Category: Archived Films

Friday May 31st, 2024 – Disturbing the Peace

Post author By Exec Team
Post date April 18, 2024

Venue: South Surrey Recreation and Arts Centre,
14601 20 Ave, Surrey, BC Google Maps
Date: May 31st, 2024
Time: Doors open at 6:00PM, Film starts at 6:30PM

Detailed Flyer Link

In a world torn by conflict–in a place where the idea of peace has been abandoned–an energy of determined optimism emerges. When someone is willing to disturb the status quo and stand for the dream of a free and secure world, who will stand with them?

DISTURBING THE PEACE is a story of the human potential unleashed when we stop participating in a story that no longer serves us and, with the power of our convictions, take action to create new possibilities. DISTURBING THE PEACE follows former enemy combatants–Israeli soldiers from elite units and Palestinian fighters, many of whom served years in prison–who have joined together to challenge the status quo and say “enough.”

The film reveals their transformational journeys from soldiers committed to armed battle to nonviolent peace activists, leading to the creation of Combatants for Peace. While based in the Middle East, DISTURBING THE PEACE evokes universal themes relevant to us all and inspires us to become active participants in the creation of our world.

“A tremendous achievement – a stirring and profound film that chronicles the noble efforts of Israelis and Palestinians to realize their common humanity, to break the horrendous cycle of violence and move toward peace. We, people of every nationality, need to see it, think about the individuals who expose themselves to us, and be drawn into the indispensable process of wrestling with our own vengefulness in order to transcend our lesser selves.”

Todd Gitlin, Professor of Journalism and Sociology,
Columbia University

Archived Films

Friday April 26, 2024 – Because We Are Girls

Post author By Exec Team
Post date March 30, 2024

Venue: South Surrey Recreation and Arts Centre,
14601 20 Ave, Surrey, BC Google Maps
Date: April 26th, 2024
Time: Doors open at 6:00PM, Film starts at 6:30PM

Detailed Flyer Link

A conservative Indo-Canadian family in small-town British Columbia must come to terms with a devastating secret: three sisters were sexually abused by an older relative beginning in their childhood years. After remaining silent for nearly two and a half decades, the sisters finally decide to come forward—not only to protect other young relatives, but to set an example for their daughters as well. Warning: This film deals with mature subject matter. Viewer discretion is advised.

Guest Panellist: Dr. Balbir Gurm

Dr. Balbir Gurm is a caring, dedicated, award-winning nursing leader, professor of nursing at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, researcher, and consultant. Balbir Influences policy through leadership on boards, organizations, advisory panels, and committees to improve communities. Dr. Gurm advocates for equity, access, and funding for oppressed groups.

Dr Gurm is a consultant on diversity and inclusion, cultural safety and has provided workshops to municipalities, businesses, professional groups and non-profit organizations on how to be anti-racist and create culturally space spaces for workers and clients. She has lived experience and has conducted research in the area. She is passionate about equity and is the founder/facilitator for the Network to Eliminate Violence in Relationships. She wrote with a team, a free living ebook Making Sense of a Global Pandemic: Relationship Violence & Working Together Towards a Violence Free Society. Available at. https://kpu.pressbooks.pub/nevr/

As a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Nurses she is recognized as a nursing leader. She has added two YWCA awards and the BC Achievement Award in 2021 to her list of honours. Dr. Gurm is known for excellence in education and leadership and as someone who uses her privilege to improve society. She is participating in the upcoming anti violence conference.

Guest Panellist: Jeeti Pooni

Jeeti Pooni broke her silence about being sexually abused as a young child when she realized that her cousin, who had raped her, was potentially abusing others in her extended family. Her outing of the veil of silence about sexual abuse has been a spark for much needed conversations, not only for the Indo-Canadian community but all communities.

Jeeti is a Motivational Speaker, a social changemaker and the author of The Silent Stoning. As the driving force behind The National Film Board of Canada documentary Because We Are Girls, Jeeti courageously shares her story.

Persevering through one of the longest-running sexual assault court cases in Canadian history has made Jeeti an even more determined advocate for change to the criminal justice system and passed-down cultural beliefs that shame and oppress women in her culture. She is a voice for others that have suffered abuse.

Jeeti lives in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada with her husband and two daughters.

Archived Films

Friday March 22nd, 2024 – Fracking the Peace

Post author By Exec Team
Post date February 21, 2024

Venue: South Surrey Recreation and Arts Centre,
14601 20 Ave, Surrey, BC Google Maps
Date: March 22nd, 2024
Time: Doors open at 6:00PM, Film starts at 6:30PM

Detailed Flyer Link

Fracking the Peace is a powerful documentary by Stand.earth following the people whose lives, water, and land have been changed by fracking.
Fracking and its related industrialization on Treaty 8 territory in Northeastern B.C. has had a devastating impact on local communities. It has harmed their physical and mental health, threatened traditional hunting and fishing practices, the water and the land.

Archived Films

Friday February 23rd, 2024 – The Skin We’re In

Post author By Exec Team
Post date January 16, 2024

Venue: South Surrey Recreation and Arts Centre,
14601 20 Ave, Surrey, BC Google Maps
Date: February 23rd, 2024
Time: Doors open at 6:00PM, Film starts at 6:30PM

Detailed Flyer Link

An urgent exploration of race relations, this documentary from acclaimed director Charles Officer follows award-winning journalist and activist Desmond Cole as he pulls back the curtain on racism in Canada, inviting all Canadians to understand the experience of being in his skin. Cole won a National Magazine Award for his impactful and incisive Toronto Life cover story about carding and racial profiling. Now, in Officer’s starkly honest doc, he journeys across North America, exploring what it’s really like to be Black in the 21st century.

Archived Films

Friday January 26th 2024 – 5 Broken Cameras

Post author By Exec Team
Post date December 9, 2023

Venue: South Surrey Recreation and Arts Centre,
14601 20 Ave, Surrey, BC
Date: January 26th, 2024
Time: Doors open at 6:00PM, Film starts at 6:30PM

Detailed Flyer Link

When his fourth son Gibreel is born in 2005, self-taught cameraman Emad Burnat, a Palestinian villager, gets his first camera. At the same time, the people of his village begin to resist the construction of a separation barrier that will consume their farmlands.

For the next year, Burnat films this non-violent struggle, lead by two of his best friends, while simultaneously recording the growth of his son.
Very soon, these events begin to affect Emad and
his family. Daily arrests, violent attacks, destruction, and loss of life scare his family, as the protesters are shot at and detained by police.

As Emad documents these events, one camera after another is smashed – and each camera becomes a chapter in his struggle.

Archived Films

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

Post author By Exec Team
Post date October 15, 2023

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

Archived Films

Friday October 27, 2023 – The World Is My Country

Post author By Exec Team
Post date October 2, 2023

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

Archived Films

Friday September 29th, 2023 – Healing the Hurts

Post author By Exec Team
Post date September 11, 2023

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.

Following 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

Archived Films

Friday June 16th, 2023 – The Empress of Vancouver

Post author By Exec Team
Post date May 28, 2023

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.

Archived Films

Friday, May 26th 2023 – Broadcast Blues

Post author By Exec Team
Post date April 29, 2023

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.