Emotions abound among Best Documentary nominees at 2021 UWPG Film Festival
Stories of heartbreak, curiosity, perseverance, and pain provide look into expansive experiences
Jason Pchajek, staff writer
It is the very nature of documentary filmmaking to be personal. Whether it’s the subject matter, peeling back the curtain on the stories of real people, or the subjects themselves, giving autobiographical accounts of what they saw, and went through, documentaries give us an oft-unfiltered look at human lives.
For the 2021 UWPG Film Festival, the nominees for Best Documentary show this brilliant spectrum of human lives.
Down to Earth
Starting off the category is Christopher Fernandes’s beautiful, surreal, and visceral film about love after death, and the process of processing grief.
With Down to Earth, Fernandes reaches right into your chest, as we follow a man tracing his experience of falling in love, losing that love, and what comes after. For many, the high of finding your soulmate is met with the crushing defeat of losing them to forces beyond your control.
Then they are left with the question of: what now?
Grief is powerful, and something most everyone will experience multiple times in their lives, but Down to Earth does not just wallow in that emotion, it instead charges forward, looking to what it means to move on, to find a new love, and see the world from a new perspective.
All set over surreal footage shot in downtown Toronto, the film is a delight.
Apnoia
From one experience of ever-lasting grief to another, with Vanessa Payri’s Apnoia.
Yet this grief is not about the loss of a loved one, and the life you could have had, it is a display of grief over who you once were, and who you could have been, before someone took that innocence and bodily security away from you.
Films about sexual assault are often difficult to watch, which is why they are perfect material for documentaries. The personal aspect to the experience lends itself perfect to cathartic expression, as victims take power back through the lens of a film camera and show the world ‘we are here’ and ‘our experiences are real.’
This is what Apnoia does so well. It is a stupendous film.
Seeing Sound
Transitioning from the dreary subject-matter of the prior two films, we have Alec Jordan’s Seeing Sound.
The lives of the blind are all too often looked at with pity, with proclamations on how difficult life must be for them. Yet, with this film we see another perspective, of those themselves, who see the world in a different way, experience life with a positivity, grace, and light that can only come from perseverance.
To lose, or never have, a sense central to what the common conception of human experience, is difficult. There is no taking that away. Yet to see the confident, care-free attitude of Jacob Way-White in this film, as he navigates life with his love of music intact, plunking away at piano keys, living a happy and fulfilled life, it is hard not to smile.
Maybe we can make the best out of our own situations too.
Treasure Hunt
It’s short and quaint, but I love it for it.
Naomi Russell’s four-minute doc on mushroom foraging doesn’t overstay its welcome but leaves you wanting more. It’s one of those films you’ll see that does just enough to get you interested but sticks around just long enough so you’ll be up until 4 am googling different mushrooms in your part of the world.
Oh, that was just me? Ok then…
Anyways! There’s something quaint and calming about the film, as we follow a young man who learned to forage for edible mushrooms in the forest. We briefly learn his process, his customers, his story, and there’s just something about the way he talks and the way he’s adopted this pastime into his day-to-day life that would be right at home on an obscure TV or YouTube channel.
We weren’t even hunting and were handed this treasure of a film.
Death and the Maiden: A Documentary
Compared to the other films in this category, Kevin McGuiness’s Death of the Maiden stands alone.
Shifting between visual styles, with animation interspliced with interview footage, clips of classic horror films, and images of classic works of art, the film traces the history of a visual and storytelling staple. The delicate balance between life and death, their interplay in symbiotic opposition, a motif that transcends time and culture.
The maiden, fair and beautiful, so full of life, assaulted by the ever present, unceasing presence of death personified.
It is a joy to watch and would be right at home within a university English or film course. So, grab some popcorn and learn about this one image, whose presence you’ve undoubtedly seen your entire life.