Film Categories: Ecology

  • The Flower and The Flood

    Following the seasonal cycle of a saffron farm based in the Fraser Valley, the film explores unmechanized labor through harvesting the delicate crocus stamen by hand. After an atmospheric river decimates the flourishing saffron crop in 2021, the flood waters temporarily return Semá:th Xó:tsa to the valley more than a century after its forced draining. The film traces the interconnected history of this sacred lake with the rebuilding of the saffron crop; cultivating community and the most expensive spice in the world. Collaborating with the saffron crocus and other plants through eco-processing and analogue processes, the family garden offers us…

  • How To: Festoon

    “How To: Festoon” is where my life as a filmmaker intersects with my job as a conveyor belt salesman. Three years ago, financial need and family obligation forced me to work in my family business – selling conveyor belts. Just as each of us is comprised of many different layers of experiences, “How To: Festoon” is comprised of two layers of film that form my identity. The first layer is a structurally organized account of a Limestone Quarry in which rock from a cliff is collected by a huge tractor and dump truck and processed into small pebbles on a…

  • Hybrid

    “‘Hybrid’ shows, in near-documentary fashion, the planting of flowers crosscut with a looming military presence viewed in photographs. This polarity of life and death, still and motion, courses throughout the film until its final eruption into colour drafts between a war-scarred generation of Vietnamese children and a flowering London stalk. A defiantly personal response to a war whose images haunted the public imagery of the 60s, ‘Hybrid’ stands in answer to any who feel an irreconcilable divide between art and politics…” – Mike Hoolboom “The Vietnam War was very upsetting to me: I did not agree with the American presence…

  • Inquiry Film, The

    The Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry (also known as the Berger Inquiry) was a precedent-shattering examination of Native rights and economic development in Canada’s North. The contentious issues brought out by the Inquiry are very much alive today as Southern Canada still seeks to exploit the resources of the North. “The Inquiry Film” documents and reveals the process of the Inquiry and humanizes a complex political and national issue. Awards: Best Documentary, Canadian Film Awards; Golden Athena Award (Best Feature Film)

  • Lac La Croix

    Native people young and old speak about land issues, the environment, and the culture and history of Lac La Croix Ojibway peoples of northwestern Ontario. The film examines issues such as the community ban on liquor, the fight against welfare dependency, and the effects of the media on young people. “Lac La Croix” was made with the full cooperation of the Lac La Croix community. In the film, many different people speak about their lives and their current political struggles. This is a film about a Native community fighting successfully for survival, blending the old and the new.

  • Lake Odyssey

    The problem of overgrown lakes detracts from the great tourism industry of Northern Canada, so researchers discovered weed harvesting as a means of restoring the delicate plant balance. This film looks at the process of harvesting lake weeds and recycling the material for animal fodder and compost. Excellent nature photography presents this case of creative environmental management.

  • Leaving the Poisons Behind

    Animal, fish and bird pictographs struggle to escape the filmic and musical presence of environmental poisons. Primarily an environmental picture, “Leaving the Poisons Behind” can also be seen as a forum for meditation on the idea of leaving behind personal poisons – smoking, drugs, drinking, abusive relationships, and so on. The film may also be of interest to those who are studying aboriginals and their environmental connections, and to those interested in petroglyphs and other figures from neolithic artists. It is a beautiful film as well as an innovative type of music video in film format, making it accessible to…

  • License to Kill, Part MCMXC

    “License to Kill, Part MCMXC” is a short animated film which reverses the role of hunter and hunted. It is a simple story about a bear who gets a hunting license and goes to the city to hunt man. It is animated by drawings of pencil crayon on white paper.

  • Architectures Landscapes

    Although made in 1993, this film languished for several years as the filmmaker attempted various remakes during 1994-95. Eventually he decided to preserve the original version and to allow the new experiments a place in the subsequent films, “You Take The High Road” and “We Are Experiencing ….” Luckily the filmmaker’s parents had kept a VHS video version of the original film, otherwise it would have been impossible to cobble together the various film elements from memory alone. The film marks the filmmaker’s first use of the optical printer as a tool for image manipulation and layering. The film is…

  • Minomen Harvest

    “Minomen Harvest” is a documentary of the traditional native method of harvesting wild rice which takes place outside the town of Ardock in Ontario. The August harvest begins with cutting the wild rice by hand, then the drying and winowing. No mechanization is used throughout the entire process. The film ends with a sunrise ceremony that honours Mother Earth, the creator of wild rice.