The Georgia Straight proudly sponsors the 2014 DOXA Justice Forum

The 2014 DOXA Documentary Film Festival takes place at various Vancouver venues from May 2 to 11. This year, films will be screened at the Vancouver Playhouse (600 Dunsmuir Street), Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour Street), Cinematheque (1131 Howe Street), and Rio Theatre (1660 East Broadway).

Along with featuring over 90 films and 78 screenings, this year’s DOXA festival is proud to present its fifth annual Justice Forum. This aim of this popular forum is to facilitate active and critical engagement, create space for dialogue, and inspire social change.

This year’s Justice Forum includes 10 films that encompass a wide range of social justice issues, from government surveillance to domestic abuse. Dennis Allen’s Crazywater, which explores substance abuse among First Nations communities, will open the forum at 2:45 p.m. on May 3 at the Cinematheque. Crazywater will be followed by Big Charity at 7 p.m. on May 3 at the Vancity Theatre. Alexander John Glustrom’s documentary looks at Charity Hospital, which, until 2005 was the U.S.’s oldest continuously-operating hospital.

On May 4 at 4:15 p.m., A Fragile Trust: Plagiarism, Power, and Jayson Blair at the New York Times will screen at the Cinematheque. This documentary by Samantha Grant focuses on plagiarism and its relation to journalistic standards. Johanna Hamilton’s 1971, which recalls a groups of eight ordinary people who plan to break into an FBI office, screens May 5 at 6:30 p.m. at the Cinematheque.

Massacred for Gold, a documentary by Jennifer Anderson and Vernon Lott that remembers the 30 Chines gold miners who were killed in Hells Canyon in 1887, screens at the Cinematheque on May 8 at 6 p.m. Three documentaries—Stanley Nelson’s Freedom Summer, Cynthia Hill’s Private Violence, and Jesper Wachtmeister’s Microtopia—will play at 11 a.m., 2:15 p.m., and 6:30 p.m., respectively, on May 10 at the Cinematheque.

The final film of DOXA’s Justice Forum will be Cesar’s Last Fast. The documentary by Richard Ray Perez and Lorena Parlee takes audiences back to summer 1988, when Cesar Chavez embarked on his longest hunger strike—for 36 straight days—at the age of 60. Chavez fasted in protest of working conditions for agricultural workers.

Tickets to DOXA screenings are $10 to $15 and available for purchased online in advance.