A discussion on the intersection of documentary filmmaking, grassroots screening and social justice
activism in order to understand how filmmakers and activists can work together to contribute to the
advancement of progressive social movements and use documentaries as tools for social change,
platforms for political transformation and bridges for community building.
Ezra Winton (Canada), co-founder and director of programming of Cinema Politica
Ezra holds a PhD in Communication Studies from Carleton University. His dissertation looks at the
cultural politics of documentary as seen through the lens of Toronto’s Hot Docs film festival. Ezra
is a co-founder and Director of Programming of Cinema Politica, the world’s largest grassroots
documentary screening network, and is a contributing editor at POV Magazine and Art Threat. He
has sat on several film festival juries and his essay on radical versus liberal documentaries was
recently selected as one of the "Best Canadian Essays of 2014". He writes on and teaches
documentary and is currently conducting research for a feature-length documentary entitled A Sense
of Place.
Svetla Turnin (Canada), co-founder and Executive Director of Cinema Politica
In 2013 she co-edited the book Screening Truth to Power: A Reader on Documentary Activism, has
an upcoming chapter in a book on Film Festivals and Activism as well as an article on women in
documentary for POV Magazine (Canada). Most recently Svetla has been giving workshops and
talks on the politics of festival programming, documentary and activism at international festivals
and conferences such as Festival du Nouveau Cinema 2014 (Montreal, Canada), the Visible
Evidence 21 documentary conference (New Delhi, India) and the launch of the Radical Film
Network (Birmingham, UK) in February 2015. While not watching hundreds of docs or travelling
the festival circuit, her academic research work spans memory and landscape theory, critical
cultural studies, alternative media, semiotics and the photographic image.
