Anyox
A former mining town in remote northwest British Columbia, Anyox is now marked by mountainous slag piles accumulated as a byproduct of the early 20th century copper smelting process. Anyox tracks the daily work of the town’s two sole residents, who organise and salvage value out of this seemingly endless mass of industrial waste. Concurrently, the film unfolds a complex labour history and reveals the vestiges of immense environmental degradation produced by the company town model. Anyox explores a history of labour press dissemination, activism and the severe reaction from industry and government. Interlacing past and present, Anyox combines large format cinematography of the contemporary landscape with a study of the archival record, considering the aesthetics it carries, as well as how it reveals and obscures narratives.
"a uniquely immersive watch...Hypnotic in its eerie solemnity, Jessica Johnson and Ryan Ermacora’s documentary connects these images of present-day ruins with Anyox’s sordid past, in which labour exploitation was inflicted in the name of commerce." - Guardian
Anyox
An epic, intimate documentary about one of the most important missions ever carried out in the depths of the Amazon rainforest. Bruno Pereira leads the mission to establish first contact with an isolated group of Korubo indigenous people, and broker a reunion with family members they were separated from years before. Bruno would later be murdered in the same region alongside Dom Philips, whilst trying to protect the land and rights of indigenous people, and this film is a valuable insight into his work.
"Extending far beyond the conventions of pure ethnographic cinema...a wondrous record of contact with a society that has lived far from the reaches of modern life, and a bleak reminder of the voraciousness of our world." - Sheffield Doc Fest
Signs of War
Who can see a war coming? It started with fireworks in the Crimean sky, a strike on a civilian plane with 298 people on board over the fields of Donetsk, the onslaught on the city of Kyiv by Russian soldiers and bombs. Millions of local residents are trying to flee from Ukraine, while thousands of foreign journalists are trying to get in. One of them was there for it all.
" candid and insightful testimony brings a palpable intimacy that is often lost in journalistic accounts. Here is the march of war, seen up close and personal." - Guardian
A Long Journey Home
A family of three generations lives in a 120-square-meter home. The division of the space articulates five people’s daily lives, which also throws them into different worlds. They talked about the past and probed for a future. Yet, a crack keeps growing with a repeated pattern full of happiness and grief.
"a relational, temporal and cinematographic journey....Recent Chinese history is implicitly outlined, the rapid growth of the 1990s having left a mark on society as a whole. A Long Journey Home is a brilliant quest for emancipation, seeking a place among one's own people." - Visions du Reel, **Winner** Jury Prize in the Burning Lights Competition
How to Save a Dead Friend
Marusya and Kimi are inseparable lovers coming-of-age as Russia’s authoritarian dreams take hold. Turning Marusya’s camera on themselves, the two capture the euphoric anxiety of their youth, burning the candle at both ends -- but as one light burns brighter, the other may be extinguished forever. A message from a silenced generation.
"a truly exceptional film. Marusya Syroechkovskaya’s first-person tale of punk love in Putin’s Russia shines an urgent spotlight on a forsaken generation condemned to a seemingly endless cycle of drug addiction, mental health crisis, and suicide by the repressive structures of the regime." - DOC NYC