HOT DOCS 2015 - HAIDA GWAII: ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD - Review By Greg Klymkiw ****

Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World (2015)
Dir. Charles Wilkinson
Prd. Tina Schliessler

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Some of the most important environmental documentaries being made in the world include the work of Canadian director Charles Wilkinson who knocked us on our collective butts with his powerful energy-consumption doc Peace Out and his potent, strangely uplifting Oil Sands Karaoke, that focused upon the face of humanity amidst the horrific environmental exploitation in the Alberta Tar Sands. His new film, Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World, comprises the third of what feels like an unofficial trilogy (which one hopes will continue well beyond its current trinity).

On one hand, the current picture essentially supersedes Wilkinson's previous work with the film's delicate blend of cold, hard facts which, we should all be actively concerned about and, on the other paw, a very gentle (deceptively so) tone poem to one of the greatest natural treasures of the world. Officially known as the Queen Charlotte islands, this gorgeous archipelago in northern British Columbia (BC) comprises about 150 islands and is home to a varied and important population of flora and fauna - vital to the area itself, but also to the world at large.

The Haida Gwaii, which literally translates as "Islands of the Haida people" was traditionally the domain of this great aboriginal nation who prospered here for over 10,000 years until Colonialism decimated the population through both disease and, of course, Canada's uniquely polite form of genocide (both literal and cultural, the latter of which has always been the big stick Whitey calls "assimilation"). Today, however, the dominant population of the Haida Gwaii are the indigenous people of the island and surely they have the right to self-determination. In fact, they do have that right, only it is continually ignored and/or bamboozled by Canadian government bureaucracy.

Treaties in particular continue to be broken and/or ignored under the aegis of Canada's belief that all lands, even if they belong to Aboriginal Nations, are Crown Lands and as such, can be dealt with in any cavalier fashion the government chooses - dispensing, willy-nilly, all manner of dispensation to corporate rapists of the environment. One of Canada's more appalling back-handed acknowledgments of Aboriginal Rights in the Haida Gwaii has been to convert a huge chunk of land not destroyed by clearcut logging and other crimes against the environment into a massive national park. Yes, this protects the land (supposedly in perpetuity) but the park is essentially "owned" and administered by the "Crown" as opposed to those who really own it, the Haida Nation. It's the Government of Canada's God-like assumption that with one hand it giveth and with the other taketh, all in the schizophrenic snow job to make it seem like they respect the First Nations (and by extension, the environment), when in reality, it's to feather the nests of Big Money (and by extension, the on-the-take pockets of politicians).

Ownership of these lands seems almost preposterous to one of the film's subjects. Allan Wilson, the Haida hereditary Chief makes the astute observation: "We care for the land here, but we don't own the Animal Kingdom, it's a part of us, it's family. I kinda think that's the way it is because everything has its part and every part has its value and every value contributes to our life."

The Government of Canada, however, has no values save for those which fill the pockets of politicians' rich friends, and of course, themselves.

Wilkinson's film contains a plethora of alarming facts with respect to this. Two thirds of the Haida Gwaii's forests have been decimated by illegal logging and billions of dollars of profits from this has been dispersed into the pockets of the very few. Yes, Haida people had jobs in logging, but not to the tune of billions of dollars. Besides, in recent years, the jobs issue is a public relations smokescreen since mechanization in the logging industry has swallowed up most of the available jobs. Land and resources are sucked dry, but nothing comes back to the Haida.

Even more sickening is that Canada's Federal Nazi Party (aka The Conservatives), in cahoots with corporate oil interests and the Fascist Party of BC (aka The Liberal Party of BC, aka Really Not Much Different Than The Conservatives Party) are all threatening to upset the natural balance of life in this paradise on Earth with the current desire to plough through the Tar Sands seaway to Asia. The powers-that-be want us to believe it's all about jobs (BC Premier Christy Lemire's spurious excuse for all her dubious decisions), but in reality, the short-term gain of this smokescreen will potentially wreak havoc that can only yield long-term environmental pain.

What the world needs to know, what it needs to wake up to is that First Nations people all over the world have lived with a sustainable relationship to the environment for millennia. This is certainly the case with the Haida. Not that Herr Harper and his cronies at the federal and provincial level care. They and their rich buddies don't need to care. The government has forgotten that it is the People - all people. Still, the rape of the Haida Gwaii is ongoing. At one point, it's revealed that in addition to pipelines, there are plans afoot for huge tanker ships to traverse along the shorelines which are in extremely rough, rocky waters. (Way to go Government and Big Business! Morons!) Even the slightest spill - clearly an inevitability - will contaminate a huge part of the ecosystem and result in both people and animals eating poison food. Then again, why should Harper and his gang of Nazis and Fascists care?

Wilkinson's film cannily places the anger of the Haida Nation over Canada's flagrant violation of Aboriginal Rights within the context of a people who are not only trying to live as traditionally as possible, but in many cases are working towards a reclamation of traditional cultural values which were under Colonial attack for so long. Wilkinson introduces us to Haida elders, activists and even the youth who all provide us with an important perspective - that the people and land are one; they're inextricably linked to the degree that any violation of this connection is not only an infringement upon the Haida, but by extension, all Canadians and frankly, the world. In fairness, Whitey is not only represented as the faceless corporate/governmental evil; Wilkinson also introduces us to those of the pale-skinned persuasion who are equal partners with the Haida in protesting the pillage of this paradise.

The poetic qualities of the film are what ultimately create a love and appreciation for what is both sacred and in need of protection. We are lulled, not into complacency, but the sheer magic these islands provide and the greatest impetus for Canadians and the world at large to reject the illegal, immoral use of these lands to ultimately benefit the very few.

Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World might well provide the most persuasive aesthetic argument to save these islands at all costs by placing us into frame of mind which is ultimately the next best thing to actually being there. By the end of the film, we're consumed with deep emotional ties to the land, but most importantly, we're firmly placed in the corner of those who possess the best chance to save our world, those indigenous First Nations who have been able to thrive in spite of the deadly roadblocks placed in front of their right to live freely in their own cultural and environmental milieu.

The Haida are fighters, but their greatest weapon is the land itself. Hats off to Wilkinson for crafting a film which walks tall, yet softly and carries the big stick of our ultimate salvation, the environment itself and, of course, its people, the Haida.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5 Stars

Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World enjoys its World Premier at Hot Docs 2015. For tickets and info, visit the festival's website by clicking HERE.

Greg Klymkiw presents his HOT DOCS 2015 HOT PICKS #4: HAIDA GWAII - ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD ****, FRACTURED LAND ***, CHAMELEON ***, MILK ***

Greg Klymkiw presents his HOT DOCS 2015 HOT PICKS #4

For the next fourteen days I will only review movies I liked, loved or that totally blew me away during the 2015 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in Toronto, Canada. Life is short. I won't bother reviewing movies that were godawful, mediocre or just plain okay. Note my picks, mark your calendars and save some precious hours, days and weeks of your life on planet Earth. Instead, spend it travelling the world via one of cinema's most vital genres.

Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World (2015)
Dir. Charles Wilkinson
Prd. Tina Schliessler

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Some of the most important environmental documentaries being made in the world include the work of Canadian director Charles Wilkinson who knocked us on our collective butts with his powerful energy-consumption doc Peace Out and his potent, strangely uplifting Oil Sands Karaoke, that focused upon the face of humanity amidst the horrific environmental exploitation in the Alberta Tar Sands. His new film, Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World, comprises the third of what feels like an unofficial trilogy (which one hopes will continue well beyond its current trinity).

On one hand, the current picture essentially supersedes Wilkinson's previous work with the film's delicate blend of cold, hard facts which, we should all be actively concerned about and, on the other paw, a very gentle (deceptively so) tone poem to one of the greatest natural treasures of the world. Officially known as the Queen Charlotte islands, this gorgeous archipelago in northern British Columbia (BC) comprises about 150 islands and is home to a varied and important population of flora and fauna - vital to the area itself, but also to the world at large.

The Haida Gwaii, which literally translates as "Islands of the Haida people" was traditionally the domain of this great aboriginal nation who prospered here for over 10,000 years until Colonialism decimated the population through both disease and, of course, Canada's uniquely polite form of genocide (both literal and cultural, the latter of which has always been the big stick Whitey calls "assimilation"). Today, however, the dominant population of the Haida Gwaii are the indigenous people of the island and surely they have the right to self-determination. In fact, they do have that right, only it is continually ignored and/or bamboozled by Canadian government bureaucracy.

Treaties in particular continue to be broken and/or ignored under the aegis of Canada's belief that all lands, even if they belong to Aboriginal Nations, are Crown Lands and as such, can be dealt with in any cavalier fashion the government chooses - dispensing, willy-nilly, all manner of dispensation to corporate rapists of the environment. One of Canada's more appalling back-handed acknowledgments of Aboriginal Rights in the Haida Gwaii has been to convert a huge chunk of land not destroyed by clearcut logging and other crimes against the environment into a massive national park. Yes, this protects the land (supposedly in perpetuity) but the park is essentially "owned" and administered by the "Crown" as opposed to those who really own it, the Haida Nation. It's the Government of Canada's God-like assumption that with one hand it giveth and with the other taketh, all in the schizophrenic snow job to make it seem like they respect the First Nations (and by extension, the environment), when in reality, it's to feather the nests of Big Money (and by extension, the on-the-take pockets of politicians).

Ownership of these lands seems almost preposterous to one of the film's subjects. Allan Wilson, the Haida hereditary Chief makes the astute observation: "We care for the land here, but we don't own the Animal Kingdom, it's a part of us, it's family. I kinda think that's the way it is because everything has its part and every part has its value and every value contributes to our life."

Ownership of these lands seems almost preposterous to one of the film's subjects. Allan Wilson, the Haida hereditary Chief makes the astute observation: "We care for the land here, but we don't own the Animal Kingdom, it's a part of us, it's family. I kinda think that's the way it is because everything has its part and every part has its value and every value contributes to our life."

The Government of Canada, however, has no values save for those which fill the pockets of politicians' rich friends, and of course, themselves.

Wilkinson's film contains a plethora of alarming facts with respect to this. Two thirds of the Haida Gwaii's forests have been decimated by illegal logging and billions of dollars of profits from this has been dispersed into the pockets of the very few. Yes, Haida people had jobs in logging, but not to the tune of billions of dollars. Besides, in recent years, the jobs issue is a public relations smokescreen since mechanization in the logging industry has swallowed up most of the available jobs. Land and resources are sucked dry, but nothing comes back to the Haida.

Even more sickening is that Canada's Federal Nazi Party (aka The Conservatives), in cahoots with corporate oil interests and the Fascist Party of BC (aka The Liberal Party of BC, aka Really Not Much Different Than The Conservatives Party) are all threatening to upset the natural balance of life in this paradise on Earth with the current desire to plough through the Tar Sands seaway to Asia. The powers-that-be want us to believe it's all about jobs (BC Premier Christy Lemire's spurious excuse for all her dubious decisions), but in reality, the short-term gain of this smokescreen will potentially wreak havoc that can only yield long-term environmental pain.

What the world needs to know, what it needs to wake up to is that First Nations people all over the world have lived with a sustainable relationship to the environment for millennia. This is certainly the case with the Haida. Not that Herr Harper and his cronies at the federal and provincial level care. They and their rich buddies don't need to care. The government has forgotten that it is the People - all people. Still, the rape of the Haida Gwaii is ongoing. At one point, it's revealed that in addition to pipelines, there are plans afoot for huge tanker ships to traverse along the shorelines which are in extremely rough, rocky waters. (Way to go Government and Big Business! Morons!) Even the slightest spill - clearly an inevitability - will contaminate a huge part of the ecosystem and result in both people and animals eating poison food. Then again, why should Harper and his gang of Nazis and Fascists care?

Wilkinson's film cannily places the anger of the Haida Nation over Canada's flagrant violation of Aboriginal Rights within the context of a people who are not only trying to live as traditionally as possible, but in many cases are working towards a reclamation of traditional cultural values which were under Colonial attack for so long. Wilkinson introduces us to Haida elders, activists and even the youth who all provide us with an important perspective - that the people and land are one; they're inextricably linked to the degree that any violation of this connection is not only an infringement upon the Haida, but by extension, all Canadians and frankly, the world. In fairness, Whitey is not only represented as the faceless corporate/governmental evil; Wilkinson also introduces us to those of the pale-skinned persuasion who are equal partners with the Haida in protesting the pillage of this paradise.

The poetic qualities of the film are what ultimately create a love and appreciation for what is both sacred and in need of protection. We are lulled, not into complacency, but the sheer magic these islands provide and the greatest impetus for Canadians and the world at large to reject the illegal, immoral use of these lands to ultimately benefit the very few.

Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World might well provide the most persuasive aesthetic argument to save these islands at all costs by placing us into frame of mind which is ultimately the next best thing to actually being there. By the end of the film, we're consumed with deep emotional ties to the land, but most importantly, we're firmly placed in the corner of those who possess the best chance to save our world, those indigenous First Nations who have been able to thrive in spite of the deadly roadblocks placed in front of their right to live freely in their own cultural and environmental milieu.

The Haida are fighters, but their greatest weapon is the land itself. Hats off to Wilkinson for crafting a film which walks tall, yet softly and carries the big stick of our ultimate salvation, the environment itself and, of course, its people, the Haida.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5 Stars

Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World enjoys its World Premier at Hot Docs 2015. For tickets and info, visit the festival's website by clicking HERE.

Fractured Land (2015)
Dir. Damien Gillis, Fiona Rayher

Review By Greg Klymkiw

It's the stuff good movies are made of; WITNESS: a young, handsome, rugged, Mohawk-pated Aboriginal man of the Dene Nation in northeastern British Columbia with a penchant for hunting, trapping and expert tomahawk-throwing is also an impeccably groomed "monkey-suited" lawyer entering his articling year with a desire to focus on Native land rights and environmental issues. He's split between the town and the country - a kind of Clark-Kent-Superman figure who is already on the cusp of shaking up the world of evil corporate and government exploitation.

Oh, and he has a physical "defect", a cleft-palate which is the result of environmental poisoning in his family's gene pool. It's a defect which, like all great movie heroes, causes him considerable and painful rumination upon his childhood and how this "defect" has affected him, but also how it empowers him. Joaquin Phoenix is a natural for the role if it's ever turned into a feature length drama (hopefully directed by Paul Thomas Anderson) or an HBO limited series.

For now, though, it's ALL documentary and ALL real. The aforementioned young man, one Caleb Behn, is the primary subject of Fractured Land by co-directors Damien Gillis and Fiona Rayher and they've deftly focused their interviewing techniques and cameras to capture the kind of complex, charismatic character that screenwriters and directors toil to bring to life on both the page and screen of feature narrative. They allow us to follow Behn in both the wilderness and the city, buffeting his compelling tale with a solid variety of interview subjects - friends, family, locals, elders, big oil honchos and, among others, fellow land claims and environmental activists.

We're privy to the cold, hard facts of the environmental devastation that has already taken place in northeastern BC as well as what's happening now and will, indeed, happen in the future if something is not done. It's a given that the right side of the war will be populated by many Native Canadians, but the film's thematic subtext reveals the overwhelming sense of fractures - not just in the fracked/clearcut and formerly pristine land, but in those Aboriginal people who are direct beneficiaries of the jobs on offer and the economic benefits of environmental exploitation. Even Caleb Behn knows that his opportunities to receive a post secondary education are rooted in the employment his own parents benefitted from.

BC's Liberal Premier, the sickening Christy Lemire with her continually smiling oh-so perky, chirpy cheerleader stance of "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs" is currently leading the way for more environmental abuses and playing right into the hands of Canada's psycho Nazi Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Government and Big Money also have deep pockets to fight any challenges to their blatant theft from Canada's First Nations.

Worse yet is the fact - once again - that any benefits of pillaging, raping and murdering the environment are strictly ephemeral. The future, however, could be very bleak for everyone and this is where Caleb Behn could make a difference. In the midst of his gruelling work as an articling lawyer/student, he is a much-sought-after public speaker on environmental/Aboriginal issues and he simply can't seem to say "No" to any invitation for him to publicly denounce the evils of fracking, clear cutting and all other manner of "legal" criminal actions against the Earth's potential for survival.

A very powerful sequence has Caleb visiting New Zealand and meeting with Maori leaders who discuss and then show him first-hand the devastating effects of tracking upon their land. It's potent and empowering, but also deeply moving. Caleb seems even more energized to fight the good fight in Canada.

It's a cool movie that way. Caleb Behn is going to become one of the country's important leaders (if not the world's) and here we get a ground-floor glimpse at the beginnings of what will be a stellar ascension. Looking forward to sequels will, in fact, be looking forward to Planet Earth's health and longevity with Behn leading the charge.

I can hardly wait.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** Three Stars

Fractured Land enjoys its World Premier at Hot Docs 2015. For tickets and info, visit the festival's website by clicking HERE.

Chameleon (2014)
Dir. Ryan Mullins

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Anas Aremeyaw Anas not only seeks to fight crime, he wants to expose it publicly, shame it and then create enough evidence for the evil-doers to be tossed into prison for a good long time. Anas will go to seemingly absurd lengths to "get his man". He's a master of disguise - so much so, that most people, even some who are close to him, don't even really know what he looks like.

Chameleon, indeed!

Oh, and he's not a cop.

Anas Aremeyaw Anas is Ghana's most popular tabloid investigative journalist. Working closely with the police, Anas pursues those who have eluded incarceration. He's not only fighting crime, he's getting the story first-hand for his readers.

The film entertainingly follows Anas at every step of the way during his detailed investigation into a notorious human trafficking ring. We get to see him behind the scenes, his collaboration with trusted members of law enforcement and even his speech (in disguise, of course) to a whole whack of admiring kids (which provides a ton of great tidbits about his past successes).

The movie offers a lovely appetizer case; an abominably deviant abortionist coerces women into having sex with him before he performs the fetal extraction. He claims that his highly skilled prodigious schwance-pronging will open up a woman's passageways in a natural fashion prior to the doc diving in and ripping the blob of living flesh from the abortion-seeker. The guy is a total dirt-bag and seeing him taken out is very pleasurable, but the lead-up to his capture is also nail-bitingly suspenseful due to Anas' "bait", a colleague placed in clear danger to help make the bust.

Though the film provides a tiny bit of tut-tutting about journalistic ethics, this (thankfully) takes a decided backseat to Anas' derring-do. The human trafficking case is especially suspenseful, but director Ryan Mullins captures the bust's aftermath superbly; giving us a very real, telling and melancholy exposure to the conflicted feelings of the traffickers' victims.

This is yet another doc that has feature film drama and/or dramatic TV series potential splashed all over it. I don't think this is a bad thing at all. It'll be fun to see if Chameleon becomes a franchise tentpole.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** Three Stars

Chameleon will have its World Premiere at HOT DOCS 2015. For schedule and tickets, visit the Hot Docs website HERE.

Milk (2015)
Dir. Noemi Weis

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I have to admit that Milk was a huge eye-opener for this fella and might well have a similar effect upon millions upon millions of people. On the surface, the film seems like a fairly standard, straightforward look at motherhood - most notably in the area of breast-feeding. As the film progresses, it is so much more. The picture touches upon areas like midwifery versus traditional medical birth methods, but in many ways this is the springboard needed to jettison us into the shocking and sickening misuse and abuse of women's bodies and by extension, those of their newborn babies.

Once again, corporate interests are promoting extremely unhealthy practises all in the name of profits. What I personally learned was the extent to which the commercial baby food industry held sway over women worldwide - especially in the area of promoting milk supplements instead of good, old fashioned breast milk. Frankly, I just assumed all babies were breast-fed except in rare instances where milk supplements were the only route to take.

Unfortunately the marketing and lobby of corporate pigs is so strong, that kids are being fed powdery packets of poison and chemicals because safety and convenience play such a huge part in the selling of said supplements. One of the more appalling examples of the lengths to which infant formula manufacturers will go to are presented by their purported altruism wherein they donate their product in far-flung reaches of the planet which have been decimated by natural disasters or war. Mothers and their babies get hooked on the crap, and then, the companies having not provided enough donations of formula, force families to pay for more of it in the supermarkets. Some families are so destitute they seek alternate forms of powdered food which end up being much cheaper.

And you know what? As the jingle goes, "Coffee Mate, tastes great, Coffee Mate makes your cup of coffee taste GREAT!"

The last time I checked, synthetic coffee cream powders are not food, but are fed to babies anyway. The marketing of said product does little to dispel the notion that it can be used successfully.

Milk goes well beyond its TV doc roots and delivers a powerful, insightful look at this detestable exploitation and does so across five continents. The scope is wide; as it should be in the case of children and what they're (force) fed during their earliest years.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** Three Stars

Milk will have its World Premiere at HOT DOCS 2015. For schedule and tickets, visit the Hot Docs website HERE.

OIL SANDS KARAOKE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Documentary Puts Human Face To Environmental Devastation

Director Charles Wilkinson and producer Tina Schliessler return to the subject of energy and environmental devastation in their engaging and surprisingly buoyant followup to the powerful "PEACE OUT". This time, the energy is Oil Sands workers letting off steam in a local karaoke joint. The environment continues to be assaulted, but this time, the filmmakers put a genuinely human face to the devastation of the planet. It's an entertaining, poignant AND important film - an unbeatable combination.

Oil Sands Karaoke (2013) dir. Charles Wilkinson ****

Review By Greg Klymkiw

One of the most devastating assaults upon Canada's environment continues to take place in the Alberta Oil Sands. For the faceless corporations lining the deep pockets of the very few, one of the largest deposits of petroleum on our fair planet is in - you guessed it - the Alberta Oil Sands. Fort McMurray, Alberta used to be a city until it was amalgamated with a good chunk of the region of the Oil Sands once referred to as (don't laugh, I'm not kidding) an Improvement District. Once the city and the nameless district became one, the city of Fort McMurray was no longer a city, but rather (again, don't laugh, I'm really not kidding) an urban service area.

It seems tax dollars were hard at work coming up with all that in order to more adequately serve the interests of oil companies that would find it more convenient to strip the land of its natural beauty if they only had to deal with one civic bureaucracy. Fort McMurray and surrounding areas are, you see, a major cash cow.

This area is alone responsible for generating two million barrels of oil every single day. This isn't a bad haul considering the world uses 90 million barrels of oil a day.

It is Fort McMurray where Director Charles Wilkinson and Producer Tina Schliessler, the makers of Peace Out, last year's stunning, award-winning documentary on energy consumption, have aimed their lenses. This time, the subjects are not corporate CEOs and environmental specialists, but rather, the people - the real people of Fort McMurray. Including migrant workers, the population of the amalgamated R.M. can hit heights of well over 70,000 and most of them either work in the oil business or are beholden to it with their own non-oil toils.

Corporations often think about their scads of employees as faceless hordes, but Oil Sands Karaoke seeks to give faces and names to those who break their backs out in the oil fields - haul truck drivers, small business owners and scaffolders to name but a few.

This is a movie about people, the people - working people.

Wilkinson's film treats all of them with the respect corporations don't. Focusing on five primary individuals, Wilkinson's camera eye captures who they are, where they came from, what their work is and what they hope their futures hold. Most of all, it captures their one true passion.

Bailey's Pub is a popular magnet for oil workers. It's a Karaoke Bar where the backbone of the oil industry, the hard labourers, come to express themselves through song, through music, through fellowship and camaraderie - Karaoke!

Bailey's bartender puts it simply and best - the working people of the oil industry come there for a small section of limelight, to focus themselves on pure musical (and in a sense, spiritual) expression. "It's a big escape from reality," the bartender states succinctly.

Escaping the reality of toil in the Oil Sands might be the only thing to maintain one's sense of self-worth. Yes, the wages are great, but Wilkinson cannily displays the working conditions. On the surface, all seems fine - state of the art equipment, an accent on workplace safety and the ability to learn and work a trade to the best of one's ability.

This is all, however, skin deep.

Wilkinson uses shots of the land itself as both transition points in the narrative, but to also expose the ruination of the environment, the bleak, manmade hell that is the Oil Sands. Land scorched and scraped beyond recognition, a hazy treeless wasteland and worst of all, endless smokestacks belching clouds of filth into the air are what comprise the world these workers must live in.

It ain't pretty, but every night in the karaoke bar, all that changes. With lights in their eyes and the sounds of genuinely appreciative audiences, the workers who partake of the nightly forays into musical expression get to experience the thrill of connecting with others using their innate talents to perform.

Life transforms into a thing of genuine beauty.

We've had our share of fictional renderings of this phenomenon - whether it be John Travolta's Tony Manero tripping the light fantastic on the disco floors of Saturday Night Fever or Jennifer Beals gyrating ever-so artistically to Michael Sembello singing "Maniac" in Flashdance - but with Oil Sands Karaoke we get the real thing.

Seeing these genuinely decent working class heroes spilling out their innermost dreams through song and knowing they are the real thing - not a construct of imagination, but rather, what and who they are in life - is what provides the sort of resonance that fiction can't always deliver. Sometimes you just need to train your lens on reality.

This is what Wilkinson does so expertly and poignantly.

And yes, he tells a story. The narrative arc involves an upcoming karaoke contest at Bailey's - an event that grips Fort McMurray by the veritable short hairs - especially those who will participate in it.

One of the revelations in Oil Sands Karaoke is the alluring, passionate and genuinely talented Iceis Rain. By day, a small business owner, but by night a chanteuse of the highest order. He claims to have been the first gay person in Fort McMurray to come out and though he might, in other similar working class towns in other countries - oh, let's say, the United States - he might well be taking his life in his hands. As we come to know and love those who patronize Bailey's, he's in good hands (most of the time) - surrounded by warmth and good cheer.

All that aside, Iceis (pronounced like "Isis") Rain delivers one show-stopper after another. By the time we get to the big Karaoke contest, Iceis knocks us completely on our collective asses. The performance is infused with a strange blend of sadness and elation - a kind of melancholy that has the power to lift our spirits to the Heavens - and does so with a virtuosity that captures it so indelibly that many will be moved to tears. I know I was.

Oil Sands Karaoke is quite unlike any documentary about the environment that you'll ever see. It's about the people. And as is my wont when compelled, I'm always happy to paraphrase that great line Jimmy Stewart has in It's a Wonderful Life. With taste and genuine emotion, Wilkinson sheds light upon all those "who do most of the living and dying in this town."

It can't get more environmental than that.

"Oil Sands Karaoke" launches on a limited theatrical run beginning in Toronto November 8 (4pm and 9pm daily) at the Magic Lantern Carlton Cinemas via Avi Federgreen's Indie-Can. Free to visit the Carlton Cinema website directly by clicking HERE.


HERE ARE SOME FANTASTIC DOCUMENTARIES YOU CAN PURCHASE DIRECTLY FROM HERE (AND SUPPORT THE MAINTENANCE OF THIS SITE) BY CLICKING THE HANDY AMAZON LINKS BELOW:

OIL SANDS KARAOKE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Klymkiw HOT DOCS 2013 HOT PICKS

Oil Sands Karaoke (2013) ****
dir. Charles Wilkinson

Review By Greg Klymkiw

One of the most devastating assaults upon Canada's environment continues to take place in the Alberta Oil Sands. For the faceless corporations lining the deep pockets of the very few, one of the largest deposits of petroleum on our fair planet is in - you guessed it - the Alberta Oil Sands.

Fort McMurray, Alberta used to be a city until it was amalgamated with a good chunk of the region of the Oil Sands once referred to as (don't laugh, I'm not kidding) an Improvement District. Once the city and the nameless district became one, the city of Fort McMurray was no longer a city, but rather (again, don't laugh, I'm really not kidding) an urban service area.

It seems tax dollars were hard at work coming up with all that in order to more adequately serve the interests of oil companies that would find it more convenient to strip the land of its natural beauty if they only had to deal with one civic bureaucracy. Fort McMurray and surrounding areas are, you see, a major cash cow. This area is alone responsible for generating two million barrels of oil every single day. This sure isn't a bad haul considering that the world uses 90 million barrels of oil a day.

It is Fort McMurray where Director Charles Wilkinson and Producer Tina Schliessler, the makers of Peace Out, last year's stunning, award-winning documentary on energy consumption, have aimed their lenses upon. This time, though, the subjects are not corporate CEO's and environmental specialists, but rather, the people - the real people of Fort McMurray. Including migrant workers, the population of the amalgamated R.M. can hit heights of well over 70,000 and most of them either work in the oil business or are beholden to it with their own non-oil toils.

Corporations often think about their scads of employees as faceless hordes, but Oil Sands Karaoke seeks to give faces and names to those who break their backs out in the oil fields - haul truck drivers, small business owners and scaffolders to name but a few.

This is a movie about people - working people.

Wilkinson's film treats all of them with the respect corporations don't. Focusing on five primary individuals, Wilkinson's camera eye captures who they are, where they came from, what their work is and what they hope their futures hold. Most of all, it captures their one true passion.

Bailey's Pub is a popular magnet for oil workers. It's a Karaoke Bar where the backbone of the oil industry, the hard labourers, come to express themselves through song, through music, through fellowship and camaraderie - Karaoke!

Bailey's bartender puts it simply and best - the working people of the oil industry come there for a small section of limelight, to focus themselves on pure musical (and in a sense, spiritual) expression. "It's a big escape from reality," the bartender states succinctly.

Escaping the reality of toil in the Oil Sands might be the only thing to maintain one's sense of self-worth. Yes, the wages are great, but Wilkinson cannily displays the working conditions. On the surface, all seems fine - state of the art equipment, an accent on workplace safety and the ability to learn and work a trade to the best of one's ability.

This is all, however, skin deep.

Wilkinson uses shots of the land itself as both transition points in the narrative, but to also expose the ruination of the environment, the bleak, manmade hell that is the Oil Sands. Land scorched and scraped beyond recognition, a hazy treeless wasteland and worst of all, endless smokestacks belching clouds of filth into the air are what comprise the world these workers must live in.

It ain't pretty, but every night in the karaoke bar, all that changes. With lights in their eyes and the sounds of genuinely appreciative audiences, the workers who partake of the nightly forays into musical expression get to experience the thrill of connecting with others using their innate talents to perform.

Life transforms into a thing of genuine beauty.

We've had our share of fictional renderings of this phenomenon - whether it be John Travolta's Tony Manero tripping the light fantastic on the disco floors of Saturday Night Fever or Jennifer Beals gyrating ever-so artistically to Michael Sembello singing "Maniac" in Flashdance - but with Oil Sands Karaoke we get the real thing.

Seeing these genuinely decent working class heroes spilling out their innermost dreams through song and knowing they are the real thing - not a construct of imagination, but rather, what and who they are in life - is what provides the sort of resonance that fiction can't always deliver. Sometimes you just need to train your lens on reality.

This is what Wilkinson does so expertly and poignantly.

And yes, he tells a story. The narrative arc involves an upcoming karaoke contest at Bailey's - an event that grips Fort McMurray by the veritable short hairs - especially those who will participate in it.

One of the revelations in Oil Sands Karaoke is the alluring, passionate and genuinely talented Iceis Rain. By day, a small business owner, but by night a chanteuse of the highest order. He claims to have been the first gay person in Fort McMurray to come out and though he might, in other similar working class towns in other countries - oh, let's say, the United States - he might well be taking his life in his hands. As we come to know and love those who patronize Bailey's, he's in good hands (most of the time) - surrounded by warmth and good cheer.

All that aside, Iceis (pronounced like "Isis") Rain delivers one show-stopper after another. By the time we get to the big Karaoke contest, Iceis knocks us completely on our collective asses. The performance is infused with a strange blend of sadness and elation - a kind of melancholy that has the power to lift our spirits to the Heavens - and does so with a virtuosity that captures it so indelibly that many will be moved to tears. I know I was.

Oil Sands Karaoke is quite unlike any documentary about the environment that you'll ever see. It's about the people. And as is my wont when compelled, I'm always happy to paraphrase that great line Jimmy Stewart has in It's a Wonderful Life. With taste and genuine emotion, Wilkinson sheds light upon all those "who do most of the living and dying in this town."

It can't get more environmental than that.

"Oil Sands Karaoke" has its World Premiere at Hot Docs 2013. For tickets and showtimes, feel free to visit the Hot Docs website directly by clicking HERE.

PEACE OUT - Review By Greg Klymkiw - This award winning documentary by Charles Wilkinson is a potent, powerful plea to end the madness of gluttonous energy consumption before it's too late for us and future generations.

Peace Out (2012) dir. Charles Wilkinson **** Reviewed by Greg Klymkiw

For most of the year I'm happy to say I live off the grid. The decision to choose an alternative to traditional electrical power was, at first, the almighty buck - the savings would be substantial. That solar energy was environmentally preferable to Hydro was the maraschino cherry on the hot fudge sundae of blowing those clowns off the grid. What a great way to say, "Fuck you, Hydro." Peace Out, a film directed by Charles Wilkinson and produced by Tina Schliessler, further opened my eyes to the genuine importance of my decision to go off the traditional energy grid.

This movie is all about energy and the horrible price we all pay for our hog-at-the-trough need for Hydro. The price, let it be said, is not just dollars and cents. The price is the rape of natural resources and the destruction of our environment. And the real need, beyond "our" need, is the need for corporations to do whatever they want to do in order to generate profits.

Wilkinson and Schliessler have rendered a powerful, persuasive and important film that focuses upon the environmental decimation of Canada's northwest. In northern British Columbia, the picture introduces us to the Peace River Valley - an area of (seemingly) pristine wilderness that drains a geographical area larger than most countries in Europe. To the naked eye in most of the area and certainly the picture's numerous stunning shots of the heart-achingly beautiful landscape, it comes as a major head-scratcher and double-take to discover that the industrial development with this northern paradise is not only firmly rooted within the topography, but is, in fact, shockingly vast.

Due to government planning (yes, I know, an oxymoron) and strategic corporate development (the real power, as opposed to either government or the general populace), it had been decided to build a major power dam within the Peace River area which would flood the valley and back up the river by over 80 kilometres (also affecting two other rivers. They'd each be backed up 10 to 20 kilometres).

The picture skillfully draws us into a miasma of academics, corporate lackeys, politicians and just-plain-folk who live in the valley and we're delivered the simple facts that power consumption in the cities to the south is so gluttonous that this new source of energy is a simple, unavoidable necessity.

But at what cost?

Southern British Columbia - particularly Vancouver - is currently powered by the Bennett Dam in Hudson Hope. This monstrosity has created the largest man-made reservoir on the planet. Corporate scumbags with the various energy corporations maintain that this is "clean energy". The reality is that the reservoir is a living desert of toxins.

David Schindler, Professor of Ecology at the University of Alberta emphatically states that reservoirs are not greenhouse-gas-free as many ignorant politicians believe and greedy corporate swine maintain. When flooded terrestrial vegetation starts to decompose, methane-producing bacteria is driven and released into the atmosphere. Methane gas is 20 times more potent than CO2 emissions and the result is mercury entering atmosphere which, in turn is fed back into the fish population - doubling and quadrupling the mercury levels.

This is the fate of the Peace River Valley if this assault upon nature is not stopped. Let's not even mention, though we shall, the fact that Peace River is a world class wildlife habitat which currently allows for natural connectivity between the northern to southern Rocky Mountains which all the animals use in their migration patterns. Flooding the valley will seriously impact the natural ebb and flow of these creatures, and possibly result in their death and/or total extinction from the region.

This is unacceptable. For now, however, the juggernaut of destruction cannot be stopped. We're ultimately the losers if this occurs. The winners will be corporate hogs who suck humanity and nature dry.

And much of this is our fault for requiring so much energy. In fairness to our own gluttony for energy, the film points out how it is indeed technologically possible to reduce energy - it happens all the time. That said, making devices energy efficient inspires a rebound effect wherein a multitude of devices are created to replicate these energy efficiencies in the production and use of more devices that draw even more energy - not to mention the energy required to manufacture them in the first place.

Who benefits? The corporations that design, manufacture and market these goods.

Government and business both maintain there is no choice but to rape the land since the demand for energy is so high amongst the general populace. The citizenry, in turn, refuse to reduce the incremental load requirements through energy efficiency.

One of the horrendous effects of destroying the Peace River Valley is, according to local farmers, the eventual loss of prime farm land to provide future generations of Canadians in British Columbia with food. Currently, most of BC's fruits and vegetables are imported from California and it's a fact that this will dwindle to almost nothing when America itself will face a growth shortage and be taking care of its own needs first.

The supply of food from California is not endless. Instead of destroying the environment, BC should take the lead in terms of self-sufficiency. Alas, one of the woeful statistics the film points out is that 80% of the food for the region used to be grown locally, but is now less than 7%. This is not only appallingly myopic, but there's zero attention paid to the monetary costs of transporting the food and most notably, the environmental costs of said transport.

Natural Gas companies maintain that they have the cleanest energy, but their record of pillaging nature is just as bad, if not worse than hydro electricity.

"It's greed," maintains Roland Wilson, Chief of the West Moberly First Nation. "They're making billions of dollars on oil and gas. They go into third world countries and kill people for the amount of money they're making up here."

Even more annoying is how all the power companies, like government, do little more than finger-point at each other in terms of whose rape of the land results in cleaner energy. Peace Out, ultimately proves this, but does so in a cool, collected and even balanced manner. We get a litany of indiscretions which are defended by the perpetrators.

Fracturing is, for example, a necessary evil in the extraction of natural gas, but requires an insurmountable amount of fresh water to do so. Chief Roland Wilson points how just one gas company will extract 10,000 gallons of water from Peace River. One company out of a multitude who are all doing the same thing.

We meet a local trailer camp owner who is the victim of a water shortage. We see one huge truck after another, barreling along the road outside her camp, all full of water extracted from Peace River. In the meantime, her well has run dry.

Even more staggering is that these for-profit companies are allowed to extract this water for free. The government (such as it is) allows these pigs to slurp up millions upon millions of cubic meters of publicly-owned water and doesn't charge ANYTHING for this. In this area alone there are thousands of natural gas wells using free water. In some cases a mixture of salt water and fresh water are used for fracturing and the corporate mouthpieces insist this is extremely "clean". When the saline escapes into the land, is this truly "clean"?

Our government is allowing corporations a free ride and worse yet, has no stringent regulations in place. The elected-powers-that-be prefer industry self-regulation. This has one academic in the movie laughing. He maintains that self-regulation never works. If someone is driving 120km in a 100km zone, are they going to self-regulate by pulling over and calling the police on themselves to ask for a speeding ticket? Of course not. So why would a corporation, entrusted by law to make profits for its shareholders, self-regulate when it's their job to save money at any and all costs. With no regulations, abuse is inevitable.

There are, of course, government inspectors, but in an area the size of the state of Nebraska, there are 1.2 such watchdogs.

Effective, yes?

Government is so ineffectual in such matters that permits are actually issued to companies for cross purposes in one location. A mining company is allowed to blast its way through rock with explosives in the same vicinity an energy company is extracting natural GAS. Last time I checked, gas and explosives are not a happy combination.

In the case of Peace River, the very remoteness is what contributes to the almost impossible task of promoting awareness and thus allowing, under the cover of being in the middle of nowhere, such intense and irresponsible levels of industrial activity.

And then there are the dirty hippie hypocrites who were children of the 60s - they're the ones who are aware of the risks, but they're also old and want to reap the benefits of their shares in energy companies. It's easy for them to acknowledge, but finally not care whether the environment is messed up. As a stock trader notes, these are the fake lefties who "want a comfortable life and don't care if 100 ducks died in the oil sands - they will not shun things that make money."

Shareholders and corporations think in the present. They have no long range plans save for amassing wealth. Industry itself is always driving up the demand for cheap power sources as they manufacture goods that the public needs to expend energy upon to operate in their ignorant bliss.

Peace Out takes you by surprise and leaves you breathless. At first, the filmmaking seems like rudimentary TV-doc-stuff, but as we dive further into Wilkinson and Schliessler's vital film, we're eventually a party to cinema of the highest order. Clever, subtle juxtapositions, smooth transitions between the beauty of nature, the destruction of the environment, the fluorescent-lit government and/or corporate offices, the dark, almost Gordon Willis styled shots of energy executives and in one case, an utterly heartbreaking montage of energy waste set to Erik Satie's Gymnopedie #1 - all of these exquisitely wrought moments and more, inspire sadness, anger and hopefully enough of these emotions will translate into inspiring action - even, as a Greenpeace interview subject suggests - civil disobedience.

Corporations will do nothing. Government will do nothing. The people have to do the right thing.

Time's a wasting, though. We need to fight for the right to a better world. If not, it's going to die.

Actions, as the film subtly suggests, speak louder than words. Images, as stunningly relayed by the makers of Peace Out, inspire, or can inspire change.

That said, it all begins in our own homes. We need to turn the lights off for a brighter future - to shine as a beacon to our children and their children that we didn't put ourselves first.

See this film.

Then do something.

I don't think it's too much to ask.

"Peace Out" is currently in platform release across Canada via Indie-Can Entertainment and Torontonians can see the film at The Bloor Cinema. For showtimes, info and tickets click HERE

PEACE OUT - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto's Hot Docs 2012 Must-See #13

Peace Out (2012) dir. Charles Wilkinson **** Reviewed by Greg Klymkiw

For most of the year I'm happy to say I live off the grid. The decision to choose an alternative to traditional electrical power was, at first, the almighty buck - the savings would be substantial. That solar energy was environmentally preferable to Hydro was the maraschino cherry on the hot fudge sundae of blowing those clowns off the grid. What a great way to say, "Fuck you, Hydro." Peace Out, a film directed by Charles Wilkinson and produced by Tina Schliessler, further opened my eyes to the genuine importance of my decision to go off the traditional energy grid.

This movie is all about energy and the horrible price we all pay for our hog-at-the-trough need for Hydro. The price, let it be said, is not just dollars and cents. The price is the rape of natural resources and the destruction of our environment. And the real need, beyond "our" need, is the need for corporations to do whatever they want to do in order to generate profits.

Wilkinson and Schliessler have rendered a powerful, persuasive and important film that focuses upon the environmental decimation of Canada's northwest. In northern British Columbia, the picture introduces us to the Peace River Valley - an area of (seemingly) pristine wilderness that drains a geographical area larger than most countries in Europe. To the naked eye in most of the area and certainly the picture's numerous stunning shots of the heart-achingly beautiful landscape, it comes as a major head-scratcher and double-take to discover that the industrial development with this northern paradise is not only firmly rooted within the topography, but is, in fact, shockingly vast.

Due to government planning (yes, I know, an oxymoron) and strategic corporate development (the real power, as opposed to either government or the general populace), it had been decided to build a major power dam within the Peace River area which would flood the valley and back up the river by over 80 kilometres (also affecting two other rivers. They'd each be backed up 10 to 20 kilometres).

The picture skillfully draws us into a miasma of academics, corporate lackeys, politicians and just-plain-folk who live in the valley and we're delivered the simple facts that power consumption in the cities to the south is so gluttonous that this new source of energy is a simple, unavoidable necessity.

But at what cost?

Southern British Columbia - particularly Vancouver - is currently powered by the Bennett Dam in Hudson Hope. This monstrosity has created the largest man-made reservoir on the planet. Corporate scumbags with the various energy corporations maintain that this is "clean energy". The reality is that the reservoir is a living desert of toxins.

David Schindler, Professor of Ecology at the University of Alberta emphatically states that reservoirs are not greenhouse-gas-free as many ignorant politicians believe and greedy corporate swine maintain. When flooded terrestrial vegetation starts to decompose, methane-producing bacteria is driven and released into the atmosphere. Methane gas is 20 times more potent than CO2 emissions and the result is mercury entering atmosphere which, in turn is fed back into the fish population - doubling and quadrupling the mercury levels.

This is the fate of the Peace River Valley if this assault upon nature is not stopped. Let's not even mention, though we shall, the fact that Peace River is a world class wildlife habitat which currently allows for natural connectivity between the northern to southern Rocky Mountains which all the animals use in their migration patterns. Flooding the valley will seriously impact the natural ebb and flow of these creatures, and possibly result in their death and/or total extinction from the region.

This is unacceptable. For now, however, the juggernaut of destruction cannot be stopped. We're ultimately the losers if this occurs. The winners will be corporate hogs who suck humanity and nature dry.

And much of this is our fault for requiring so much energy. In fairness to our own gluttony for energy, the film points out how it is indeed technologically possible to reduce energy - it happens all the time. That said, making devices energy efficient inspires a rebound effect wherein a multitude of devices are created to replicate these energy efficiencies in the production and use of more devices that draw even more energy - not to mention the energy required to manufacture them in the first place.

Who benefits? The corporations that design, manufacture and market these goods.

Government and business both maintain there is no choice but to rape the land since the demand for energy is so high amongst the general populace. The citizenry, in turn, refuse to reduce the incremental load requirements through energy efficiency.

One of the horrendous effects of destroying the Peace River Valley is, according to local farmers, the eventual loss of prime farm land to provide future generations of Canadians in British Columbia with food. Currently, most of BC's fruits and vegetables are imported from California and it's a fact that this will dwindle to almost nothing when America itself will face a growth shortage and be taking care of its own needs first.

The supply of food from California is not endless. Instead of destroying the environment, BC should take the lead in terms of self-sufficiency. Alas, one of the woeful statistics the film points out is that 80% of the food for the region used to be grown locally, but is now less than 7%. This is not only appallingly myopic, but there's zero attention paid to the monetary costs of transporting the food and most notably, the environmental costs of said transport.

Natural Gas companies maintain that they have the cleanest energy, but their record of pillaging nature is just as bad, if not worse than hydro electricity.

"It's greed," maintains Roland Wilson, Chief of the West Moberly First Nation. "They're making billions of dollars on oil and gas. They go into third world countries and kill people for the amount of money they're making up here."

Even more annoying is how all the power companies, like government, do little more than finger-point at each other in terms of whose rape of the land results in cleaner energy. Peace Out, ultimately proves this, but does so in a cool, collected and even balanced manner. We get a litany of indiscretions which are defended by the perpetrators.

Fracturing is, for example, a necessary evil in the extraction of natural gas, but requires an insurmountable amount of fresh water to do so. Chief Roland Wilson points how just one gas company will extract 10,000 gallons of water from Peace River. One company out of a multitude who are all doing the same thing.

We meet a local trailer camp owner who is the victim of a water shortage. We see one huge truck after another, barreling along the road outside her camp, all full of water extracted from Peace River. In the meantime, her well has run dry.

Even more staggering is that these for-profit companies are allowed to extract this water for free. The government (such as it is) allows these pigs to slurp up millions upon millions of cubic meters of publicly-owned water and doesn't charge ANYTHING for this. In this area alone there are thousands of natural gas wells using free water. In some cases a mixture of salt water and fresh water are used for fracturing and the corporate mouthpieces insist this is extremely "clean". When the saline escapes into the land, is this truly "clean"?

Our government is allowing corporations a free ride and worse yet, has no stringent regulations in place. The elected-powers-that-be prefer industry self-regulation. This has one academic in the movie laughing. He maintains that self-regulation never works. If someone is driving 120km in a 100km zone, are they going to self-regulate by pulling over and calling the police on themselves to ask for a speeding ticket? Of course not. So why would a corporation, entrusted by law to make profits for its shareholders, self-regulate when it's their job to save money at any and all costs. With no regulations, abuse is inevitable.

There are, of course, government inspectors, but in an area the size of the state of Nebraska, there are 1.2 such watchdogs.

Effective, yes?

Government is so ineffectual in such matters that permits are actually issued to companies for cross purposes in one location. A mining company is allowed to blast its way through rock with explosives in the same vicinity an energy company is extracting natural GAS. Last time I checked, gas and explosives are not a happy combination.

In the case of Peace River, the very remoteness is what contributes to the almost impossible task of promoting awareness and thus allowing, under the cover of being in the middle of nowhere, such intense and irresponsible levels of industrial activity.

And then there are the dirty hippie hypocrites who were children of the 60s - they're the ones who are aware of the risks, but they're also old and want to reap the benefits of their shares in energy companies. It's easy for them to acknowledge, but finally not care whether the environment is messed up. As a stock trader notes, these are the fake lefties who "want a comfortable life and don't care if 100 ducks died in the oil sands - they will not shun things that make money."

Shareholders and corporations think in the present. They have no long range plans save for amassing wealth. Industry itself is always driving up the demand for cheap power sources as they manufacture goods that the public needs to expend energy upon to operate in their ignorant bliss.

Peace Out takes you by surprise and leaves you breathless. At first, the filmmaking seems like rudimentary TV-doc-stuff, but as we dive further into Wilkinson and Schliessler's vital film, we're eventually a party to cinema of the highest order. Clever, subtle juxtapositions, smooth transitions between the beauty of nature, the destruction of the environment, the fluorescent-lit government and/or corporate offices, the dark, almost Gordon Willis styled shots of energy executives and in one case, an utterly heartbreaking montage of energy waste set to Erik Satie's Gymnopedie #1 - all of these exquisitely wrought moments and more, inspire sadness, anger and hopefully enough of these emotions will translate into inspiring action - even, as a Greenpeace interview subject suggests - civil disobedience.

Corporations will do nothing. Government will do nothing. The people have to do the right thing.

Time's a wasting, though. We need to fight for the right to a better world. If not, it's going to die.

Actions, as the film subtly suggests, speak louder than words. Images, as stunningly relayed by the makers of Peace Out, inspire, or can inspire change.

That said, it all begins in our own homes. We need to turn the lights off for a brighter future - to shine as a beacon to our children and their children that we didn't put ourselves first.

We put survival ahead of all.

This film demands to be seen by all Canadians. It demands a wide theatrical release. Demand that every theatre chain devotes (especially the shareholder-happy, Hollywood-knob-gobbling Cineplex Entertainment Corp.) a myriad of screens all over the country to play this film. It is THEIR corporate responsibility to survival. Demand that mainstream private broadcasters - especially those of the CTV ilk - play this film with mega-promotion. Not buried on a Sunday morning, but in primetime. They can pre-empt a hunk of American crap for one night and a rerun or two. And then it needs to be seen on every available home entertainment service imaginable.

And you know what? The film details a situation in Canada, but this is one of many examples of the sort of horrendous practices happening all over the world that are, finally, universal and transcend borders.

See this film. Demand to see this film.

Then do something.

I don't think it's too much to ask.

"Peace Out" is playing in Toronto Tue, May 1 7:15 PM at TIFF Bell Lightbox 4, Thu, May 3 4:15 PM at Cumberland 2 and Sun, May 6 1:00 PM at The ROM Theatre during the 2012 edition of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. For tickets, visit the HOT DOCS website HERE.