Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of EmpathyWhen you watch Kímmapiiyipitssini it is impossible not to constantly be aware of contrast. The idyllic mountains around the Kainai First Nation, and the grit of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The warm yellow light inside the Healing Lodge, and the harsh white glare of streetlights illuminating darkened alleys, and most of all, the strength and resilience demonstrated by the Kainai people and the systemic oppression they continue to face. In her documentary Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy, director Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers discusses the impacts of substance abuse, and a current drug-poisoning epidemic within the Kainai Reserve, located on what the Canadian government considers Southern Alberta. Through direct interviews with medical professionals, people in recovery, and various community leaders the film uses personal stories to highlight how the people of Kainai have been working to support some of their most vulnerable individuals.The documentary centers on how a harm reduction approach to recovery from substance abuse can be combined with the titular concept of Kímmapiiyipitssini — a Blackfoot word which directly translates to “giving kindness to each other.” In the film Dr. Esther Tailfeathers, a doctor on the front-line of the reserve’s opioid epidemic, describes the meaning of Kimmapiiypitssini and how it influences the nation’s response to addiction in two powerful monologues — one soon after the documentary begins and one soon before it ends. She describes Kímmapiiyipitssini as, “compassion [and] caring; it means feeling for others that do not have the same health and happiness that you have. (…) [it means] taking care of your fellow man and woman.” Harm reduction, a relatively novel approach to recovery from addiction, goes hand-in-hand with many of the values espoused by Kímmapiiyipitssini. In contrast to traditional abstinence-based treatment, harm reduction is built on compassion and acceptance, allowing patients to treat their addictions in an individualized way — directly acknowledging their ability to grow and change. One of the film’s greatest strengths is in calling attention to how the Kainai First Nation is responding to their current crisis by combining their traditional beliefs with new approaches to harm reduction to create a form of treatment that best serves their community. As Dr. Tailfeathers says “This is our harm reduction: Kímmapiiyipitssini.”Kímmapiiyipitssini’s focus on intimate personal stories is one of its greatest strengths — and it means that the film can tackle broad and difficult topics like addiction, harm reduction, and colonial violence in a meaningful way. One of these stories is told through a series of interviews with George, an indigenous man living in Kainai, and they contain some of the film’s most powerful moments. When the interviews were taken, George was unhoused and suffered from a dependency on alcohol which he was seeking treatment for. Due to a variety of factors, including a lack of funding for treatment centers and lack of public transit, George was faced with months-long wait times and difficulty in reaching any treatment centers. The documentary shows how George remains hopeful and seeks to better himself despite living in a system which seems to be actively making it more difficult for him to get the help he needs. At no point are the systemic issues facing the Blackfoot people, and the colonial violence that strengthens them, clearer than when George describes his childhood and the origin of his dependency; like thousands of Indigenous children, George was forcibly separated from his family and placed in the residential school system. In conversation with Dr. Tailfeathers, he describes how he uses alcohol as a coping mechanism to deal with the trauma that this violent institution caused. By honouring George’s story the film is able to show the harsh reality that many Indigenous people face, where a state built on settler colonialism that has already caused unimaginable harm continues to make it more difficult for Indigenous communities to provide help to people that need it.While Kímmapiiyipitssini calls attention to many of the issues the Kainai First Nation is facing, it also stresses the positive work that so many members of the community have been doing and overall carries a powerful message of hope, love, and resilience. The film concludes by covering the opening of Bringing the Spirit Home Detox, a new state-of-the-art treatment center in the Kainai First Nation which uses harm reduction to help patients detox from the substance they use in preparation to enter long-term treatment. This is framed as a turning point in the community’s struggle against substance abuse and it points to a future where all members of the community can access the care they need. Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers uses her film to give a platform to a variety of groups and individuals actively making their community better, and by amplifying their work she shows the incredible empathy that the people of Kainai have demonstrated in the care they have for people struggling with addiction. —Fabio Schneider You Are Not A Soldier“Being a spectator of calamities taking place in another country is a quintessential modern experience, the cumulative offering by more than a century and a half’s worth of those professional, specialized tourists known as journalists,” writes Susan Sontag in Regarding the Pain of Others, her tome on war photography. “Wars are now also living room sights and sounds.” Thanks to the coverage of the Gulf War by ABC, NBC, CBS, and the then-nascent 24-hour CNN, images of war became widely available, no longer something one had to seek out. Far-off wars entered viewers’ homes in an unprecedented way, albeit with a television screen as a border protecting them from any real danger. Social media dramatically increased this phenomenon, allowing journalists, citizen reporters and activists to share photos and videos of conflict zones in real time.Maria Carolina Telles’ You Are Not a Soldier' follows one of these “specialized tourists” — photojournalist André Liohn—almost exclusively through his own footage and photographs from the Libyan Civil War and the Battle of Mosul. Liohn’s footage of these conflict zones is unparalleled, largely due to its quasi-first-person point-of-view (we are essentially seeing what Liohn sees, or at least what he points his camera at, as we move through these zones with him). Much of it is intense, but some is surprisingly funny — one scene features a group of soldiers kicking around a soccer ball while their allies shoot at unspecified targets out of frame, revealing humour and mundanity amongst chaos and violence.Some extended sequences take place in Rome, where Liohn’s two young children live. Both loathe his work and fail to understand what draws him to continually leave them to risk his life. In a particularly memorable exchange, his son tells him he has a “shitty job.” Liohn takes this quite personally and speaks about it at length while shooting video during a night walk. He seems unable to understand why his children—despite their youth—would express disdain for his work.One of the film’s more interesting formal choices is Telles’ own narration, which appears only a handful of times. She reflects on the recent death of her own father, who regretted not serving in World War II. Telles asks, “Why weren’t you thankful [you never had to fight]?,” providing the profile of Liohn a unique context, and indirectly reflects his children’s concern. At times, these children almost act as audience surrogates, as Liohn’s dedication to his work does seem obsessive, quixotic, and even suicidal.I remain unclear as to whether the fil