Oct 2, 2011

FILMS WORTH WATCHING by Robert Alstead Celebrity tycoon Donald Trump lives up to his billing as a crass megalomaniac in You’ve Been Trumped. The documentary illustrates his bullyboy antics, as he bulldozes a sensitive coastal ecosystem in northeast Scotland to create a mega golf resort. The controversial project on Menie Estate, eight miles from...

Sep 15, 2011

FILMS WORTH WATCHING by Robert Alstead After a decade of covering documentary at the Vancouver International Film Festival (September 29 to October 14 this year), I’ve come to rely on certain staples. Each year, filmmakers tackle the issue of oil dependency with a sharp focus on the ecological and humanitarian travesty of the tar sands; wrestle with the vexed...

Aug 28, 2011

FILMS WORTH WATCHING by Robert Alstead   We all like something for free, don’t we? So what’s not to like about Fresh Air Cinema, a free, outdoor series of movie screenings offered around the Lower Mainland this summer? This mobile cinema company has been setting up its giant, inflatable movie screens, sound systems and generators in parks and...

Aug 28, 2011

A feat of natural and sustainable energies by Adam Siddhartha Sealey On the weekend of July 22-24, at the foot of the mountain just outside of Boston Bar, BC, on the traditional lands of the Nahatlatch peoples, a group of about 250 people came together for Towards Eden, a music festival that was, according to festival visionaries and organizers Ash Bigdeli and...

Jul 29, 2011

FILMS WORTH WATCHING by Robert Alstead Earth and its inhabitants are in trouble. Oceans are acidifying and sea levels rising at the fastest rate in 2,000 years. Biodiversity is in freefall, ecosystems are stressed to breaking point and like a deer caught in the headlights, humankind is watching this tragedy of its own making unfold, paralyzed by indecision and...

Jul 29, 2011

by Devaki Thomas Created 10 years ago by BC reggae dance band Samsara, the annual Komasket Music Festival is the Okanagan’s Cultural Global Gathering, bringing together 3000 – 4000 people and presenting world beat, folk and funk artists from all over the world. The KMF is an event unique to the area with a conscious organic community flavour...

Jun 29, 2011

How What You Eat Can Change Your Life and Save the Planet by Arran Stephens with Elliot Jay Rosen What we eat is of such importance to human progress and health, ecological balance and animal welfare that food, like politics and religion, has become a highly charged and controversial issue. While diet is important, it is equally so not to injure the feelings...

Jun 29, 2011

An interview with Emmanuel Jal by Joseph Roberts and Bob Turner   Emmanuel Jal could easily have become an embittered young man. Instead, he transcended the scars of his early life to inspire millions through his music. Born in Sudan, he was a young child when the Second Sudanese Civil War broke out. His father joined the Sudan People’s Liberation...

May 30, 2011

FILMS WORTH WATCHING by Robert Alstead DOXA, Vancouver’s purely documentary film festival, marks its 10th anniversary this year with 95 films showing between May 6 and 15, the festival’s biggest program yet. The festival opens with a film shadowing a group of Chicago area teens as they head for the world’s largest youth slam poetry...

Apr 4, 2011

FILMS WORTH WATCHING by Robert Alstead Growing up is painful enough. Growing up during a war really hurts. That’s the thrust of rites-of-passage drama Winter in Wartime (Oorlogswinter), a WW2 Dutch occupation film seen through the eyes of a 13-year-old. Headstrong, rebellious and impressionable Michiel (Martijn Lakemeier, providing good screen...