Metro Vancouver’s Premier Social Justice Film Festival
Igniting Dialogue, Inspiring Action
KDocsFF stands at the forefront of documentary activism, shining a light on untold stories that challenge perceptions and provoke dialogue. Our festival is a beacon for filmmakers and advocates who seek to explore and illuminate the truths of our time. With every frame and narrative, we commit to breaking barriers and opening minds. Our curated selection of documentaries invites you to witness the power of real-world storytelling. It’s a cinematic journey that celebrates the relentless spirit of activism and its capacity to inspire societal transformation.
At the heart of KDocsFF is a commitment to illuminate, challenge, and inspire. Our mission taps into the power of documentary film and activism, sparking community dialogue and critical thought.
We bring to the screen a kaleidoscope of narratives, each documentary providing a unique perspective that challenges the norm and provokes deep reflection. By presenting these diverse stories, KDocsFF fosters an environment ripe for idea exchange, awareness building, and meaningful change. Join our journey of exploration and empowerment as we navigate and respond to the complexities of our world, championing individual and collective voices through film.
Our diverse programs reach beyond the screen, seeding ideas that grow into actions and innovations. As each stream flows into the next, they collectively nourish a culture of advocacy, nurturing the growth of a community ready to challenge the status quo. Step into a space where your passion for justice can find its voice and your desire for impact meets opportunity:
All films include a Keynote Address and Panel Discussion/Q&A (Exception: Opening Night’s Julia Scotti: Funny That Way, which includes a Standup Performance by Julia Scotti).
Territorial Acknowledgement
We at Kwantlen Polytechnic University respectfully acknowledge that we live, work and study in a region that overlaps with the unceded traditional and ancestral First Nations territories of the Musqueam, Katzie, Semiahmoo, Tsawwassen, Qayqayt, and Kwikwetlem; and with the lands of the Kwantlen First Nation, which gifted its name to this university. In the cause of reconciliation, we recognize our commitment to address and reduce ongoing systemic colonialism, oppression and racism that Indigenous Peoples continue to experience.
Signature Presenting Partner
Festival Partner
Diamond Partner
Gold Partners
Silver Partner
Bronze Partners
Premier Supporters
Media Partners
Pricing
Films
Julia Scotti: Funny That Way & Standup Comedy Special Performance + Reception
Join us for KDocsFF 2024's opening night reception. With breathtaking emotional honesty, this tender, funny, and powerful portrait of transgender comedian Julia Scotti explores the unrelenting courage and humour it takes to be Julia.
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Is There Anybody Out There? + Neurodivergent
Is There Anybody Out There? follows filmmaker Ella Glendining. Born with a disability so rare that no reliable statistics for it exist, she wonders if there is anyone who can share the experience of living in a body like hers. Neurodivergent is a profoundly personal mixed media experience inside the ADHD mind, follows the filmmaker’s journey as she discovers her ADHD diagnosis during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Your Fat Friend
Aubrey’s rise from anonymous blogger to New York Times best-selling author and co-host of the podcast Maintenance Phase and charts the complexities of finding a place in the world when you don’t quite fit in.
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Delikado
Palawan appears to be an idyllic tropical island. Its powder-white beaches and lush forests have made it one of Asia’s hottest new tourist destinations. But for a tiny network of environmental crusaders and vigilantes trying to protect its spectacular natural resources, it is more akin to a battlefield.
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Rails, Jails & Trolleys
This groundbreaking documentary captures the electric ethos of the Indian farmers’ protest that received international attention and the resounding response by Canadians to the movement.
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To Kill a Tiger
Ranjit battles guilt, community intimidation, a mounting financial burden, and an uninterested police force, all while attempting to support his daughter through the trauma of her attack and its aftermath.
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The Klabona Keepers + ReWilding the Classroom
The Klabona Keepers is fierce account of the Tahltan Nation’s struggle to protect the Klabona Sacred Headwaters, an important natural habitat in northwest British Columbia, from commercial mining. ReWilding the Classroom educates viewers about the Youth Leadership in Sustainability initiative (YLS), a one-semester program that integrates curricular activities with the environment.
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Powerlands
Ivey-Camille Manybeads Tso, a young Navajo filmmaker, investigates the displacement of Indigenous people and the devastation of the environment caused by the same chemical companies that have exploited the land where she was born.
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Twice Colonized + Who She Is
In Twice Colonized, Aaju Peter is a renowned Greenlandic Inuit lawyer and activist who defends the human rights of Indigenous peoples of the Arctic and a fierce protector of her ancestral lands. Who She Is tells the story of four individual women caught in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) epidemic.
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Kokomo City
Filmmaker D. Smith passes the mic to four Black transgender sex workers in Atlanta and New York City—Daniella Carter, Koko Da Doll, Liyah Mitchell, and Dominique Silver—who unapologetically break down the walls of their profession.
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Someone Lives Here
Throughout the COVID pandemic, Toronto has seen a catastrophic increase in homelessness. Sick of seeing his city unable to care for its unhoused people, Khaleel Seivwright quit his job as a full-time carpenter and dedicated himself to building insulated shelters--called 'tiny shelters.'
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Big Fight in Little Chinatown
Set against the backdrop of the COVID pandemic and an unprecedented rise in anti-Asian racism, the documentary takes us into the lives of residents, businesses, and community organizers whose neighborhoods are facing active erasure.
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Manufacturing the Threat
Shining a light into the murky world of police infiltration, incitement, and agent provocateurs, Manufacturing The Threat shows how Canada’s policing and national security agencies, granted additional powers after 9/11, routinely break laws with little to no accountability or oversight.
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The Price of Truth + Section 16 + Reception
The Price of Truth is the extraordinary story of a man who risks everything, to preserve freedom of speech in Russia. In Section 16, women journalists in South Africa who expose wrongdoing by those in power are often forced to endure deeply personal, frightening attacks on social media, as the four leading reporters interviewed disclose. KDocsFF 2024's closing reception.
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