SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS
HotDocs Cinema
Fashion Reimagined
We are very excited to co-present #PIF22 fan favourite, Fashion Reimagined, as it returns to Toronto from June 16-30, 2023 at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema. The Tuesday, June 27th screening will be followed by a panel discussion featuring guests Sarah Remple from Fashion Revolution, Kelly Drennan, founder of Fashion Takes Action and our very own Executive Director, Katherine Bruce as moderator. Fashion designer Amy Powney of cult label Mother of Pearl is a rising star in the London fashion scene. Raised off-the-grid in rural England by activist parents, Amy has always felt uneasy about the devastating environmental impact of her industry.
Tuesday, June 27th
HotDocs 2023
LYNX MAN
We are very excited to co-present Lynx Man at the 30th anniversary Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, taking place April 27 to May 7. Celebrate 30 years of outstanding stories and the filmmakers and audiences who have shared them with us. In Lynx Man, A Finnish pensioner devoted to saving the Eurasian lynx from extinction becomes so immersed in the animals he tracks, photographs and leaves cat toys for, that he finds himself becoming one of them.
Saturday, April 29th & Friday, May 5th
TIFF Cinematheque
ALL THAT BREATHES
Mark Earth Day with this special screening, presented in partnership with TIFF CINEMATHEQUE SPECIAL SCREENINGS. Introduction by Planet in Focus Senior Programmer Lesley Johnson, followed by a virtual Q&A with filmmaker Shaunak Sen. Winner of Cannes’ top documentary prize and nominated this year for an Oscar, Shaunak Sen’s immersive and hypnotic mood piece tells two tales: that of New Delhi brothers, Nadeem and Saud, who have made it their mission against many odds to save and rehabilitate local birds of prey; and that of the man-made ecological and humanist crises we routinely bear witness to.
EARTH DAY 2023 – Saturday, April 22nd
Past Co-Presentations
Images Festival
Leaky Gardens
“Leaky Gardens” includes the festival’s second feature-length film: Of Roses [how to embody the layers of time] Fragments of a bibliography, which is visual artist Eve Tagny’s first documentary-style film. Accompanied by short films by Vanessa Dion Fletcher (Writing Landscape) and Yza Nouiga (Jardins Paradise), “Leaky Gardens” complicates the notion of the garden as a gentle refuge and reveals its colonial roots. This in-cinema screening is accompanied by an intaglio print by Vanessa Dion Fletcher located in this digital catalogue. This program is part of the suite ok to rest curated by Jaclyn Quaresma.
June 25, 2022
No.9 Gardens
The Magnitude of All Things
A night to remember at No. 9 Gardens! This unique 40-acre educational facility is Canada’s First Sustainability and Reconciliation Centre. It is a lab for research and the implementation of innovative projects and practices that lead to low carbon communities and a sustainable lifestyle. Their first outdoor screening in the No. 9 Gardens takes place this September with a screening of The Magnitude of All Things.
Chautauqua Institution
Films for Change
Chautauqua Institution launches a partnership with the Toronto-based Planet in Focus International Environmental Film Festival as the Cinema presents a double “Films for Change” feature. The morning begins with “What About Our Future?” followed by Jennifer Abbott’s “The Magnitude of All Things,” an 86-minute documentary of the emotional and psychological dimensions of climate change. The films share stories from the frontlines of climate change, and draws parallels between the experiences of grief — both personal and planetary. Director of Chautauqua Climate Change Initiative Mark Wenzler will deliver remarks at the Cinema for this morning’s screenings.
August 6, 2021
Toronto Bird Celebration
Rare Bird Alert
In partnership with CBC Gem, Planet in Focus is pleased to co-present this event with Birds Canada. Punk rock birder Paul Riss faced social rejection as a teenager because of his love of painting birds. Today, he’s a successful creative director living in Hamilton and somewhat of a legend on the Ontario birding scene. With the Latin names of over 240 birds tattooed on his body, his personal mission is to change the stereotype of birdwatchers as old men and women in Tilley hats, shuffling along a country trail, binoculars at the ready. Don’t miss the LIVE Q&A by pre-registering for the link.
Inside Out
Genderation
Genderation tracks the journey of revolutionary queer people and the world in flux around them. In 1999, Monika Treut made one of the first documentaries—Gendernauts—about trans people living in San Francisco. Twenty years later, Monika reunites with some of the film’s subjects to see how their lives have evolved in the intervening years. What Treut discovers is that the genderqueer community of bygone days has been replaced. San Francisco has plunged into gentrification and has neglected its queer elders, despite the city’s queer-friendly appearance.
May 27 – June 6, 2021
Images Festival:
cut lines
The cut lines program features I thought I would have climbed more mountains by now by Bridget Reweti, Ile de France by Shiraz Bayjoo, and Soot Breath by Denise Ferreira da Silva & Arjuna Neuman. The program will screen on Saturday, May 22nd at 8:30 PM EDT with a Q & A to follow with the artists. Available in North America only.
Hot Docs International Film Festival
Hell or Clean Water
Newfoundland diver Shawn Bath has devoted himself to cleaning up the ocean floor one rotting tire at a time. He’s already removed 15,000 pounds of garbage single-handedly. Through decades of commercial fishing and tourism, these Atlantic harbours became trash receptacles treated with an out-of-sight, out-of-mind attitude. This inspiring story highlights the enormity of human-caused environmental damage and the power of an individual’s determination to make the world a better place.
Toronto Youth Shorts
Sins of Our Past
The Social Justice Shorts Program
Featuring a mix of documentaries, animation, and experimental work, these films explore the effects of our unsustainable consumerism and how humanity’s destructive impact has negatively changed our environment and society at large. Pictured above is Biskawbiyung: The Return – A documentary directed by Sage Petahtegoose and produced by Kate Ellis
National Canadian Film Day:
Anthropocene
In honour of Earth Day and National Canadian Film Day, Planet in Focus will be presenting Anthropocene: The Human Apoch in partnership with the TIFF and Reel Canada.
In 2016, scientists declared that the Earth has entered a new geological era, one that is entirely the consequence of humanity’s abuse of the planet. Photographer Edward Burtynsky and filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier conclude their award-winning trilogy with an urgent message to all the citizens of the world to see the consequences of our actions, before it’s too late.
Wednesday, April 22
The Planet in Focus
Summer Party
Join us for drinks, raffle prizes and performances from Shawnee and Long Branch on Thursday, July 11, 2019, in honour of the 20th anniversary of Canada’s largest environmental film festival.
Thursday, July 11 | 7:00PM
Revival Bar, 783 College St., Toronto | $50
Toronto Palestine Film Festival:
Wild Relatives
Directed by Saburo Hasegawa
Ryuichi Hirokawa is a human being first, a photojournalist second. He considers journalism the right to know, and relief work the right to live—two things that have informed his character and career. Recently retired from Days Japan magazine as editor-in-chief, the septuagenarian goes back into the field and revisits the sites and stories of his past. He returns to Israel and Palestine, and remembers a Lebanese refugee camp massacre—images burned into his brain that sent shockwaves around the world. Then he travels back to Chernobyl, where he was the first Western journalist allowed to enter the no-go zone after the nuclear disaster. But all roads lead home, where his focus now rests on fundraising in the wake of Fukushima.
FRI, SEPT 21 9:00PM TBLB C2
City of Toronto & Great Gulf present:
Doors Open Festival
A 90-minute curation of family favourites from Planet in Focus Environmental Film Festival. These films deal with the changing Toronto environment, exploring lakes and illuminating urban landscapes. Local wildlife are represented in “Bird City Lights” and “Fix and Release,” which showcase documentaries as a catalyst for conservation. Explore Indigenous Ontario’s cottage country in “Lovesick” and ancient agriculture in “The Three Sisters Community Garden”. Light-hearted shorts will be screened including “FIXED!” which chronicles Toronto’s volunteer-run Repair Café, where beloved items are given a new lease on life.
Where: Kingsway Community Life Centre, 186 Spadina Ave. Toronto, ON M5T 3B2
When: May 26 10am-5pm & May 27 1-5pm