This year signifies a fresh start for the McGill division. Equipped with a new and enthusiastic team, Cinema Politica McGill is determined to be bigger and better than ever before – a “revival,” according to the organizers. This year, in addition to weekly screenings, Cinema Politica McGill will be co-hosting a series of events with, for example, Amnesty International, Oxfam, and the McGill chapter of Journalists for Human Rights. The team has also been in talks with the Cinema Politica network: they are hoping to invite directors to speak about their work in person.

The first screening of the year was 5 Broken Cameras (2011), a compelling documentary about Palestinian non-violent resistance in the West Bank. The Cinema Politica McGill team chose this documentary specifically due to its emotive nature: they wanted to cover a current, relatable issue. “Everyone ought to know what’s happening, we hear a lot but not from this point of view. It’s an untouched subject,” explained the organizers. They hoped that the topic would attract a large audience. Armed with free popcorn and a musical performance (emphasized in the social media advertising the screening), Cinema Politica McGill hoped to draw in a wider audience.

The documentary chosen for this purpose was 5 Broken Cameras, the riveting first-hand account following the life of Emad Burnat, a farmer-turned-filmmaker residing with his family in the town of Bil’in. The film focuses heavily on Burnat’s children and their experiences growing up in the unstable, often violent environment of the West Bank. As the Israeli army is fencing in the town of Bil’in, Burnat is constantly filming. His cameras are destroyed by violent reactions as he films his local community’s resistance, framed within the wider Palestinian resistance.

Filmed as a sort of a day-to-day video diary, 5 Broken Cameras mixes footage with conversation. The documentary is transparent in its subjectivity – it is a straightforward portrayal of real life events from one man’s perspective, as they took place.

In one scene, Burnat is in an accident and has to go to Tel Aviv to access the more advanced medical technology of an Isreali hospital, and because he’s not Israeli he gets slapped with a huge hospital bill. Since he was not injured through the Palestinian resistance, the Palestinian authorities refuse him financial help. This tension within the resistance is something Burnat only subtly hints at.

Burnat’s subjective point of view is both the greatest strength and greatest weakness of 5 Broken Cameras. It is through emotion that Burnat works as a filmmaker, and his whole documentary hinges on viewers’ investment in the people on screen. Still, however poignant, 5 Broken Cameras remains a single piece in the conversation.

5 Broken Cameras has been recognized in the wider arts community as well: In 2013 it won the World Cinema Directing award at Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Academy Awards this year. The documentary was also recognized and praised widely throughout Israel and won Best Documentary Film at the Jerusalem Film Festival in 2012.

Following the screening, the team members of Cinema Politica McGill facilitated a discussion, which allowed the audience to voice their opinions and feelings. The discussion focused on theories and facts related to the Palestinian resistance rather than a personal response to the documentary. This was not too surprising considering that most of the viewers seemed far removed from the action and based their comments mostly on their academic study of the region in question. 5 Broken Cameras shows only one of the many sides to this issue, and a follow-up screening from a different point of view would be a good way to approach this multifaceted topic further.

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BIG has taken the world of architecture by storm. In the past ten years the company has designed over 20 projects and won more than a dozen notable architectural prizes. BIG aims to innovate and explore using what the company refers to as “pragmatic utopian architecture.” The goal is to “steer clear of the petrifying pragmatism of boring boxes.”

What does this all mean? BIG’s past projects include condensing all aspects of Danish city life into one pavilion that can be navigated by bike, an apartment building that looks like a work of modern art, and a public park in Copenhagen that celebrates Danish multiculturalism. Their future plans are equally ambitious: a space needle in Phoenix, Arizona; the Danish Maritime Museum; cool high-rise buildings all across North America; and a waste-to-energy plant that can also be used as a ski slope/BMX course.

My first impression of Ingels is that he looks like a warped version of Tom Cruise circa Top Gun. It must be the combination of his luscious mane of hair and bulky leather jacket. His manner of speaking is humourous, with an air of uncensored Scandinavian frankness comparable to his countryman, director Lars Von Trier. A consummate professional, he warms up the audience with tales of corporate comedy, like when Ingels attempts to use his remarkable PowerPoint skills to demonstrate what New York City’s shoreline might look like in the future while blasting Jay Z’s “Empire State of Mind” in the background. Due to a glitch in the AV system, the song ends up sounding like a distorted jet plane taking off. The audience tries not to cringe. Ingels is not pleased.

For a company that prides itself on steering clear from boring boxes, most of the buildings BIG builds look confusingly similar. The tested and approved method seems to be to build pretty buildings that are slightly slanted. Also, most of these buildings are privately commissioned and financed, which goes against the socially conscious message BIG is trying to broadcast. Furthermore, what is an eco-friendly company doing building a space needle aimed solely at tourism? Ingels tries to convince the confused audience by stating that the project will be carried out as reasonably as possible. Wouldn’t the most reasonable approach be to not build it in the first place?

Ingels’ talk is not solely about architecture. He also judges the existing power relations in society, stating that though architects might not have power over physical or financial environments, they do possess the power of ideas. Ingels obviously has the power to do whatever he wants: he removed Edvard Eriksen’s “The Little Mermaid” statue, the most famous Danish landmark, and placed it in his exhibition pavilion in Shanghai for a while. He also entered and won a competition to design the Danish Maritime Museum, even though his company’s design didn’t exactly match the competition’s initial requirement – BIG was sued by other companies who had stuck to the rules. Ingels’ attitude towards competitors and critics seems to be that people who have time for hate-blogging must not have much going for them.

There is no doubt that Ingels is an impressive speaker and innovator. But while he has been busy building an empire Ingels seems to have forgotten what it feels like to be anything less than a “starchitect” superstar.

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