trips with to the food bank with his mother, visits from prying social workers, and even police interventions. Watch it for free here.
A social justice activist, or a social work prof could lead a spirited discussion about the film, the role of social services, social assistance and discuss the pros and cons of a Guaranteed Income.
A series I suggest we all watch is Tribal here. Thanks to my friend Jim for suggesting Tribal, an eight part series about an Indigenous woman police chief from a reserve near Calgary.
She has to work with the mostly male (and racist) city police force on some serious cases involving crimes against Indigenous people.The series is well written, and plots are believable.
The NDP could ask an Indigenous activist or a panel of them to comment on the series and then open it to the home audience to phone in, or write in.
Another film that could generate discussion and even activism is 24 Days in Brooks here. It’s a 2005 documentary film about a strike at what was one of the largest meat packing plants in Canada, Lakeside Packers in Brooks, Alberta.
Though once a predominantly white prairie community, Brooks had changed. The strike was organised and supported mostly by workers of colour – often new Canadians — employed at Lakeside. Twenty years ago, the Canadian government encouraged Lakeside and other large employers in rural areas to recruit people from overseas who wanted to move to Canada. However the workers at Lakeside were not prepared to trade their civil liberties for a life of exploitation in a very tough and dangerous workplace. They struck at Lakeside – and the film details what happened. Excellent. The NDP could ask a trade unionist, or an industrial relations prof (don’t look at me!!) to introduce the film and start a discussion about unions, their value today, and what happened to workers at Brooks.
And finally, I’d recommend Goin’ Down the Road the 1970 classic by Don Shebib here. This is a film about two unemployed young men from Cape Breton who drive to Toronto
to start a very different life than what they had back home. The acting is great and I’m sure the NDP could find a community activist from Cape Breton, or a lively social historian to chat about the film and then start a conversation.
If the NDP started a Film Club – they’d be doing something wonderful, and something people across the province could appreciate and take part in. The NDP, for more than half a century, has been reticent to initiate, or even engage, in any activity outside of the electoral sphere. This was brought to light as far back as 1965 in the book A Protest Movement Becalmed by sociologist Leo Zakuta. Zakuta, a sociology professor at the University of Toronto at the time, noted that the radicalism and the socialism which had been knitted into the CCF (the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation) unravelled when the CCF was remade into the NDP.
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