Aisha’s Story will open the 2025 DOXA Documentary Festival. The film directed by Elizabeth Vibert and Chen Wang kicks off the festival with its local premiere on May 1. Aisha’s Story offers the tale of the titular matriarch who preserves her family history through the grain mill she runs in Jordan, which allows others to share a taste of her homeland. The screening marks a Vancouver homecoming for the film after it premieres at Hot Docs.
It was also announced that director Patrick Shannon’s Saints and Warriors will close the festival and bookend DOXA with films by local talents. Saints and Warriors takes audiences to Prince Rupert, British Columbia where athletes from various Indigenous communities converge for the All Native Basketball Championship. The games invite larger conversations about cultural resilience, but also about home and belonging as players who leave for Vancouver return home as visiting teams.
The world premieres announced today for DOXA include Nechako – It Will Be a River Again, directed by Lyana Patrick. The film brings Patrick back to her home of the Stellat’en First Nation to observe the fight to save the river and surrounding environment from the devastating consequences caused by a dam. King Arthur’s Knight, directed by John Bolton, reimagines the classic legend using an ensemble of artists with and without Down syndrome while employing the director’s signature blend of documentary and performance. In Have You Heard Judi Singh?, director Baljit Sangra retraces the life of the Punjabi-Black musician who graced the stage in the 1950s, but didn’t get her chance to shine in the spotlight. And Kim O’Bomsawin continues her consideration of Indigenous youths by following her award winner Ninan Auassat: We, the Children by looking at neurodiversity among young people in They Are Sacred.
Other Canadian films coming to DOXA include Jonah Malak’s Spare My Bones, Coyote; Denis Côté’s Paul; and Damian Eagle Bear’s #skoden. On the international front, DOXA offers the North American premiere of Kazuhiro Soda’s The Cats of Gokogu Shrine, which observes the clash between humans and felines in a Japanese village. Meanwhile, Ben Rivers’ experimental Bogancloch gets its local premiere as does Elizabeth Lo’s acclaimed Mistress Dispeller, while docs from Sundance include Gen_ by Gianluca Matarrese; Coexistence, My Ass! by Amber Fares; David Osit’s Predators; and Mr. Nobody Against Putin, directed by David Borenstein, which plays as the centrepiece film.
DOXA runs May 1 to 11.
