CitizenShift
Updates from the basement, courtesy of the CITIZENShift team.
Archive of July, 2007
On Tuesday I attended an evening of screenings and discussion at the NFB CineRobotheque (Montreal) on the topic of Media, Human Rights and Action. The event was hosted by Witness who are currently nearing the end of their first Video Advocacy Institute. This incredible, first of its kind, training initiative is being held in association with Concordia University’s Communications Studies program and Documentary Center, in Montreal. The aim of this initiative has been to help human rights defenders learn to tell stories through video - to make people act!
The Tuesday night event was tremendously inspiring. Among those that I shared a packed theatre with, were the 30 human rights defenders from 25 countries. The discussions were moderated by Katerina Cizek whose most recent work has been as the NFB’s Filmmaker-in-Residence. Sam Gregory, Program Manager for Strategic Networks at Witness, initially introduced the aim of the event and concept behind their upcoming Human Rights Video Hub.
The panel discussion formally began with a representative from Burma who alerted us to the awful circumstances facing Chin women in terms of sexual violence and directed us to License to Rape for additional information. A representative from Africa (yes, all of Africa) shared her work around Behind the Mask - a communications initiative dedicated to fighting negative attitudes toward the LGBTI community. The oppression of women in the Caribbean was discussed in terms of its origins and current circumstance (such as the lack of existing regulations regarding rape within a married couple). The representative was from St.Lucia and has been working with CAFRA.Local filmmaker, Daniel Cross, was the final speaker of the evening and introduced the purpose and tremendous value behind the Homeless Nation project.
What a tremendous experience and hopefully not the last of its kind!
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Category : Uncategorized
Written by
Nika
July 26, 2007
You might recall the Rebels With A Cause feature about Rana Ghose who was then working as a consultant for the International Development Research Centre in Ottawa. You can look here to see the documentary films he created in collaboration with the IDRC and Acacia Connectivity Africa and here to see the some of his films on YouTube. He is now conducting his doctoral research with IDS in the Vidharba region of India, focussing on the regulation of transgenic cotton in a region high with farmer suicides due to indebtedness. He is hoping to finish by January 2009. His plans after that are to secure a residency at a gallery so that he can explore video, and more broadly speaking, the visual medium, more personally. Check out his website to see his projects.
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Category : Where Are They Now?
Written by
denise
July 25, 2007
Artists against War is a Toronto based collective or artists of all disciplines who share a common desire of peace and justice for all. Every Sunday evening since July 8 they’ve been holding Peace Reel, a film screening series against war and colonialism.
I had a chance to attend this past Sunday’s event in Toronto’s Christie Pitts Park. The turn out was great and the weather couldn’t have been better. I got the opportunity to meet some more members of AAR who’ve worked so hard to put this event together and one of the key highlights of the evening included hearing war resister Christian Kjar speak about his decision not to participate in the Iraq war and therefore leave the US Marine Corps and move to Canada. This was followed by insightful and thought provoking films; Where is Iraq? and The Prisoner or How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair (the former of which appears in CITIZENShift’s Where is Iraq dossier.)
The last screening takes place on July 29 and will feature The Battle of Algiers, Juggling in Mosul and Career Opportunity.
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Category : Uncategorized
Written by
Nika
July 24, 2007
Tim Wilson, who directed Bear River Blessing (that you can find within the In The Same Boat? section of CITIZENShift) is now directing a new full-length documentary film for the NFB tentatively entitled Griefwalker. The film is about a revolutionary approach to the care of the dying. He has also made the short film, The Prophet of Whale Cove, about the potentially damaging effect of a proposed rock quarry on Nova Scotia’s ecologically delicate Digby Neck. His plan for the future, he says, is to raise his three young sons to be courageous, kind, and conscious.
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Category : Where Are They Now?
Written by
Nika
July 23, 2007
Filmmaker Sami Mermer is back in Montreal, after four and a half years and has finished the long version of his enthralling and disquieting documentary film, The Box of Lanzo, by Sami Mermer and Hind Benchekroun from the HomelessNation.org dossier on CITIZENShift. Since his last stay in Canada, he has been working, along with his wife, on one documentary and one fiction film in Morrocco as well as films in Turkey and Quebec. His documentary film is about a young Morroccan woman who returns to Morrocco to photograph elderly people who are 90 years old and above. The youth decides to embark on a journey throughout Morrocco by renting a van with a driver - who ends up being her elementary school bus driver. Mermer and his wife follow these two on their voyage around the country meeting the elderly who are at the end of their own journeys. His fiction film is about itinerant salespeople in Morrocco, including a seamstress, a postman, a salesperson for bootlegged films, a barber and a passport and identity card repair person. 
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Category : Where Are They Now?
Written by
Nika
July 19, 2007
Anice Wong, who along with Hugh Gibson had made the movie Whose Rights Anyway? as part of Measuring Security Measures, is now working in the field of photography in Ottawa and holding her second solo photography show. She hopes to start working in photojournalism and documentary photography. Anice’s future plans are to find a job that will allow her to travel the world and take pictures. She would also like to use photography as a tool to help underprivileged children. Check out her blog and her Flickr album.
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Category : Where Are They Now?
Written by
Nika
July 17, 2007
One of the contributors to our site, Gabriel Taraboulsy, as you may remember from his and Sarah Arruda’s film Douceur in our Global HIV/AIDS Awareness dossier and his additional editing of Wal-Town, is now finishing grad school at Columbia University in Film Directing and doing an internship this summer at NBC’s “Medium”. Check out his new website where you can download and watch all of his films.
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Category : Where Are They Now?
Written by
Nika
July 16, 2007
Well hopefully you all remember our good friend Roadsworth, the “urban artist” whose habitual line stepping sketches kept us on our toes when walking down the road. Not to be mistaken with a graffiti artist, this one-of-a-kind painter elaborates upon existent themes in the urban landscape. His paintings really stretch things, legally and literally. But, we haven’t had enough. Check out Roadsworth as he escapades through Europe and continues to ‘paint the town…[many colours]‘. Alan Kohl follows him as he embarks on his tour, starting off with England, where he has a contract to rejuvenate the downtown core of Ashford through his urban designs. That is where Roadsworth makes a 150-metre stencil installation that the Tour de France bikes over (check out pictures below, featured on Wooster Collective). He is now in Berlin and the next stop will be Amsterdam before heading back home to Montreal. Alan is planning co-direct a film about oil sands in Alberta with Shannon Walsh, who made Fire and Hope about Global HIV/AIDS Awareness. The film will be produced by Loaded Pictures.
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Category : Where Are They Now?
Written by
Elecia
July 12, 2007
Last Saturday my friend and I set out on a mission to visit the Vancouver Landfill. For no reason other than to quell our curiosity about how the waste from 940,000 people is dealt with, we couldn’t think of a better way to spend a muggy weekend afternoon.
The Vancouver Landfill is located in Delta and is relatively easy to get to. We took a few minor wrong turns but that didn’t bother us - it gave us more of a chance to see the area. And smell the area. I think it was a combination of the landfill and perhaps some cattle farms but we quickly rolled up our windows as we got closer to our destination.
Eventually green signs began to appear, guiding us toward the man-made mountains of refuse. We excitedly rolled up to the entrance booth.
“Hi,” we said. “We’re just here to take a look at the landfill, we don’t have any garbage.”
Nope - in order to enter the landfill, you must contribute something. So, we turned around and headed back to Delta. The host at a nearby restaurant was kind enough to point us in the direction of the garbage bins in the back so off we went, dumpster diving for detritus.
We came up with a discarded piece of a bike frame and a section of well-used carpet, put them in the trunk and made our way back to the landfill.
We were allowed in this time and slowly set off towards the Road 30 - the general pile of garbage. The Vancouver Landfill has some projects to try and divert certain materials from the main pile. On our right, we noticed a heaping scrap metal pile. A bit further up the road and to the left, we could see the compost project. Further still was the methane gas extraction facility, meant to reduce odour and CO2 emissions and create electricity. We followed the dusty road around the bend and eventually it began to slope upwards.
We knew we were getting close because the smell was getting stronger and the squawking of the birds was getting louder. We soon realized that we were on top of the massive pile of garbage. The pile is huge and it spreads out in all directions. It has become part of the landscape and it’s hard to tell where it ends and where it begins. There were some mammoth bulldozers in the garbage valley that were compacting the piles and a few other people dropping off their goods but it was more or less deserted. 
A word of advice: when visiting a landfill, keep your mouth closed at all times. If, by chance, there’s a breeze in the air and you end up swallowing the stench, it’ll bring you to your knees. The smell is juicy and putrid and awful.
We got out of the car to take a look around. It is truly a stunning sight. The pile is dusty and filthy because layers of dirt are piled on to reduce the smell, to keep the birds from having a heyday, and to keep the garbage drier so it doesn’t rot as easily.
There is really no method that we could find as to where you can throw your refuse. You basically just chuck it in the direction of the garbage, which is in any direction you want. 
And the birds. I expected to see seagulls, that was no surprise. What I didn’t expect, though, was the amount of bald eagles that have taken up residence. They regally line the garbage-mountain ridge, occasionally circling and swooping down. They seemed out of place, but, then again, nothing seems natural about a landfill.
My friend and I started snapping photos of the surroundings. Before long, a bulldozer operator was driving our way. He got out and informed us that people are not allowed to take photos of the landfill unless you get approval from the main office so they can have someone accompany you. By this time, we were ready to leave. We paid our $6 at the exit gate and, rather somberly, drove home.
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Category : Uncategorized
Written by
maia
July 12, 2007
After writing my article on demolishing houses, I became attuned to the rate at which properties with older houses are getting designated for demolishment, in the city that is rushing to prepare itself for the Olympics. I started wondering what could we do with the houses that are about to be demolished not because they are in bad condition but because it is simply a lot more profitable to build condos.
I saw a news item on CBC TV by a Vancouver reporter Kirk Williams, about recycling houses and my interest was peaked. Believe it or not there are businesses that actually recycle houses.
http://www.nickelbros.com/faqhouse.html
How it works is you find a house that you like and pay for it. Then you pay the company to move it to a new lot.
Kelly Heart gives some great examples in her article Recycled Houses
http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/articles/recycledhouses.htm
As construction waste weights heavily on our landfills, this must be one of the biggest sustainable contributions a household can make.
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Category : Uncategorized
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