Author: Exec Team

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Archived Films

Friday December 1st, 2023 – Love in the Time of Fentanyl

Detailed Flyer Link

South Surrey Recreation and Arts Centre, 14601 20 Ave, Surrey, BC

December 1st, doors open at 5:30PM, Film starts at 6:00PM

A group of misfits, artists, and drug users operates a renegade safe injection site in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Love in the Time of Fentanyl is an intimate portrait of a community fighting to save lives and keep hope alive in a neighborhood ravaged by the overdose crisis.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
I have had the honour of being a part of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES) community for many years and it has played a significant role in shaping who I am today.
There is no way for me to describe the amount of grief, loss, and trauma that this crisis has inflicted on the neighborhood. In 2018, I began to document various stories and responses to the crisis — including the Overdose Prevention Society (OPS), a grassroots safe drug consumption space that emerged as a radical antidote to government inaction.

Similar to the DTES as a whole, the Overdose Prevention Society is a place filled with outcasts fighting every day to improve and save the lives of their neighbours in the face of multiple challenges and systemic oppression. OPS is one of the many unique and courageous responses to this crisis in the DTES. We have a lot to learn from this community, not only in terms of reforming nonsensical drug policies, but in working towards a more just and compassionate society.

My primary motivation in making LOVE IN THE TIME OF FENTANYL was to upend deeply entrenched beliefs about addiction, counter the often dehumanizing stereotypes and misconceptions about drug users, and create an empathetic portrait of an unconventional community of frontline workers who display incredible heroism and ingenuity in confronting this crisis..
– Colin Askey

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Archived Films

Friday October 27, 2023 – The World Is My Country

South Surrey Recreation and Arts Centre, 14601 20 Ave, Surrey, BC

October 27th, doors open at 6:00PM, Film starts at 6:30PM

The World is My Country

In 1971, John Lennon called on the world to “imagine there’s no countries”. Few are aware that more than two decades previously, WWII veteran Gary Davis started a movement to achieve what Lennon only implored us to imagine. Among Davis’s supporters were such notables as Albert Einstein and Albert Camus. More recently, Martin Sheen has joined in the cause.

Was Gary Davis a dreamer or might his vision prevent the nightmare so many continue to live through? Imagining no countries “isn’t hard to do,” but is making it so even possible?

Come discover the man, the movement, and a truly new world that we can be a part of.

WARNING: Watching this film may cause you to think you can change the world!

It’s the movie that is inspiring new hope! It’s the intriguing story of how one little guy, a song and dance man on Broadway, turned war guilt over bombing civilians into electrifying action that galvanized war weary Europe and sparked a movement. A mighty movement that helped pave the way for universal human rights and a uniting of the nations of Europe!

Now this film can help inspire the people of the world to do something even grander. It’s a lost piece of history, that gives us what Martin Sheen calls: “A roadmap to a better future!”

TheWorldIsMyCountry.com

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Archived Films

Friday September 29th, 2023 – Healing the Hurts

Healing the Hurts

The ground-breaking documentary “Healing the Hurts” ignited the Canadian Indian Residential School Healing Movement in 1986. This dynamic and heartfelt film examines the devastating effects of these Schools which dramatically shattered Indigenous cultures, families, and communities. First Nations participants from Canada and the United States, embark on a four-day, culturally-based, healing process of understanding and recovery from the scourge of Intergenerational Trauma.

Hereditary Chief Phil Lane Jr., Member-Ihanktonwan, and Chickasaw NationsFollowing the 60-minute film, a discussion, and teach-in will be led by Hereditary Chief Phil Lane Jr., Member-Ihanktonwan, and Chickasaw Nations, who facilitated the foundational Healing the Hurts healing process in 1986 and is a key leader in the Residential School Healing Movement

See more here Re:ReconciliACTION

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Archived Films

Friday June 16th, 2023 – The Empress of Vancouver

The Empress of Vancouver is a cinematic and intimate collision of drag, queer history, and performance art, a musical and genre-bending irreverent documentary that follows trans icon Oliv Howe as she prepares for the 40th anniversary of her coronation.

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Archived Films

Friday, May 26th 2023 – Broadcast Blues

Clear Channel neglects its emergency system, disaster strikes, and people die. Pentagon pundits profit from the same war they promote. Fox News gets a court ruling that news does not have to be true. And hate radio rules.

“Media policy is killing people in this country. Literally. And it is killing our democracy, too. Corporate-financed lawmakers have stacked the media policy deck against We the People.

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Archived Films

April 28, 2023 – Can We Cool the Planet?

As global temperatures continue to rise, scientists are wondering if we need solutions that go beyond reducing emissions. From sucking carbon straight out of the air, to geoengineering our atmosphere to physically block out sunlight, to planting more than a trillion trees, the options may seem futuristic or tough to implement. But as time runs out on conventional solutions to climate change, scientists are asking the hard questions: Can new, sometimes controversial, solutions really work? And at what cost?

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Archived Films

March 31st, 2023 – A BOLD PEACE

A BOLD PEACE: Costa Rica’s Path of Demilitarization

In his famous “Cross of Iron” speech in 1953, President Eisenhower critiqued the military-industrial complex while asking, “Is there no other way the world may live?” In Costa Rica today, we glimpse another way to live.

In 1948, Costa Rica dismantled their military establishment and intentionally cultivated security relationships with other nations through treaties, international laws, and international organizations. Free of the burden of military spending, they used the financial savings to invest in their people, creating strong public institutions including public higher education and universal health care. In short, Costa Ricans created a society committed to peace, solidarity, and international law. They have survived with safety and relative prosperity for nearly 70 years without a standing army.

A BOLD PEACE details the events which shook the country to its foundations, culminating in the 1948 civil war and the decision to abolish the military. Over the decades, the Costa Rican model has survived several serious crises, but the current threats may be the most formidable of all.

Executive Producer: Al Jubitz

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Archived Films

February 24th, 2023 – Living in The Time of Dying

Out Event:
   Date: Friday February 24th, 2023
   Venue: South Surrey Recreation and Arts Centre, 14601 20 Ave, Surrey
   Time: Doors open at 6:00PM, Film starts at 6:30PM.

Living in The Time of Dying is an unflinching look at what it means to be living in the midst of climate catastrophe and finding purpose and meaning within it. Recognising the magnitude of the climate crisis we are facing, independent filmmaker Michael Shaw, sells his house to travel around the world looking for answers. Pretty soon we begin to see how deep the predicament goes along with the systems and ways of thinking that brought us here. Stan Rushworth, a Native American Elder, brings an especially enlightening viewpoint to these questions. It becomes clear that climate change is going to ruin our way of life but this then opens up a whole new set of questions: How did we get here? How do we choose to live and what actions make sense at this time? The people interviewed in the documentary, all highly regarded and well known spokespeople on the issue, argue it’s too late to stop catastrophic climate change but in no way too late to regain a renewed life giving relationship with our world.

Director & Producer: Michael Shaw.

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Archived Films

Friday January 27th, 2023 – The Boys Who Said NO!

The Boys Who Said NO! is the first documentary film to profile the young men and women who actively opposed the military draft in order to end the Vietnam War. The film shows how their personal and collective acts of nonviolent resistance, risking arrest and imprisonment for up to 5 years, were a critical part of the antiwar movement, intensifying opposition to the war and eventually forcing an end to both conscription and the war.
Guest Speaker: Peter Prontzos
Peter Prontzos arrived in Canada after escaping from the U.S. military when he was ordered to take part in the war against Vietnam. After working as a driver, construction worker, parking lot attendant, writer, and actor, among other jobs, he finally finished grad school at UBC and eventually taught political science and interdisciplinary studies at Langara College for 26 years. He has just finished the manuscript for his first book, entitled, “Remembering Our Humanity.”
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Archived Films

Friday December 2nd, 2022 – Eating Our Way To Extinction

Out Event:
   Date: Friday December 2nd
   Venue: South Surrey Recreation and Arts Centre, 14601 20 Ave, Surrey
   Time: Doors open at 6:00PM, Film starts at 6:30PM

This feature-length documentary, narrated and executive produced by Academy Award® winning actress Kate Winslet, is a hard-hitting and visually stunning cinematic experience that showcases how simple changes to the way we eat can help halt catastrophic climate change and restore our planet.
This entertaining and surprising documentary will challenge the way you look at the food industry. If food costs the Earth, who pays the price? Featuring shocking undercover footage and poignant first-hand accounts from indigenous people, this one-of-a-kind documentary will permanently change your perception of food and its connection to the future of our
planet.
With Earth Day around the corner, this film is the perfect watch to highlight the urgency needed to protect our planet, unearthing key statistics such as:
– An estimated one million animal species are at risk of extinction, many within decades, according to a recent UN report
– By 2030 the world will be facing a 40% global water deficit
– Cattle ranching accounts for 80% of the Amazon’s deforestation
– Methane’s impact is now so great that the Earth will warm by 1.4°–2°C by 2030 whether or not CO2 emissions are reduced.

Gerard Wedderburn-Bisshop, Former Principal Scientist, Queensland Government, who appears in the documentary comments: “If we don’t act now, there could be No Earth Day by 2045. Scientists have predicted that in just over two decades, species loss will be so great that we won’t recover, the Earth will suffer ecological collapse and the most impactful thing
you and I can do to stop this, is to change our diets.”

World-renowned scientific experts featured in Eating Our Way To Extinction include Dr Sylvia Earle, explorer and former Chief Scientist of NOAA; Prof. Olivier de Schutter, former United Nations Special Rapporteur; Dr. Marco Springmann, Senior Researcher on Environmental Sustainability, University of Oxford; Jeremy Rifkin, economic and political
advisor; Prof. Peter Wadhams, Head of Polar Ocean Physics Group, University of Cambridge; Joseph Poore, Environment and Agriculture Researcher, University of Oxford; Dr. Tara Garnett, Head of Food Climate Research Network, University of Oxford; Dr. Michael Greger, physician and researcher; Prof. Arjen Hoekstra, water management expert, University of Twente, Netherlands; and Dr. Penelope Lindeque, Senior Research Scientist at Plymouth Marine Laboratory.
The documentary is co-directed by Otto and Ludovic Brockway and produced by Kian Tavakkoli, Mark Galvin and Ludovic Brockway of Broxstar Productions. Executive Producers on the film include Kate Winslet, Sir Richard Branson, Magnus Hollo, Ivan Orlic of Seine
Pictures, Lauren Mekhael, James Wilks, Joseph Pace and Susan Vitka. Featuring a wealth of world-renowned contributors, including Sir Richard Branson and Tony Robbins, it has a message of hope that will empower audiences. For fans of The Game Changers, Racing Extinction and The Inconvenient Truth, this is the next must-watch documentary for anyone interested in the future of our planet, and for those who want to gain a further understanding of the true cost of what we eat.