Awareness Film Night

On April 8, Awareness Film Night will present the film “Under Our Skin”. 

A dramatic tale of microbes, medicine and money, this 2008 film investigates the untold story of Lyme disease. The evening will be a benefit for Nicole Bottles, the 16 year old East Sooke resident with Lyme who has had to go to Connecticut for treatment. “Under Our Skin” is a powerful and often terrifying look not only at the science and politics of Lyme disease, but also at the personal stories of those whose lives have been affected and nearly destroyed by being undiagnosed or misdiagnosed after having presented to their doctors with symptoms of Lyme. The screening will be attended by Dave Bottles, father of Nicole and David Cubberly, Saanich MLA who has been a strong advocate for people with Lyme. In a recent letter to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C. Mr. Cubberly has written: “Lyme is the fastest rising infectious disease in North America….Given that many British Columbians have acquired it walking on the west Coast Trail, vacationing in Shawnigan Lake or gardening in the suburban savannahs of Saanich, its hardly rare or uncommon”. He goes on, in a further letter, to point out that the B.C. guidelines around Lyme disease have been consistent with the United States’ Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) guidelines. However these IDSA guidelines are now the subject of an antitrust investigation by the Connecticut Attorney General because the panel that wrote them had “financial interests in drug companies, Lyme disease diagnostic tests, patents and consulting arrangements with insurance companies”. Lyme disease can be passed through the placenta to the fetus and there is evidence that it may be sexually transmitted. We all need to be aware of the symptoms of Lyme, the ways it is contracted and the ways it should be treated.  Showtime is at 7 p.m. at the Edward Milne Community School theatre. Admission is by donation to Nicole Bottles.

Info: http://www.underourskin.com/

This month’s Awareness Film Night will be a gala farm, garden and food evening featuring films, display tables and food co-sponsored by the Sooke Region Food CHI and EMCS. The March 11 featured film is “Island On The Edge”, produced and directed by Slow Food Vancouver Island’s Nick Versteeg, who will be attending the screening. This 2008 documentary looks at the history of food production on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands and what would happen if our food supply were suddenly cut off. It also chronicles the efforts of several crusaders in the field of food production in our area and how people can get involved with supporting the local food movement.

The evening will start with two short documentaries about community gardens: “The Sharing Farm” by Mary Gazetas about a Richmond B.C. farm that grows vegetables for the local food bank, and “Garden Tendrils” by Dan Chauvin, a beautiful slide show of Sooke’s own CASA community garden. There will be display tables set up in the foyer featuring local seeds for purchase, information on Sooke area community gardens, farms and farm market, Food CHI and S.O.I.L. (Stewards Of Irreplacable Lands) which links Canadian farmers willing to take on and train apprentices with folks wanting to work and learn on an organic farm. Refreshments will be provided and served by the EMCS Culinary Arts students. Come and be inspired. Doors open at 6:30 and the films start at 7:00 in the Edward Milne Community School Theatre, 6218 Sooke Rd. Admission is by suggested donation of $5-$10.

Info: http://www.dvcuisine.com/dvds/island-on-the-edge

Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine have made documentary films in some of the wildest corners of the globe. But nothing prepared them for their shoot in the remote refugee camp of Patongo in northern Uganda which is so isolated and dangerous that most aid workers won’t even go there. They’d planned to make a movie about former child soldiers, but they found that the children of the 60,000 person camp were feverishly preparing for Uganda’s annual music and dance competition in Kampala. The kids’ quest became the basis for their film “War Dance”, which will be brought to the big screen on February 18 by Awareness Film Night.

Artfully and gently filmed, “War Dance” tells the story of Uganda’s brutal civil war through the eyes of three children who suffered at the hands of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army and at the same time tells of their preparation for and journey to the annual national music and dance competition. Sean Fine lived for three months in the camp and the film is filled with stunning images of Africa and the African people. He explains:  ” It was just magical – those kids got into our hearts right away. When you go to a place where no one’s helped people because its so dangerous, there’s a purity to it…..when they could tell their stories directly into the camera, the flood gates opened….no one asked them before…and they just kept talking and talking.”

“War Dance” is one of the most beautifully filmed documentaries presented by Awareness Film Night. There is an amazing sense throughout that the camera is invisible. The film will be shown in the Edward Milne Community School theatre, 6218 Sooke Rd.,  at 7 p.m. Admission is by donation.

Info: http://www.wardancethemovie.com/

Awareness Film Night Weds. Jan. 14th “Jerusalem, The East Side Story” – The reality on the ground of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine

U.N. General Assembly President Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockman recently described Israeli policies in the Palestine Occuped Territories as tantamount to “apartheid”. He said: “The state of Israel celebrates 60 years of existence. Shamefully, there is still no Palestinian state to celebrate. what is being done to the Palestinian people seems to me to be a version of the hideous policy of apartheid”. Was Father d’Escoto Brockman giving an accurate description of what is going on in Occupied Palestine? On January 14th Awareness Film Night will provide an opportunity to learn more about the urgent developments in Israel/Palestine by presenting the film “Jerusalem, the East Side Story” followed by a brief talk and question session with Victoria activist Theresa Wolfwood who has recently returned from Palestine.

This film was produced and directed by highly acclaimed film director and human rights activist Mohammed Alatar who has said: “I did not make the film so that people would like it, because there is nothing to like in military occupation, but rather I hope and pray that people will wake up to today’s bitter reality in the historic city of Jerusalem and do what it takes to bring peace to this troubled city.” This documentary take the viewer on a journey exposing Israel’s policy to gain supremacy and hegemony over the city and its inhabitants. It is explained in bite-size history lessons how Jerusalem was not only conquered by force, but also how the state of Israel took annexed Palestinian land to enlarge the city boundaries in order to block the possibility of a sustainable Palestinian presence in the city. This includes the illegal 32 foot high wall that cuts through Palestinian neighborhoods and leaves Palestinian Jerusalemites cut off from one another and the city as well as the ongoing tragedy of Palestinian house demolitions by Israeli bulldozers. Jerusalemites, Israeli, Muslim and Christian tell their stories first hand. Following the hour long film Awareness Film Night will be joined by Theresa Wolfwood, a Victoria writer and activist who has recently returned from a month-long trip to Jordan, Palestine and Lebanon with the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature as well as Palestinian farm and peace organizations. She met with village councils, farmers, students, NGO’s, womens’ groups, refugee activists, doctors, teachers, poets, writers, and artists. She also helped with the olive harvest in Palestine. Terry will give a brief talk on what she saw in Palestine and then be available for questions from the audience. “Jerusalem, the East Side Story” will be shown in the Edward Milne Community School theatre at 7 p.m. Admission is by donation.

Awareness Film Night Weds. Dec. 10 “From the Heart of the World, the Elder Brothers’ Warning”

The Kogi are an indigenous people living in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Northern Columbia in South America. They are the only civilization to have survived the Spanish conquests and kept their culture intact and themselves isolated. In 1988 the Kogi decided they must speak out to the rest of the world and so allowed a BBC journalist, Alan Ereira, to film a documentary about them. This visually enchanting film explores the culture and spiritual understanding of the Kogi, who call themselves the Elder Brothers of the human race, and brings a strong message to us “Younger Brothers” who are causing an ecological imbalance that is destroying the Earth. The Kogi “Mamas” or spiritual leaders, are chosen from birth and spend the first 9 years of childhood in a cave in total darkness learning the ancient secrets of the spiritual world. They are said to have memory of the beginning of time. The Kogi have survived by relying upon and looking after their mountain environment, “the heart of the world”. They could see that something was wrong with their mountain. The snow had stopped falling and the rivers were not so full. If their mountain was ill then the whole world was in trouble. Believing that our only hope is to change our ways, they have set out to teach us what they know. “We work to take care of the world….we do not cut down huge areas of forest like the Younger Brother does….If the Younger Brother keeps cutting down all the trees, there will be fires because the sun will heat the Earth….the Earth is decaying, it is losing its strength because they have taken away much petrol, coal, many minerals. Younger Brother, stop doing it! You have already taken so much. We need water to live…We’re still here and we haven’t forgotten anything.” This is an amazing documentary that is even more relevant today than it was 18 years ago when it was made, and 10 years ago when it was first screened at Awareness Video Night.

The evening will begin with a 10 minute film on Muir Creek. This beautiful and artfully-made visual tour of one of the Sooke area’s watersheds was created by local student Lisa Hamelin and other students from West Shore Centre for Learning and Training this year.  Lisa will be in attendance, along with representatives from the Muir Creek Protection Society, to remind us that this area, which is home to magnificent trees and a wealth of flora and fauna, continues to require our efforts to protect it from destruction. The film night will start at 7 p.m. in the Edward Milne Community School theatre. Admission is by donation. Proceeds to Muir Creek Protection Society.

Hi moviegoers……Weds. Nov. 19th is the next Awareness Film Night. We will be showing the 2007 film “Escape From Suburbia – Beyond the American Dream”. A sequel to the 2004 film “The End of Suburbia”, this film examines, through personal stories and interviews, how peak oil and climate change have already begun to affect modern life in North America. “Escape” deals with issues such as energy crises, neighborhood gardens, the collapse of the American Way Of Life, transportation, urban density, local farming, industrial agriculture, over-population, renewable energy and governmental attitudes towards peak oil. Featuring Dr. David Suzuki, Guy Dauncey, James Howard Kunstler and O.U.R. Ecovillage in Shawnigan, “Escape From Suburbia” is a wake-up call that challenges the illusion of never-ending growth and provides viable alternatives for citizens and communities working at the local level.

After the screening there will be a chance for discussion and questions about what we can do locally to create strategies for change with Marika Nagasaka, Sheila Wallace and David Mallett from the Sooke Region Food CHI, a citizen group in the Sooke area that has been looking at practical solutions to the basic concern of food security in our own neighborhood.

Dara Rowland, producer of the film, has noted that “we’re paralyzed because we don’t know how to expect the unexpected anymore….as long as today looks like yesterday, people assume tomorrow will be a carbon copy of today. But we’re clearly entering a post-carbon age….Escape suggests individuals of vision and courage are emerging to lead a new way of thinking about how we live our lives responsibly”.

7 p.m. at Edward Milne Community School theatre. By donation

Info: http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-product-design/escape-from-suburbia-the-movie.html

Awareness Film Night will be opening its 15th season on Weds. October 1 with the 2007 John Pilger film “The War on Democracy”. This documentary is British journalist John Pilger’s first major film for the cinema – in a career that has produced more than 55 television documentaries. Beautifully filmed in Latin America and the U.S., “The War On Democracy” exposes the historic and current relationship of Washington with countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Chili.

In his last inaugural address, U.S. president Bush pledged to “bring democracy to the world”. In a 23 minute speech he mentioned the words “democracy” and “liberty” 21 times. “The War on Democracy” demonstrates the brutal reality of the U.S. notion of “spreading democracy”. Pilger conducts an excellent interview with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as well as some remarkable interviews with U.S. government officials who ran the CIA’s war in Latin America in the 1980’s. But this is a hopeful film, for it sees the world through the hopes and dreams and extraordinary actions of ordinary people. Pilger reports that in spite of a history of repeated U.S.-backed suppression, popular democratic movements are gaining ground in Latin America. According to Pilger the film’s message is that the greed and power of empire is not invincible and that people power is always “the seed beneath the snow”.

“The War on Democracy” will be presented at 7 p.m. at the Edward Milne Community School theatre. Admission is by donation.

Hi moviegoers……..we are closing the season with a screening of “Zeitgeist, The Movie”. This film was created as a non-profit expression to inspire people to start looking at the world from a more critical perspective and to understand that very often things are not what the population at large think they are. Part I “The Greatest Story Ever Told” takes a new look at religion and how it is used to manipulate and control societies. Part II “All The World’s A Stage” discusses how 9/11 was engineered to generate mass fear, justify going to war, remove civil liberties and make money for the people in power. Part III “Don’t Mind The Men Behind The Curtain” is an exploration of the military-industrial-banking complex’s long-standing aim for consolidation and control.

Awareness Film Night is screening the film both for those who haven’t seen it on the Internet and for those who have seen it to be re-inspired and re-informed and experience it on the big screen. Showtime is 7 p.m. at the Edward Milne Community School theatre. Admission is by donation.

Info: http://www.zeitgeistthefilm.com/

Movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guXirzknYYE

On May 14 Awareness Film Night will present a screening of the recent Vancouver talk by Israeli historian and professor Ilan Pappe titled after his current book “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”. It has been 60 years this month since the creation from the Land of Palestine of the State of Israel as a safe haven for Jews. Yet Israel/Palestine remains one of the most insecure, fear-ridden, deadly places in the world. How did this happen? Beginning with a short excerpt from the film “Occupation 101” to give some historical backround, this evening will present a view of the situation that is not normally presented by the mainstream media. Showtime is at 7 p.m. at the Edward Milne Community School theatre, 6218 Sooke Rd. in Sooke. Admission is by donation.

Awareness Film Night, Wednesday April 2nd, presents “Salud!”. This Victoria area premiere is an inspiring look at Cuba, cash-strapped, yet providing over 28,000 health care professionals to the poorest regions of 68 countries and home to the largest medical school in the world where 12,000 low-income students from 27 countries receive a free medical education. The film’s cameras reach into Gambia, rural South Africa, coastal villages of Honduras and river settlements in the Amazon, where a Cuban doctor is often the first doctor a poor community has ever seen. “Salud!”, which was the featured film in the recent Vancouver Film Festival will not be in the Awareness Film Night library after the screening.

Awareness Film Night has the rare opportunity to also present John Waller, New York based coordinator of the Pastors For Peace Caravan to Cuba. He has visited Cuba 16 times since 1992 and has written extensively about Cuban healthcare in both campaigning pamphlets and professional medical journals. Also on hand will be Randy Caravaggio of the Victoria Goods for Cuba Campaign. John and Randy will answer questions after the screening about Cuban healthcare, the U.S. blockade and the 2008 Caravan that will send 5 buses full of aid to Cuba in June/July.

Join awareness Film Night for “Salud!” with John Waller and Randy Caravaggio at 7 p.m. at the Edward Milne Community School theatre. Admission is by donation with proceeds going to the Victoria Goods For Cuba Campaign

Info: http://www.saludthefilm.net/ns/index.html