With the release of the 2012 federal budget one month behind us you’ve likely captured the gist of the budget – cuts to the CBC and none to the Canada Council for the Arts. Here’s a full breakdown of how the cuts (and non cuts) affect arts and culture in Canada over the next three years, including an amalgamation of quotes and information from press releases and articles from cultural organizations over the last month. While some people indicated with a mix of relief and skepticism that the cuts were not as deep as they had anticipated, others called the cuts “draconian”.
The Overview
The budget saw no cuts to national museums, local museums or galleries, direct funding for artists, or Canada Council for the Arts. However Canadian Heritage will experience significant cuts resulting in a 10% (or $115 million) cut to the CBC, $9.6 million in cuts to Libraries and Archives of Canada, a $10.6 million cut to Telefilm Canada, and a $6.7 million cut to the National Film Board. The Heritage department itself will see 7.6% ($46.2 million) in cuts.
Twelve women. Twelve stories of political courage. Twelve portraits. The Roots to Resistance project is spreading word about the groundbreaking work of twelve women who have dedicated their lives to fighting for social justice.
Denise Beaudet is the artist behind the portraits. Postcards of these images and small posters are available free for the asking and are being sent around the world. The goal of the project is to inspire by sharing these women’s heroic struggles against corruption, exploitation and oppression.
The 19th edition of North America’s largest documentary showcase and one of the world’s largest film festivals begins this week, running from April 26 to May 6 in Toronto. With Charlotte Cook replacing Sean Farnel as head programmer, new directions (fewer films, more focus is the official line), new initiatives (Hot Docs’s very own Kickstarter, Doc Ignite), new sponsors (Nescafé, Dundee Wealth and Sun Life Financial, to name a few of the more spurious corporate inductees) and a gorgeously renovated, and reinvigorated, venue (The Bloor / Hot Docs Cinema), Canada’s non-fiction champ continues their tradition of perennial renewal, improvement and growth.
It’s all very promising and exciting and I’m sure this year will signal another hit in the festival’s two decade history. So to get things warmed up, I thought I’d take a look at the programming, which promises a mixed bag of goodies, baddies and proverbial head-scratchers.
[Forward: When I saw that Arsenal Pulp Press had these two books on hand I immediately thought of Tyler. A thoughtful writer, Tyler had the pleasure of meeting Thomas Waugh last summer, and I knew he'd have an interesting perspective on both Out/Lines and Lust Unearthed. He certainly delivered. The following article is definitely worth a read to the end. - Amanda McCuaig, Art Threat Contributing Editor.]
In the summer of 2011, I had the good fortune of working with the organizing team behind We Demand: History/Sex/Activism, a three-day conference exploring the history of gender and sex activism in Canada. Held in the heart of Vancouver’s gay village, the event was the first of its kind since the early 1990s and marked the 40th anniversary of the 1971 We Demand protest, the first major gay and lesbian rights rally to advance on Parliament Hill.
It was a remarkable weekend. A new generation of young scholars, working firmly within (or in response to) the Queer Theory critical oeuvre, confidently shared their research with established academics and Liberation-era activists alike, many of whom had been on Parliament Hill forty years earlier, rallying against the Canadian government’s repressive stance on queer sexualities. It was living memory in dialogue with written history; reflection mingled with vision.
NSCAD's modern new Port campus overlooks Halifax harbour. Photo by Rory Hyde.
Celebrating its 125th anniversary next year, The Nova Scotia College of Art and Design is the oldest of Canada’s four dedicated art universities. With slightly over 1000 full time students and spread across three campuses in downtown Halifax, NSCAD is widely recognized as a key catalyst for the Atlantic city’s cultural community. Over the past two decades, NSCAD’s financial situation has deteriorated dramatically, thanks to a number of factors. Today it is roughly $20-million in debt with a $2.4-million deficit.
Voina Wanted unfurled on Charles Bridge, Prague. Photo: Yana Sarna.
For the last year Vorotnikov and Nikolaev have been waging a legal battle with Russian authorities for their freedom. While these challenges facing Voina havebeenwelldocumented on Art Threat, Free Voina, and other alternative media sources, another battle is being fought: against state, art world, and dominant media attempts to contain Voina’s message.
Much of the coverage of Voina is focused on their spectacular, shock art identity. True, in Russia, it is an innovation, and their work offers strong fodder for gossip, revolutionary solidarity, and establishment outrage. In short, there is a risk that Voina’s revolutionary movement is turned into frozen images.
To describe the topic of Nordic documentary cinema as unexplored would be an understatement. Historical and contemporary writing on non-fiction film production, dissemination and reception in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden is as rare as warm bodies in the icy reaches of those fabled northernmost countries. Writing, especially in English, on the larger topic of Nordic cinema is scant with the exception of Sweden. Among discerning film scholars and enthusiasts it is Sweden’s cinematic yield that has garnered the lion’s share of critical attention among all the Nordic nations, with many articles and volumes dedicated to the stoic cinemascapes of Bergman, Sjöström and other internationally celebrated Swedish auteurs.
But even the introductory reader Swedish Film expeditiously sums up one hundred years of documentary history in four stilted pages. I point this out not to berate the editors of Swedish Film, but to draw attention to the sad fact that documentary is either grossly absent or punitively present as a nit-picky (or niggly in Old Norse) afterthought, dusty footnote or perfunctory platitude.
An upturned tank sits outside of the American Pavillion at the Venice Biennale. Photo: Terry Fairman.
To talk of water and Venice might seem a trifle redundant, and of death in Venice an over-worked cliche. Neither, in fact, is true where this year’s Venice Bienniale is concerned. Water is the political motif for a significant number of works and death stalks the corridors of the Arsenale and looms large in the pavilions of the Giardini, whilst the ghosts of Cy Twombly and Lucian Freud haunt the many collateral exhibitions that occupy churches and palazzos lining Venice’s myriad canals.
When the audience at the New York Angelika Theater burst into applause for the third time during Djo Tunda Wa Munga’s film “Viva Riva!” it underscored that the Congolese production was a big success.
The movie premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, and opened in New York earlier this month. The film also took home six trophies at the 2011 African Movie Awards, including best film and best director.
A new report challenges claims made by Canada’s largest telecommunication companies in recent disputes over Internet billing and governance. Casting An Open Net: A Leading-Edge Approach to Canada’s Digital Future, offers an at times scathing critique of telecom positions on Internet congestion, BiTorrent use, billing strategies and throttling and backs its criticisms with topnotch research and analysis.
The report is published by OpenMedia.ca (in the interests of disclosure, I sit on the board of OpenMedia, a Canadian non-profit media advocacy group, altho’ others authored the report), and also takes a look at what is happening internationally in Japan, Sweden, UK, United States, Australia and Chile demonstrating a variety of strategies in other jurisdictions that protect Internet openness without stifling innovation or economic growth.
It is a readable, well researched and welcome contribution to this all-important debate. What follows are some of the highlights.
Contributors
Stefan Christoff, Colin Horgan, Julia Pyper
Michelle Siobhan Reid, Valerie Cardinal, Race Capet
Laurence Miall, Terry Fairman, Tyler Morgenstern
