We Are One: A Global Film Festival offers free movies streamed on YouTube and curated by Cannes, Venice and other festivals
- YouTube will be streaming free films from Cannes and Venice Film festivals during We Are One: A Global Film Festival
- As well as 23 features, eight documentaries and more than 70 shorts, there will be virtual talks and music performances
 (1).JPG?itok=0BHk6odg&v=1665981271)
With cinemas shuttered, productions halted and film festivals cancelled, the Covid-19 pandemic has decimated the movie industry. So there’s something truly heartening about We Are One: A Global Film Festival.
Just like a real festival, each film, talk or performance is scheduled for a set time. With content coming from over 35 countries, the line-up includes 23 narrative features, eight documentaries and over 70 shorts, as well as virtual talks, VR programming and even musical performances.
Among them, there will be 13 world premieres unspooling across the 10 days. In return for watching, audiences are encouraged to donate to Covid-19 relief efforts through a link on the We Are One YouTube page.
Want to see something from close to home? Macau’s International Film Festival & Awards (IFFAM) – which was in its fourth edition last year – has been invited to participate. Among the films it will present is Li Shaohong’s A City Called Macau , starring Bai Baihe in a story of gambling and addiction. Meanwhile, Yukun Xin’s gritty thriller Wrath of Silence – starring Song Yang as a miner out for vengeance – will also play.
The Macau festival also offers up the online premiere of Maxim Bessmertny’s 10-minute short Dirty Laundry. Starring Kelsey Wilhelm and Ricardo Brito, it’s a comic odyssey about two flatmates disposing of their washing machine. Think the myth of Sisyphus transposed to modern-day Macau.
Also premiering will be Jenny Wan’s Lonely Encounter. The story of a taxi driver and his foreign passenger, it won the best short prize at IFFAM last December.
What impresses most is the truly international flavour of We Are One. It may have been an initiative springing from the American-based Tribeca Enterprises and YouTube, but its global reach can’t be denied. Take the Indian social satire Eeb Allay Ooo, which receives its online premiere. Winner of the Mumbai Film Festival’s Golden Gateway Award, it stars Shardul Bhardwaj as a “monkey repeller” in New Delhi, paid to shoo away the pesky primates from the city’s government buildings.
As promised, there is also a strong musical element to We Are One. Rock band Third Eye Blind will feature in a world premiere of the documentary short Motorcycle Drive By. Directed by David Wexler, the film explores the backstory to the titular song – a fan favourite – and how it almost never made it onto the band’s 1997 self-titled debut album. It was originally due to be unveiled last month at New York’s Tribeca festival, one of several festivals forced to cancel all operations.
Another much-anticipated title is Ricky Powell: The Individualist, a documentary about the titular street photographer who became a part of the Beastie Boys entourage, travelling with the infamous New York group on tour. Taking an indelible snapshot of New York pop culture, director Josh Swade fleshes the film out with recollections from the likes of LL Cool J, Public Enemy’s Chuck D and the Beastie Boys’ own Mike D.
Meanwhile, the London Film Festival will be presenting Rudeboy, a documentary about Trojan records, the influential British label behind many 1960s reggae, ska and rocksteady hits from Desmond Dekker to The Maytals.
All this may not quite replace the buzz of attending a film festival in the flesh, but for the moment We Are One is the perfect way to come together and celebrate cinema, right at the time when the medium most needs it.
