January 6, 2023 – Vancouver – National Film Board of Canada

Vancouver filmmaker lori lozinski’s short doc A Motorcycle Saved My Life will make its Vancouver Island premiere at the 2023 Victoria Film Festival, February 3 to 12.

Produced in Vancouver by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), this 12-minute documentary will be joined by three feature-length NFB co-productions: Brian D. Johnson’s The Colour of Ink (Sphinx Productions/NFB), Nisha Pahuja’s To Kill a Tiger (Notice Pictures/NFB) and Patricio Henriquez and Luc Côté’s Waiting for Raif (Macumba Média/NFB).

Short doc

A Motorcycle Saved My Life by lori lozinski (12 min)
Produced by Teri Snelgrove for the BC and Yukon Studio in Vancouver
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/a-motorcycle-saved-my-life

• In A Motorcycle Saved My Life, the open road presents a point of departure for director lori lozinski to process deep-seated grief, as she bikes through British Columbia and into Northern Alberta’s vast, open spaces. Revisiting the formative experiences that drove her ambition, lozinski examines the influence of her parents in the present light of day.
• An award-winning Vancouver-based filmmaker and the president of Violator Films, lori lozinski is recognized for producing socially conscious, character-driven stories with female creatives. She recently co-produced Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers’ award-winning feature doc Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy with the NFB.

Feature-length documentaries

The Colour of Ink by Brian D. Johnson (105 min)
Produced by Brian D. Johnson for Sphinx Productions; Sherien Barsoum, Lea Marin and Kate Vollum for the NFB
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/the-colour-of-ink

• Working with ingredients foraged in the wild—weeds, berries, bark, flowers, rocks, rust—Toronto inkmaker Jason Logan makes ink from just about anything. Jason sends custom-made inks to an eclectic range of artists around the world, from a New Yorker cartoonist to a Japanese calligrapher.
• Winner of the Jury Award for Best Documentary at the Calgary Underground Film Festival.
• Brian D. Johnson is a Canadian writer, filmmaker and cultural commentator. He is best known for his three decades as film critic and senior arts writer at Maclean’s magazine, where he remains a Contributing Editor. In 2015 he produced and directed Al Purdy Was Here, a documentary feature about the legendary Canadian poet, which premiered at TIFF and was runner-up for the TIFF Grolsch People’s Choice Documentary Award.

To Kill a Tiger by Nisha Pahuja (125 min)
Produced by Cornelia Principe and Nisha Pahuja for Notice Pictures, and David Oppenheim for the NFB
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/to-kill-a-tiger

• On the night of a family wedding in a village in India, Ranjit’s 13-year-old daughter is dragged into the woods and raped by three men. Ranjit takes on the fight of his life when he demands the accused be brought to justice. With tremendous access to all facets of the story, To Kill a Tiger charts the emotional journey of an ordinary man thrown into extraordinary circumstances—a father whose love for his daughter forces a social reckoning that will reverberate for years to come.
• Winner of the Amplify Voices Award for Best Canadian Feature Film at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Inspiring Voices and Perspectives Feature Film Award at the Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival.
• Nisha Pahuja is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker based in Toronto and Bombay, whose credits include Diamond Road (2007 Gemini Award for Best Documentary Series) and The World Before Her (2012; Best Documentary, Tribeca; Best Canadian Documentary, Hot Docs; Canada’s Top Ten).

Waiting for Raif by Patricio Henriquez and Luc Côté (150 min)
Co-produced by Luc Côté and Patricio Henriquez for Macumba Média, and Colette Loumède for the NFB
Presented at the Victoria Film Festival by Tournée Québec Cinéma
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/waiting-for-raif

• Filmed over a period of eight years, Waiting for Raif tells the tragic tale of a family torn apart by the Saudi monarchy’s intransigence, as it follows Ensaf Haidar’s inspiring battle to free her husband, prisoner of conscience Raif Badawi. The documentary offers a privileged and moving look at the personal and political implications of the affair, providing an inside view of the challenges faced by a young refugee mother of three, both in her adopted home of Quebec and on the global stage.
• Born and raised in Chile, Patricio Henriquez moved to Montreal following the overthrow of the Allende government. After creating a number of news reports for Quebec television, in 1996 he co-founded the production house Macumba International, through which he’s directed a dozen political and social documentaries, including Under the Hood: A Voyage into the World of Torture and Uyghurs: Prisoners of the Absurd. These films have won more than 70 awards around the world.
• Since age 14, Luc Côté has been directing and producing social-issue documentaries that capture the diversity of human experience. A co-founder of Adobe Productions, he’s won many awards for his work over the years, including the IDFA Special Jury Prize for his first collaboration with Patricio Henriquez, You Don’t Like the Truth: 4 Days Inside Guantanamo.

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French version here | Version française ici.