This weekend I attended and volunteered at the Travelling World Community Film Festival in Kelowna BC at the Okanagan Collage. This film fest has been going on for a couple decades, and focuses on moving films about social action on a variety of topics. You can learn about everything from cross-dressing male ballerinas to the tar sands, protests and water protectors at these film fests, and each film is jam packed with meaning and inspiration.
Why is it a travelling film fest? It travels across the country (in the mail and in peoples hearts) from Winnipeg in the east to Nanimo in the west of Canada. It all starts in Courtney British Columbia where the organizers there select the films and then send them off in the mail, where they 'travel' to each participating city. There were about 33 films, and out of all of them I only got to see about 5 or 6 because of prior engagements.
Man, the films at this festival are STRIKING, INSPIRING and MOVING to the highest degree! After each film I was chock full of emotions and inspirations, anger and sadness, but hope too. Honestly, I am still processing it all and the consequences of what I now know are just setting in still.
There are new movements I am aware of to dedicate time and energy too (and to do so with a sense of urgency), more history about my own country that I was not ever aware of, and some interesting other tidbits of history and of the world which were unexpectedly inspiring and pretty funny too. Basically, a whole boatload of good stuff.
Plus, you can find information, petitions and snacks outside of the theaters in the Activist Alley, which in my mind is very important! After you watch these moving films, all you want is to DO SOMETHING! And, even if I do not agree with the government, if signing my name on a piece of paper is going to protect the environment and enable change, then so be it. There are other things to do as well, since it might not work in the end, but I see no harm in trying. There were booths on basically everything, from proportional voting systems to a seed swap, environmental causes, peace groups and poverty reduction. All sorts of cool stuff! A marketplace of ideas!
And, delicious and healthy, home made food is also served! This is a highlight of volunteering, for helping serve dinner and cleaning up after the event I get to know people in the organization AND eat yummy stuff for free. My good friend Allisa, found on Steemit as @littlegreenliza is actually a member of the organizing committee, and that is how I got involved. @offgridninja aka Ryan was also there helping us!
I am only going to talk about a single film (maybe two) at a time, since each of them has their own strong and important messages that must be heard by the world. I hope that the internet people take the initiative to find and watch these films for the greater good, they are damn worth it and I wish they were shown in theaters so that people may be largely inspired to REAL CHANGE!!!
Now, lets get too it. What were the first films I saw?
To the Ends of the Earth , 2016
Director: David Lavallee
"To the Ends of the Earth" follows concerned citizens living at the frontiers of extreme oil and gas extraction, bearing witness to a global crossroads. They call for human ingenuity to rebuild society at the end of the fossil fuel era. "To the Ends of the Earth" brings forward the voices of those who not only denounce the rise of extreme energy, but also envision the new world that is taking shape in its stead: a future beyond the resource pyramid, a post-growth economy.
I missed the very beginning of this show, but that did not take anything away from the striking points it made. I could go on for pages and pages about what I learnt from this film, and research and fact check for hours too. There were a lot of points made, can I even summarize them all?
Our increasing reliance on oil for our economy and lives is not sustainable, and will only become increasingly difficult and dangerous as time goes on. We may not run out of oil products under the earth but we will have to go to the ends of the earth to get to them! And that is what this film is about.
Our beautiful forests and waterways, are we willing to sacrifice this for profit for big business?
It is very full of poignant facts and testimonies by real people framing the reality of increasingly difficult and dangerous oil extractions. The film uses stunning images of natural forests and the disgustingly barren tar sands to drive home the points made. Basically, we need to learn to live with less petroleum products as soon as possible, not in a decade or two but in the next couple years or risk our lives and our planet to continue extracting the earths resources. Can I make this serious message any clearer? This film can!
It gets into the details of how we have already extracted the 'easy and cheap' oil and are now getting into riskier and more expensive territories to extract it. It is no longer easy, cheap or really very feasible to extract oil and related natural resources(was it ever?) and it is becoming much more complicated to refine it too. It will only get harder from here on out, and hardly worth it considering it takes a barrel of oil to make another one. I was nearly amazed (but really its hardly surprising) to realize that it requires a barrel of oil to produce another 2 or 3 barrels of oil (depending on the product being extracted the ratio changes, some are more worth it than others however we have extracted the stuff with the best ratios already), but we would need that ratio to be much better to sustain current consumption levels.
I knew that this shit was bad before this film, but now I am near furious and simply astounded at the bullshit that is going on in our gorgeously natural country. Fracking, pipelines, drilling for oil in the arctic, all of it is dangerous. But what are the dangers we face? Other then destorying the natural world and important habitats, as well as contributing CO2 and methane to the atmosphere, I think the most important issue is how it may destroy and poison our WATER. Since the pipeline will end in Vancouver, many tankers carrying huge amounts of oil will have to pass through the already busy and narrow waterways. An estimated 17% chance of a spill is likely to happen in the coastal waters.
Water is THE vital force on the planet, connecting everything and everyone. Nothing can survive without clean water, and oil spills, especially of large scale and in places like the hard to access arctic are already destroying our oceans and our fresh water too. From oil spills to the waste produced from refining oil, there are a lot of risks taken in the whole process!
Imagine this with chunks of ice floating around and stormy waters in the Arctic, does that seem safe to you?
What is really concerning is that big oil companies want to put oil rigs in the arctic ocean. As we know from history, this is a dangerous place for ships of all sorts and is not easy to access due to seasonal ice. Plus, it is already the area experiencing the worst climate change effects. A spill in the arctic ocean would not be easy to clean up. The film showed an animation of an underwater oil well breaking and spewing oil into the ocean at massive rates. The seasonal ice, the weather and the incredibly cold and icey waters would make it very difficult to stop that leak, let alone clean it up. What are they even thinking? Is the risk worth it?
And imagine putting a nuclear power plant beside an oil drilling site to power the oil drilling and refining (so they dont need a whole barrel of oil to make another 2 barrels of oil), YAH, that is an ACTUAL proposition by big oil companies. FOR REAL! That is a legit stupid idea that is actually being considered.... and its only one of many non common sense ideas.
And before they are even getting around to drilling in the arctic, they are already killing whales and narwhals with underwater air cannons used to detect oil reserves under the ocean floor. The Inuit peoples are being seriously effected by this already, yeah, they are already looking for oil in the arctic. The air cannon can be heard underwater for literally hundreds of miles, and destroys the hearing of underwater animals that RELY ON SOUND to find food, to navigate and to find mates. Narwhals with bloody ears and whales trapped under ice, it is already atrociously not worth it and effecting those who dare live in the arctic regions, both human and animal.
Tar sands in Alberta, destroying forests and polluting waterways with toxic waste. Not to mention the air pollution, toxic mercury fumes and the high percentage of cancer patients in nearby towns. Source.
And that is not even all, there is more, a lot more! Hear it from the Inuit, hear it from scientists, hear it from regular people, hear it from history. When confronted with facts like those presented in this film, your eyes are opened to the ridiculous amounts of oil products we use and how it is totally not sustainable at all. Sure, we will not run out of oil and related stuff, but it will become increasingly difficult to extract and process, and increasingly dangerous to the environment the more complicated it gets.
And the worst part? Nothing is stopping the bullshit from happening because of big buisness and the lie of money. Supposedly it will help our economy, but really it will create more debt (physical, mental and spiritual). Protesters get arrested and the police and politicians protect big business. In this film you can literally watch people get arrested for peacefully protesting and blocking oil companies in Burnaby BC. The police literally stand and block the people from peacefully protesting, acting like a private police force for big business well protesters being dragged away yelling "THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!!!" -IE because its not real democracy, it is politicians being buddies with big business in this case.
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A peaceful protester being carried off site by police, probably for blocking Kinder Morgan vehicles. Over 200 people have been arrested for various reasons during these protests, many for civil disobedience. Source.
And, I have not even summed up the whole film or all of the issues. I have only touched on the subject with my rudimentary knowledge of it all, but it is a lot more then I knew beforehand. That lack of knowledge and ignorance of the general public might be the most concerning part of it all. Here in BC and Alberta the oil rigs are renowned for bringing in money, for good jobs, and a few of my family members work there. There are little thoughts about the impact on the future and on the environment, and many would argue that it is worth it. I hope that everyone who thinks it is worth it watches this documentary, it might just change your mind.
I am not totally against oil products, we need them at this point. However we radically need to reduce our consumption of such products and be mindful of our impact on the environment. We must find alternatives with our genius human creativity and initiate change.
We need to stand up and take responsibility as stewards of Mother Earth, because no one is there to do it but us. If you believe that action needs to be taken NOW, in whatever part of the world, then stand up and take action now! Don't wait around for anyone else, just do it, or else we will face an energy crisis sooner then later. It can all start with a simple film for inspiration and massive action is mobilized.
I will be writing next weekend about a protest against big oil companies, especially Kinder Morgan, in hopes that we can save our beautiful and diverse coastline, forests and all life that flourishes on planet earth.
If you would like to watch this film, learn more about this film and the issues it brings up, visit the website here
If you would like to join in on the protest against Kinder Morgan (in Vancouver this Saturday) find information on that here. It is called Protect the Inlet and is organized by the native Salish people of the area. There will be a protest in Kelowna, among other places, as well. Greenpeace Canada and many other organizations have videos and are supporting this protest, please do search Protect the Inlet and check those out.
And if you would like to watch the trailer for this film, here it is! Even the trailer is moving, wait until you see the whole thing!
Thank you all for visiting my blog yet again, and learning about this important movement. If we do not protect our environment, then who will? Not big business, and not our Prime Minister either.
I hope you join me in this worthy cause, and there will be more film reviews coming soon (maybe not as long as this one haha). I also hope you are inspired, because by volunteering and blogging about it, I am living my dream life - earning a living through volunteering!
(all images are sourced from pixabay and canva unless otherwise stated and sourced)
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