(Alphabetical)

California Dreaming (2010)
Length: 51 min.
http://tegenlicht.vpro.nl
Filmmaker Bregtje van der Haak

California is the state of new beginnings, dreams and movie stars, of surfers and a wonderful climate. But the Golden State is bankrupt and the city of Los Angeles is running out of cash. Public services are being cut and unemployment keeps rising. At the same time, optimism, entrepreneurship and the belief in the American dream are stronger than ever.

In Los Angeles, we meet five people who are going through a transformation in their lives during this crisis. Justin and Christine lost their jobs and are now living in a van with their two young sons. Charles is out of prison after fourteen years. Mizuko prepares her children for the future by making them at ease in virtual reality. Laura has taken advantage of the crisis by buying land cheaply and starting an urban farm, and the artists' collective, Fallen Fruit, maps the abundant free 'public fruit' available in the city. Who are the pioneers who are reinventing the new America and how do they see the future?

The Carbon Connection (2007)
Length: 41 min.
Green Planet Films

In Scotland, a town has been polluted by oil and chemical companies since the 1940s. In Brazil, water and land is being swallowed up by destructive monoculture eucalyptus tree plantations. Both communities now share a new threat, carbon trading. As part of the deal to reduce greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change, major polluters can now buy carbon credits to reduce emissions elsewhere instead of cutting their own pollution. What this means for those living next to the oil industry in Scotland is the continuation of pollution caused by their toxic neighbours. Meanwhile, in Brazil, the carbon credit market gives an injection of cash for more planting of damaging eucalyptus trees. The film follows two groups of people from each community who used video cameras to tell their stories. From mental health issues in Scotland to the loss of medicinal plants in Brazil, the communities discover the connections they have with each other.

A Chemical Reaction (2009)
Length: 70 min.
www.safelawns.org
Director: Paul Tukey

A Chemical Reaction tells the story of one of the most powerful and effective community initiatives in the history of North America. It started with one lone voice in 1984. Dr. June Irwin, a quirky dermatologist, noticed a connection between her patients’ health conditions and their exposure to chemical pesticides and herbicides. With relentless persistence, she brought her concerns to town meetings to warn her fellow citizens that the chemicals they were putting on their lawns posed severe health risks. Dr. Irwin’s persuasive arguments and data to back her findings eventually led the town of Hudson, Quebec to enact a by-law that banned the use of all chemical pesticides and herbicides. The mighty chemical companies mounted a legal challenge to the town and eventually the case made it to the Supreme Court of Canada. The town’s right to protect its citizens was upheld, and other municipalities followed suit. The movement spread so far and wide that the entire province of Quebec enacted a ban and Home Depot stopped selling these products. This is an inspiring film about citizen activism.

City of Borders (2009)
Length: 66 min.
New Day Films
Director: Yun Suh

City of Borders provides an original view of the vibrant underground community at the only gay bar in Jerusalem where people of different nationalities, religions and sexual orientations create a sanctuary among people typically viewed as the ?enemy?. This powerful and provocative documentary intimately portrays the daily lives of five Israeli and Palestinian patrons as they risk their lives challenging taboos and navigating the minefield of politics, religion and discrimination to live and love openly.

Set against the construction of the separation wall between Israel and the Palestinian territories and the struggle for a gay pride parade in the Holy City, these five inter-woven stories reveal the contradictions and complexities in the struggle for acceptance. In observing the lives of the bar regulars, City of Borders explores the bond forged when people from warring worlds embrace the right to be accepted and belong, rather than being divided by their differences.

Clean Bin Project (2010)
Length: 75 min.
Peg Leg Films
Director: Grant Baldwin

Is it possible to live completely waste free? Partners Jen and Grant go head to head in a competition to see who can swear off consumerism and produce the least landfill garbage in an entire year. Their light-hearted competition is set against an examination of the sobering problem of waste in North American society. Even as Grant and Jen start to garner interest in their project, they struggle to find meaning in their seemingly minuscule influence on the large-scale environmental impacts of our "throw-away society". Featuring interviews with renowned artist, Chris Jordan and marine pollution expert, Captain Charles Moore, The Clean Bin Project presents the serious topic of waste reduction with optimism, humour, and inspiration for individual action. Best Canadian Documentary, Projecting Change Film Festival

Consuming Kids; The Commercialization of Childhood (2008)
Length: 67 min.
Media Education Foundation
Writer & Director: Adriana Barbaro & Jeremy Earp

Consuming Kids throws desperately needed light on the practices of a relentless multi- billion dollar marketing machine that now sells kids and their parents everything from junk food and violent video games to bogus educational products and the family car. Drawing on the insights of health care professionals, children's advocates, and industry insiders, the film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the wake of deregulation, showing how marketers have used the latest advances in psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to transform children into one of the most powerful and profitable consumer demographics in the world. Consuming Kids pushes back against the wholesale commercialization of childhood, raising urgent questions about the ethics of children's marketing and its impact on the health and well-being of our children.

The Economics of Happiness (2011)
Length: 72 min.
International Society for Ecology & Culture

A film by Helena Norberg-Hodge, Steven Gorelick & John Page

This film examines how economic globalization has led to a massive expansion in the scale and power of big business and banking, worsening nearly every problem we face. The Economics of Happiness describes a world moving simultaneously in two opposing directions. On the one hand, government and big business continue to promote globalization and the consolidation of corporate power. At the same time, all around the world people are resisting those policies, demanding a re-regulation of trade and finance and starting to forge a very different future. Communities are coming together with initiatives such as Transition Towns to rebuild more human scale, ecological economies. Voices from six continents tell us that climate change and peak oil give us little choice: we need to localize, to bring the economy home. The good news is that, as we move in this direction, we will begin not only to heal the earth but also to restore our own sense of well-being. The Economics of Happiness challenges us to believe that it is possible to build a better world. Best in Show, Cinema Verde Film Festival

Freedom Riders (2011)
Director: Stanley Nelson
www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience

Freedom Riders is the powerful harrowing and ultimately inspirational story of six months in 1961 that changed the United States forever. From May until November 1961, more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives—many endured savage beatings and imprisonment—for simply traveling together on buses and trains as they journeyed through the Deep South. Deliberately violating Jim Crow laws, the Freedom Riders met with bitter racism and mob violence along the way, sorely testing their belief in nonviolent activism.

From award-winning filmmaker, Stanley Nelson, Freedom Riders features testimony from a fascinating cast of central characters: the Riders themselves, state and federal government officials, and journalists who witnessed the Rides firsthand. "The people that took a seat on these buses, that went to jail in Jackson, that went to Parchman, they were never the same. We had moments there to learn, to teach each other the way of nonviolence, the way of love, the way of peace."

"The Freedom Ride created an unbelievable sense: Yes, we will make it. Yes, we will survive. And that nothing, but nothing, was going to stop this movement," recalls Congressman John Lewis, one of the original Riders. Says filmmaker Stanley Nelson, "The lesson of the Freedom Rides is that great change can come from a few small steps taken by courageous people. And that sometimes to do any great thing, it's important that we step out alone."

Granito; How to Nail a Dictator (2011)
Length: 103 min.
Skylight Pictures
Filmmakers: Pamela Yates, Peter Kinoy, Paco de Onis

Granito is a story of Guatemala, its turbulent history, and how documentary film footage is being used as courtroom evidence to bring a measure of justice for crimes committed decades ago. In Granito, our characters sift for clues buried in archives, seeking to uncover a narrative that could unlock the past and settle matters of life and death in the present. Each of the five main characters whose paths cross in Granito are connected by the Guatemala of 1982 where a genocidal ?scorched earth? campaign by the military exterminated nearly 200,000 Mayan people. Our characters become integral to the overarching narrative of wrongs done and justice sought that they have pieced together, each adding their granito, their tiny grain of sand, to the epic tale. Jury Grand Prize, Politics On Film Festival

Happy (2011)
Length: 75 min.
Director: Roko Belic
www.thehappymovie.com

Happy combines cutting-edge science from the new field of ?positive psychology? with real-life stories of people from around the world whose lives illustrate these findings. We see the story of a beautiful woman named Melissa Moody, a mother of three who had a "perfect life" until the day she was run over by a truck. Disabled for nine years and disfigured for life, amazingly she is happier now than before her accident. Manoj Singh, a rickshaw puller from the slums of Kolkata, India who lives in a hut made of plastic bags with his family, is found to be as happy as the average American. Through these and other stories, Happy leads us toward a deeper understanding of how we can all live more fulfilling, healthy and happy lives. Numerous Awards include: Audience Choice, Telluride Mountainside Festival; Grand Jury Award, Amsterdam Film Festival; Best Documentary, Mexico Int'l Film Festival

The Incomappleux (2011)
Length: 60 min.
Director: Riel Marqhardt
www.theincomappleux.com

With Film-maker Riel Marqhardt to discuss his film after the presentation Mission: to educate and to raise awareness of the existence of the antique forests found within the Incomappleux River Valley and elsewhere within the Inland Temperate Rainforest that stretches from British Columbia, Washington State and Idaho. Second, to motivate others to educate themselves and become involved with conserving what little remains of this magical forest for future generations.

Why was this film made? For me a walk through this forest of 1000+ year old trees, untouched by human hand, is a spiritual experience. My desire to connect to that 'Oneness of All' feeling and my ability to move under the guidance of compassion are amplified within its spaces. For me this forest is a place of reverence and connection, not only as a monument to what little of its former self remains, but also its ability to heal simply by walking in its profound timeless presence. It is a park that we humans have not designated as such at this point in time.

Just Do It (2011)
Length: 90 min.
Left Field Films
Director: Emily James

Just Do It - a tale of modern-day outlaws.

The world of environmental direct action has been a secretive one, until now. With unprecedented access, Emily James spent over a year embedded in activist groups such as Climate Camp and Plane Stupid, documenting their clandestine activities. Just Do It introduces you to a powerful cast of mischievous and inspiring characters who put their bodies in the way. They super-glue themselves to bank trading floors, blockade factories and attack coal power stations en masse, all despite the very real threat of arrest. One of the activists, Marina Pepper, is a cheerful soul who believes in the subversive power of offering the police a nice cup of tea. The protest groups are intensely British, a roving awkward squad, intent on being a fly in the ointment of profit; yet they make friends with the bemused cops and bailiffs, and get a bit upset when things inevitably turn sour. Just Do It is an absorbing, illuminating and at times very funny film.

Kinshasa Symphony (2010)
Length: 95 min.
www.kinshasa-symphony.com
Filmmakers: Claus Wischmann and Martin Baer

Kinshasa is the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the third-largest city in Africa. Almost ten million people live here and they number among the poorest inhabitants on this planet. Kinshasa is also the home of Central Africa’s only symphony orchestra.

Two hundred orchestral musicians are playing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. A power cut occurs just before the last movement. Problems like this are the least of the worries facing the orchestra. In the 15 years of its existence, the musicians have survived two putsches, various crises and a war. But concentration on the music and hopes for a better future keep them going. Kinshasa Symphony is a study of people in one of the world’s most chaotic cities doing their best to maintain one of the most complex systems of joint human endeavour, a symphony orchestra. The film is about the Congo, the people in Kinshasa and the power of music. Numerous Awards including: Most Popular Nonfiction Film Award, 2010 Vancouver Int'l Film Festival; Best Cinematography, Rhode Island Int'l Film Festival 2010

Le Grand Cycle (2011)
Length: 27 min.
Director: Kyril Dubé

"Le Grand Cycle" portrays the story of a couple, Pierre Bouchard and Janick Lemieux, who have been living as nomads and traveling the world on their bicycles for over fifteen years.

Lesson Plan (2010)
Length: 76 min.
State of Crisis Productions
Directors Philip Neel and David Jeffery

This provocative documentary looks back at the notorious 1967 Third Wave project. Originally designed by California high school teacher, Ron Jones, to teach his well heeled Palo Alto pupils (including a teenaged Neel) about the roots of fascism, the experiment proved to be more successful than anyone could have anticipated…or feared. The film’s narrative explores the five days of the experience, in which the students started out as a cooperative until informers were assigned by Jones. As members were recruited and trials were held, even non-informants quickly turned on other members in their quest to ace the assignment. Over the decades, the experience would inspire articles, movies, and a novel that has become required reading in schools in several countries. Cine Golden Eagle Award.

Louder Than a Bomb (2011)
Length: 100 min.
www.louderthanabombfilm.com
Directors: Greg Jacobs & Jon Siskel

Louder Than a Bomb is a film about passion, competition, teamwork, and trust. It is also about poetry. Every year, more than six hundred teenagers from over sixty Chicago area schools gather for the world’s largest youth poetry slam, a competition known as "Louder Than a Bomb". Rather than emphasize individual poets and performances, the structure of "Louder Than a Bomb" demands that kids work collaboratively with their peers; presenting, critiquing, and rewriting their pieces. To succeed, teams have to create an environment of mutual trust and support. For many kids, being a part of such an environment in an academic context is life-changing.

Louder Than a Bomb chronicles the stories of four teams as they prepare for and compete in the event. By turns hopeful and heartbreaking, the film captures the tempestuous lives of these unforgettable kids, exploring the ways writing shapes their world. This is language as joyful release by irrepressibly talented teenagers obsessed with making words dance. The community they create along the way is the story at the heart of this inspiring film. Numerous Audience Choice Awards including: Palm Springs Int'l Film Festival, Philadelphia Film Festival; Best Documentary, Austin Film Festival

Love in Action (2011)
Length: 5 min.
Fierce Light Films
Filmmaker: Velcrow Ripper

In this inspirational film,Velcrow Ripper captures the vibrancy of the epic Occupy Oakland general strike. Acclaimed spoken word artist, Drew Dellinger, recites his powerful poem 'Occupy Wall Street' as he moves through the crowd of dedicated activists. Dellinger says, "Our communities need us. We are all leaders. How could we ask for anything less than the future?" The poem is set to the hauntingly beautiful music from the 'Saracen' album by Jef Stott.

Occupation Has No Future (2010)
Length: 84 min.
Upheaval Productions
Director: David Zlutnick

In the Fall of 2009 a group of US veterans and war resisters traveled to Israel/Palestine to meet with their Israeli counterparts in an effort to strengthen connections and share experiences. Occupation Has No Future uses this trip as a lens to examine the occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, and explore the work of Israelis and Palestinians organizing against militarism and occupation.

Through conversations with Israeli conscientious objectors, former soldiers, and Palestinians living under occupation, Occupation Has No Future creates a survey of the atmosphere in the State of Israel and the West Bank. This documentary looks at the partnership of the Israeli anti-militarist movement with a growing grassroots Palestinian campaign of civil disobedience, to defeat the occupation. Honest about the extremely daunting challenges, Occupation Has No Future ultimately tracks the hope of a growing number of Israelis and Palestinians to live together, free from occupation, in peace and with justice.

Permaculture: The Growing Edge (2011)
Length: 45 min.
Belili Productions
Filmmakers: Donna Read & Starhawk

Permaculture: The Growing Edge is an antidote to environmental despair, a hopeful and practical look at a path to a viable, flourishing future. The film introduces us to inspiring projects; visiting David Holmgren’s homestead, sheet mulching an inner-city garden, transforming an intersection into a gathering place with City Repair and joining mycologist Paul Stamets as he uses mushrooms to clean up an oil spill.

We meet some of the key figures in the permaculture movement including Australians, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren who started this movement in the 1970s. The film gives us a glimpse into this worldwide network of skilled ecological designers, teachers, food growers, natural builders, environmental activists and visionaries.

Pipe Dreams Project (2011)
Length: 28 min.
www.thepipedreamsproject.org

In May of 2010, Enbridge Inc. made an official application to build twined crude oil and condensate pipelines that would connect Alberta's Tar Sands to Kitimat, BC, and for the first time bring crude oil super tankers to BC's North Coast. In the fall of 2010, Curtis, Ryan and Faroe kayaked 900 km in opposition to this controversial pipeline. Their journey leads them face to face with the complexity of the environmental assessment process, the difficulties local communities face in having their voices heard, and the growing resistance against the pipeline. Leaving the city behind for adventure and the exploration of the isolated and dangerous coast of British Columbia, they immerse themselves completely in one of the last truly wild places on Earth. The trio becomes deeply impacted by their experience, irreversibly entangled in the Pacific Northwest, and awakened to a world of power, politics and the question of democracy.

This film is an evocative journey, contrasting modern logging with forestry as practiced for ten thousand years by First Nations people.

Point Holmes Sensitive Natural Areas (2011)
Length: 12 min.
Comox Valley Conservation Strategy
Video by Kerry Dawson

Point Holmes, near the quiet seaside community of Comox on eastern Vancouver Island, is home to two unique but threatened sensitive natural areas. A rare krummholz Garry Oak ecosystem of stunted and twisted oak trees is found along the shoreline, where powerful wind and wave systems shape the landscape. Further inland, an ancient series of undulating sand dunes, covered with a blanket of pine, fir and salal, is one of only two assemblages of this type known to exist in BC. The video looks at the threats facing the area and examines the question of appropriate land use decision making.

Rainforest (2011)
Length: 65 min.
Island Bound Media Works
Director: Richard Boyce

Inspired by his relationship with a Kwaxkwaka'wakw elder, Richard Boyce embarks upon a cinematic journey contrasting the tree farms that dominate the landscape surrounding his home with an ancient rainforest on the Pacific Coast. Guided by passion and a determination to honour reality, Boyce travels to the most remote corner of Vancouver Island, through some of the most intensive logging on the planet, into a wilderness that is on the brink of extinction. The trees, ranging from seedlings to massive 1,200-year old colossi, thrive along the banks of an ancient river flood plain, which provides for diverse life forms in the temperate rainforest.

This film is an evocative journey, contrasting modern logging with forestry as practiced for ten thousand years by First Nations people.

Raw Opium (2010)
Length: 84 min.
Kensington Communications
Director Peter Findlay

Opium is a commodity that has tremendous power, both to ease pain and to destroy lives. For centuries, the opium poppy has played a pivotal role, not just in the lives of people who grow, manufacture and use it, but also in the sphere of international relations. In Raw Opium, we meet a variety of people with different perspectives including opium growers in southeast Asia, a UN drug enforcement officer on the border of Afghanistan and a former Indian government drug czar. We are introduced to Portugal's new, revolutionary policies toward its drug situation and to Vancouver’s Insite Clinic with its creative approaches to this complex issue. Assumptions about drug addiction and the War on Drugs are profoundly challenged.

The Site of Lead: Poisoning in El Salvador (2011)
Length: 40 min.
Filmmaker: Dr. Hugo De Burgos, Ph.D.

UBC medical anthropology professor, Dr. Hugo De Burgos, Ph.D. has created a documentary film examining how lead from industrial operations found its way into the water, food, soil and air in the El Salvadorian community of Sitio del Niño with disastrous results.

The World Health Organization claims that more than 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood in a person poses a serious health risk. In the Sitio del Niño community in El Salvador some people have more than 50 micrograms. This ethnographic documentary tells the story of this community’s subjective experience of lead contamination and its struggle for health and social justice. Although the car battery factory responsible for the contamination was in closed in 2007, residents of Sitio del Niño are still struggling to remove more than 32,000 tons of lead slag from their community and to decontaminate their natural environment and people.

HD Video Color Spanish and English with subtitle in both languages.

SpOil (2010)
Length: 45 min.
Pacific Wild

The International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP) teamed up with EP Films to create a documentary that tells the story of the threats facing the Great Bear Rainforest and the continued efforts of the First Nations communities and conservation groups to protect this wild landscape. SpOil follows the Great Bear Rainforest Rapid Assessment Visual Expedition (RAVE) that sent a swat team of photographers and filmmakers to the Great Bear Rainforest to document the beauty and the threats to this wild landscape. Stunning cinematography! Best Environmental Film,Vancouver International Film Festival; Nominated for the Moving Mountains Award,Telluride Mountain Film Festival

Survival, Strength, Sisterhood (2011)
Length: 32 min.
Filmmakers: Alejandro Zuluaga and Harsha Walia

Survival, Strength, Sisterhood: Power of Women in the Downtown Eastside documents the 20 year history of the annual Women's Memorial March for Missing and Murdered Women in Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories. By focusing on the voices of women who live, love, and work in the Downtown Eastside, this film debunks the sensationalism surrounding a neighbourhood deeply misunderstood, and celebrates the complex and diverse realities of women organizing for justice.

Tambogrande; Mangoes, Murder, Mining (2007)
Length: 85 min.
Guarango Films
Filmmakers: Stephanie Boyd & Ernesto Cabellos

Adventurous pioneers transform Peru's harsh northern desert into a fertile valley of mango and lime orchards. But all they have worked for is threatened when gold is discovered under their land. Fear, violence and murder rock their once quiet community. In the midst of chaos, a martyr's vision unites the farmers and leads them down a revolutionary path of non-violent resistance. These brave men and women take on corrupt politicians and a Canadian mining company in an epic tale of ordinary people rising to heroic deeds in times of great crisis. In the community of Tambogrande, united action leads to victory.

These Were the Reasons (2011)
Length: 27 min.
BC Overtime
Filmmaker: Howie Smith

This film is based on first-hand stories of workers who organized early unions and fought for the rights of working people in British Columbia. Their voices are combined with historic images. These along with labour songs and linking narration, provide a window into the 100 year struggle for union recognition in BC. Hear the stories from the people who lived the history and participated in important battles for a more equitable society.

Urban Roots (2011)
Length: 93 min.
Tree Media
Director: Mark McInnis

The industrial powerhouse of a lost American era has died, and the skeleton left behind is present-day Detroit. Now, against all odds, in the empty lots, in the old factory yards, and in between the sagging blocks of company housing, seeds of change are taking root. A small group of dedicated citizens, allied with environmental and academic groups, have started an urban environmental movement with the potential to transform, not just a city after its collapse, but also a country after the end of its industrial age.

Urban Roots is the inspiring story of a group of dedicated Detroiters working tirelessly to fulfill their vision for locally grown, sustainably farmed food in a city where people have found themselves cut off from real food and limited to the lifeless offerings of fast food chains, mini-marts, and grocery stores stocked with processed food from thousands of miles away.

Waking the Green Tiger (2011)
Length: 78 min.
Face to Face Media
Director: Gary Marcuse Executive Producer: Betsy Carson

Seen through the eyes of activists, farmers, and journalists, Waking the Green Tiger follows an extraordinary campaign to stop a huge dam project on the upper Yangtze River in southwestern China. Featuring astonishing archival footage never seen outside China, and interviews with a government insider and witnesses, the documentary also examines Chairman Mao’s campaigns to conquer nature in the name of progress.

An environmental movement takes root when a new environmental law is passed and, for the first time in China’s history, ordinary citizens have the democratic right to speak out and take part in government decisions. Activists test their freedom to challenge a dam using documentary film footage to reveal the fate of a farming community moved to make way for another dam.. The movement these activists trigger could transform China. Voted one of Top Ten Canadian films, at Vancouver Int’l Film Festival; Best Canadian Documentary, Planet in Focus

White Water, Black Gold (2011)
Length: 64 min.
Whitegold Productions
Director: David Lavallee

White Water, Black Gold takes us with Director David Lavallee on a three year journey following an imaginary drop of water, and later an imaginary drop of oil, down the Athabasca River and across western Canada. The result explains the inextricable link between water and oil in our modern world while unveiling threats the tar sands projects pose to the third largest watershed in the world as well as the Arctic and Pacific Oceans. Having worked as a hiking guide in the Columbia Icefields for 15 years, Lavallee saw profound changes to the mountain landscape. At the same time, Alberta was ramping up growth in the extremely water-intensive tar sands industry downstream. Whether it's a dam breach that could destroy the Mackenzie watershed, tailings ponds that are approaching the size of a great lake, or tanker traffic on Canada’s pristine west coast; it’s clear that our country’s water is in trouble.

A World Without Water (2006)
Length: 90 min.
True Vision Films
Director: Brian Woods

Within our lifetime over half of the world's population will be living without access to safe water and sanitation.

Eight year old Vanessa and her parents walk almost a mile down the cliffs of El Alto in Bolivia to collect water from an unreliable well every day. Yet they live just a few hundred metres from their city's main water treatment plant and can see millions of gallons just beyond the barbed wire fence. They are victims of increasing water commodification. The struggle for this precious resource is explored through compelling stories of families living in Bolivia, Detroit, Dar Es Salaam and Rajestan.