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