Starting ‘reel’ change through film

Rylie Perry, Arts Editor 

Conversation starts when issues are brought to the big screen.

For 21 years, the Calgary Justice Film Festival (CJFF) has been a motivator behind regional change, putting discussions about social reform back in Calgary’s hands.

The non-profit organisation brings local, national and international justice-focused films to 24 free screenings across three days, covering justice issues from food scarcity to harm reduction.

Since 2024, CJFF has made The Confluence Historic Site its permanent home, with this year’s iteration set to return from Nov. 5 to 7.

Rowan Fisher, executive director of CJFF, explains that the festival’s move to The Confluence marked a new chapter for the organisation, allowing the festival to expand into a significant cultural landmark in Alberta.

However, despite the new and improved backdrop, the festival’s mission statement has not wavered.

“Our mission is to use film as a catalyst for change,” says Fisher. “We want to activate and motivate and move people in Calgary to connect with nonprofit organisations, to donate money, to volunteer, to become a part of their teams.”

Fisher adds that with change comes community conversation that, for CJFF, means rooting national and international films back into regional contexts and the issues that Calgarians feel are most pervasive in their communities. This is where CJFF’s programming comes in.

“We want to include people with lived experience [in the conversation], academics who study waves of food scarcity in Alberta and in Calgary, people who work front line at the Calgary Drop-In Centre or the Mustard Seed,” she explains. “We try now to take the topic of the film, no matter where it’s from, and bring it home to us here in Calgary.”

The festival’s move to The Confluence also impacted programming beyond expansion and screening capacity. Now, CJFF celebrates Indigenous perspectives in Alberta through their opening ceremony.

“When you look at justice issues in Alberta and the incredible impact justice policy has on Indigenous sovereignty, on environment, on community, on families, it made sense to have our opening night be standardised as Indigenous Lens Night,” explains Fisher.

Fisher adds that while CJFF is not an Indigenous-focused festival, it recognises the impact of Canadian policies and laws on Indigenous people.

“Policy and law in Canada is unbalanced in the sense that it not only has deliberately targeted Indigenous populations in Canada and communities in Canada through time and in history, it also continues to do so,” she says. “So modernising the perspective is something that we’re really looking at.”

This is the lens through which CJFF partners with their Indigenous supporters, including community leader and ceremony and film host Steven Crowchild, VP of Siksika Nation High School and film host Jeff Horvath, fancy dancers Kerri Crowchild and Kyle Young Pine and more.

When asked whether there are any particular justice issues she believes audiences should pay more attention to this year, Fisher points to the overwhelming volume of discourse.

“There are so many concerns in Calgary at the moment—there are so many people who are concerned about what is happening in Alberta and in Canada and around the world, and so bringing everyone together to use film as sort of the catalyst for conversation, which is then the catalyst for action and the questions: What can I do, and how can I help?”

These are the questions that have shaped CJFF to this point, including festival programming beyond film.

This year, attendees can engage in performance spaces within the venue, with local painters, textile artists, photographers and more exhibiting throughout The Confluence. This includes the Peace Market, a pop-up community of non-profits, non-governmental organisations, and local artisans sharing art and information about their organisations.

Whether it’s listening to a poet speaking on social justice issues or seeing a film that adopts a new perspective on familiar issues, Fisher believes the festival is a learning experience that is ultimately “a wrap-around approach to how to create change.”

And according to Fisher, the only requirement for attending CJFF is to bring curiosity in your back pocket.

“We create a gentle, safe space for conversation and to ask questions,” she says. “I’d really like to see who would come to challenge their own ideas, to learn something new, or just really to see a really great performer or a piece of art.”