Featuring
Jen Muranetz · 2024 · 1h18m
A gripping immersion into the frontlines of the historic Fairy Creek blockade, where thousands of activists participate in a do-or-die protest to save BC’s old growth forests.
Friday, Jan. 30, 12:00pm
Cinema Politica St. John’s Presents: FAIRY CREEK
Everyone is welcome to attend the first film of the New Year for the Cinema Politica St. John’s Film Series, hosted by the Department of Sociology at MUN. 12-2pm in Education 2018-A. Please bring your own snacks and refreshments. We will be screening FAIRY CREEK.
About the Film
The Fairy Creek (Ada’itsx) valley sprawls across Pacheedaht First Nation territory on southwestern Vancouver Island and its old growth forest ecosystem thrives with lush foliage, ancient tree trunks, and a variety of wildlife. However, the decimating chainsaws and tractor machinery of the Teal Jones lumber corporation disrupt this equilibrium as they demolish an environmental haven for their road-building project. Amidst the tumult, Jen Muranetz’s FAIRY CREEK captures the vast collective protests against this destructive logging operation: a movement which has spawned both the largest demonstration of civil disobedience in Canadian history and the mass arrests of 1200 people.
The film offers visceral front-line footage of activists faced with an RCMP-enforced injunction, protesting from ground to sky as blockaders form barriers with their bodies and tree-sitters’ forest canopies are assailed by officers deployed from helicopters. FAIRY CREEK is an urgent portrait of resistance, documenting an assembly of protestors organizing together despite varying backgrounds, ideologies, and tactics. Muranetz highlights the rapture of a united eco-activist community, coinhabiting the earth, dancing together, and cherishing biodiversity. At the same time, this breathtaking documentary tremors with the challenges of political consciousness in an age of rampant extractive capitalism, where industries working with governments eviscerate everything in their path, including the last pristine ecosystems. FAIRY CREEK depicts a historic struggle to defend Canadian old growth forests as an experience of absolute devotion, thrust between whiplashes of triumph and heartbreak.
2024 · 1h18m · Canada
English
Fri., Jan. 30, 12:00 pm
Cinema Politica St. John’s Presents: FAIRY CREEK
Venue
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