Episode 310: DOXA directors Rachel Epstein and Cindy Mochizuki

In this DOXA Documentary Film Festival double-header, Sabrina Rani Furminger speaks with two filmmakers whose films are featured in the 2024 edition of the popular fest. Up first is Rachel Epstein, the filmmaker behind The Anarchist Lunch. The film is the story of a lunch – or rather, 35 years of lunches enjoyed each week by a group of ardent leftists who congregated in a Vancouver Chinese restaurant to discuss the important topics of the moment. Among them is Rachel’s father, Norman. The Anarchist Lunch follows these revolutionaries over a period of several years, through the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and during the unfolding of resonant global events. As some members struggle with personal health issues, Rachel’s film takes on new layers to explore the meanings of activism, camaraderie, and growing old. Next up (at timecode 26:13) is Cindy Mochizuki, whose film Between Pictures: The Lens of Tamio Wakayama re-introduces viewers to the famed Vancouver photographer and activist who passed away in 2018. Tamio spent several years of his childhood in an internment camp, after being held with thousands of other forcibly displaced Japanese Canadians in cruel and dehumanizing conditions at Hastings Park – and after the internment ended in 1946, Tamio and his family moved to Chatham, Ontario, once the terminus for the Underground Railroad. And that remarkable beginning is only just that: the beginning of Tamio’s remarkable life as a photographer and activist. In these two fascinating conversations, the documentarians discuss legacy, activism, and the joys and challenges of fact-based filmmaking. Episode sponsor: Fish Flight Entertainment