Rated Y for Youth

Film still showing a woman sipping a drink in red light, dimly lit. White text within a white box reads Rated Y For Youth. Film still from Coming Around, 2023

Rated Y for Youth is back for its 14th edition! Curated with the intention of facilitating media literacy through thought-provoking documentaries, this programme offers films for high school students and youth, providing them with an opportunity to foster an appreciation for cinema while engaging in open dialogues on a broad range of social issues. Each Rated Y for Youth film will include a complementary Study Guide to support and enrich classroom conversations, as well as a pre-recorded and/or live discussion with filmmakers and community members.

To book your Rated Y for Youth screening, please email Programming Coordinator jas calcitas (jas@doxafestival.ca) or Connexions Program + Engagement Coordinator Tristin Greyeyes (tristin@doxafestival.ca).

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Films in this program:

Coming Around
Sandra Itäinen, USA, 2023, 75 mins

Twenty-eight-year-old Eman is many things: a scholar, an artist, a Palestinian-Egyptian. She's also a queer Muslim woman, with a devoutly religious psychiatrist mother to whom she struggles to come out. Sandra Itäinen's Coming Around is an intimate portrait of Eman's process, documenting the tension between appeasement and autonomy as Eman makes decisions that fundamentally alter the course of her relationships, both with herself and the people she loves.

Preceded by the short film, Muanapoto. For screening times, click here.

Kaatohkitopii: The Horse He Never Rode
Trevor Solway, Siksika, Alberta, 2022, 65 mins

Weaving through intergenerational memory, Trevor Solway's film is a visual chronicling of his Blackfoot family's history, at the centre of which is his grandfather Sonny, a life-long rancher. Through family interviews, archival footage and reenactments, Trevor explores the defining moments of Grandpa Sonny's life—residential school, horsemanship, love—that have, in turn, come to define Trevor.

For screening times, click here.

King Coal
Elaine McMillion Sheldon, USA, 2022, 79 mins

In Central Appalachia, the decline of coal as an industry haunts the region and its people. They cling to something that no longer represents livelihood but remains essential to their way of life. Viewed through the dreamlike perspective of a young girl, King Coal is a surreal and immersive exploration of alternative futures for a community on the cusp of change.

For screening times, click here.

Muanapoto
Chriss Itoua, France, 2022, 29 mins

In Lingala, muanapoto means "child of France"—a term used to describe the cultural gap between Congolese parents and children born on separate continent. As he considers how to come out to his Congolese mother, Chriss Itoua turns the filmmaking process into a dialogue, rooted in respect, between her heritage and his identity.

This film will precede the feature film, Coming Around. For screening times, click here.

We Will Not Fade Away
Alisa Kovalenko, Ukraine/Poland/France, 2023, 100 mins

Donbas, Ukraine, 2019. As shells strike the region bordering Russia, five teenagers attempt to live lives of normalcy—creating music, taking photographs and fixing motorbikes. When an opportunity to join an expedition to Mount Everest emerges, all five take the leap, yearning to escape reality. Alisa Kovalenko's tenacious film portrays a cynical yet hopeful generation that, as of this writing, faces a fully fledged war.

For screening times, click here.

When We Fight
Yael Bridge and Yoni Golijov, USA, 2022, 30 mins

In the second largest school district in the United States, a vote to go on strike rallies the support of 98 percent of teachers. When We Fight is a rousing testament to the collective action of teachers, students and parents, from the picket line to the bargaining table.

For screening times, click here.