Award-Winning Doc Feature “Fairy Creek” to Debut at WFF

fairy-creekFairy Creek documents the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history; a blockade which made international headlines and broke records with nearly 1200 people arrested for protesting to protect BC’s last old-growth forests

Understory Films’ documentary feature film FAIRY CREEK will screen for audiences at home in BC for the first time at the Whistler Film Festival on December 7, 2024, 2024 at 3:45pm at the Village 8 Cinemas in Whistler. It was also recently announced that Cinema Politica boarded the film as distributor ahead of the film’s world premiere at Planet in Focus, where the film took home the Best Canadian Feature Award.

In FAIRY CREEK, director Jen Muranetz documents the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history, creating a searing portrait of contemporary environmental activism, bearing witness to the lengths activists are willing to go to protect British Columbia’s last old growth forests. With unique insider access, the team behind FAIRY CREEK follows the Ada’itsx (Fairy Creek) blockade from its early inception to its bittersweet ending through the lens of an ensemble cast of blockade vanguards and those who oppose them. Employing in-the-trenches cinema vérité, the film introduces spirited environmentalists embroiled in a series of often violent altercations with loggers and RCMP, all while trying to stop old-growth logging in the untouched Fairy Creek valley. The activists show unwavering dedication to their cause, while having compelling internal debates about whose voices are prioritized in the movement. By documenting this significant and contentious juncture in time, FAIRY CREEK calls attention to a much larger conversation: what does it take to find common ground in the fight for a climate-just future?
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Water Crisis Doc “Lead & Copper”

lead-and-copperFlint isn’t America’s first major lead crisis, and it will not be the last.

On April 24th, 2014, Flint, Michigan switched water sources to the Flint River, a cost-saving measure enacted by former Governor Rick Snyder and his appointed Emergency Manager. This decision poisoned a city that had already been neglected for decades.

Over the course of 8 years, through interviews of members of Congress, local officials, environmental and engineering scientists, former EPA employees, and the families affected by lead poisoning, LEAD & COPPER investigates how city, state, and federal policies contributed to environmental crises like those experienced in Flint, Newark, and Washington, D.C.

LEAD & COPPER is directed by William Hart. Produced by Patrick Letterii and Alex Olsen. Editing and Cinematography by Hart. Composed by Jacob Bloomfield-Misrach and William Sammons. A Vehicle City Films production.

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Andrew Abraham’s documentary “Dog War” will make North American Premiere at Chelsea Film Festival October 19

dog-warThe film is Andrew Abraham’s “on the front lines” documentary about two ex-military men on a mission to save dogs from hidden meat farms in South Korea.

Dog War follows a duo of war-hardened, canine-loving combat veterans fighting to stop the dog meat trade in South Korea. Surveilling and infiltrating hidden meat farms and markets, they risk it all to save as many dogs as possible.

At the same time, the film spotlights a country at war with itself over the issue, igniting questions about cultural difference, and social and generational change. Dog War probes these questions without simple black and white answers—about animal rights vs. human livelihood, heroism vs. vigilantism, respect for another culture, and how far we can justly go to save man’s best friend.

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TEA CREEK Documentary Feature Film Centring Indigenous Food Sovereignty Debut

tea-creekBoreal Wolf Film Productions and Winter Hawk Studios have announced that the documentary feature film TEA CREEK from director Ryan Dickie (In the Land of Dreamers) will be available to audiences across Canada starting October 11th, 2024. It was also just announced that the film has been selected for the 25th anniversary of Planet in Focus Film Festival (PiF) in Toronto in October, which will be the films Ontario debut. PiF is a festival that celebrates film as a catalyst for public awareness, discussion and engagement on a broad range of environmental issues and is the perfect fit for TEA CREEK.

Filmed at Tea Creek Farm in Kitwanga, BC, TEA CREEK is a documentary feature film set against the backdrop of colonization and the climate crisis. In 3 short years, Indigenous Food Sovereignty Activist Jacob Beaton transformed his family farm into Tea Creek; an Indigenous Food Sovereignty training center with a mission to revive the abundance that once defined Turtle Island. Following Tea Creek through the growing season, the film explores the rich history of Indigenous agriculture, the ongoing impacts of colonization and intimately portrays a passionate leader who’s vision for change is creating space for healing and abundance.

“Growing up in a small community in the north, I have a deep understanding of the fragility of our food networks, and how our traditional food systems as Indigenous people have been reshaped over time,” says TEA CREEK writer/director Ryan Dickie. “There is a sense of urgency for Indigenous people and within our communities to find solutions which will help our people achieve food sovereignty today, and for our future generations. The work that is being done at Tea Creek farm is not only a template for what can be done, but is also saving lives.”
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“Studio One Forever”: Doc of America’s Iconic Gay Disco

Directed by Marc Saltarelli, the documentary “Studio One Forever” is set to release in theaters on September 13 at the Landmark Theatres sunset and on VOD on October 8 via Gravitas.

studio-one-foreverA beacon of dancing and freedom for gay men looking for identity in a world that saw them as outcasts, Studio One was a haven and the blossoming center of nightlife in West Hollywood. From merging the gay community and Hollywood elites like Bette Davis and Jimmy Stewart to being at the forefront of the LBGTQ+ rights movement and the fight against the AIDS crisis, the venue was more than just a disco, it was a movement.

In “Studio One Forever”, Marc Saltarelli and narrators Bruce Vilanch and David Del Valle dive into the history of the historic venue, offering a testament to an era and immortalizing the club’s legacy for future generations.

The documentary features candid, modern-day interviews with Chita Rivera, Sam Harris, Felipe Rose, Charlo Crossley, Melissa Rivers, Roslyn Kind, Lance Bass, Thelma Houston along with former bartenders and patrons who recount their experiences at Studio One, and what the iconic club stood for.

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‘Impulse: Playing with Reality’ Takes Achievement Award at the 2024 Venice Film Festival in Immersive

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The mixed reality experience created by May Abdalla and Barry Gene Murphy and narrated by Tilda Swinton world premiered in the 2024 Venice Immersive Program at the 81st Venice International Film Festival

The Venice Film Festival announced Saturday that Impulse: Playing with Reality, directed by May Abdalla and Barry Gene Murphy, created and produced by Anagram, supported by Meta VR for Good and co-produced by Floréal & France Télévisions, has been awarded the prize for Achievement as part of the 2024 Venice Immersive Program.

Impulse: Playing with Reality is an interactive mixed reality documentary that explores ADHD and how you make sense of the world around you, told through the stories of four people coming to terms with the decisions which have chartered their lives.
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Hulu’s “Out There: Crimes of the Paranormal”

out-there“Out There: Crimes of the Paranormal” is from the creative team behind Hulu’s “Sasquatch”.

The Hulu Original docu-series is set to premiere with all episodes on September 24th on Hulu.

There’s the official synopsis:
Out There: Crimes of the Paranormal” takes you inside eight true crime cases with shocking encounters with the paranormal world – through eyewitness accounts, expert interviews, and all-new investigations. In each case, amidst an agonizing search for answers, one rumor emerges from the pack: something inhuman is afoot. These in-depth investigations transport us to towns and cities across North America where we speak to individuals with eyewitness accounts and first-person details about the extraordinary, supernatural events that changed their lives forever.

A six-year-old boy in the Smoky Mountains disappears forever after being snatched by a mysterious ape-like beast. A UFO crash in Long Island sparks an assassination attempt and illuminates a massive political conspiracy. An occult coven of Satanic witches is implicated in a decades-old New Jersey murder. Lonely ghosts in San Francisco’s Chinatown threaten to steal the lives of the unmarried. In these stories and more, “Out There” tracks down fresh leads and uncovers new evidence amid a labyrinth of twists and turns. At the end of the road, the investigations unearth new truths – about the power of mythology, the allure of the paranormal, and the monsters among us.

“Out There: Crimes of the Paranormal” is produced by Duplass Brothers Productions and Number 19, with Mark Duplass, Mel Eslyn, Jay Duplass, Joshua Rofé, Steven Berger, Zach Cregger, and Alexandra Orton serving as executive producers. Shuli Harel also serves as a co-executive producer, and M. Elizabeth Hughes serves as Producer.

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Watch the Official Trailer for Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story

superman-the-christopher-reeve-storyThe trailer for one of the year’s most anticipated movies has been released. Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story is the upcoming new documentary from Warner Bros, about Christopher Reeve.

Directed by BAFTA Award-nominated filmmakers Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui (McQueen), it features interviews with Reeve’s three children, close friends actors Susan Sarandon and Glenn Close, and Reeve’s wife, Dana, who died in 2006 of lung cancer.

This astonishing new documentary charts Reeve’s rise to stardom and his journey to becoming a real–life hero. After a near–fatal horse–riding accident in 1995 left him paralyzed from the neck down, Reeve became a charismatic leader and activist in the quest to find a cure for spinal cord injuries, as well as a passionate advocate for disability rights and care—all while continuing his career in cinema in front of and behind the camera and dedicating himself to his beloved family.

The documentary premiered earlier this year to critical acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival.

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story is only available in theaters September 21 and September 25.

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Film Feature: Something Divine Doc, Led by Hardcore Punk Rock Star and Ex-Monk Ray Cappo, Official Selection of Lonely Seal Film Festival

something-divineThomas Essig’s new documentary feature Something Divine has been named an official selection of Lonely Seal Film Festival, scheduled from August 20-25, 2024 in Arlington, MA. The film will be screened on Wednesday, August 21st during the Midweek Music Movies and More themed evening.

In the film, Ray Cappo, the lead singer of the straight edge hardcore band Youth of Today, who at the height of its growing popularity, leaves the band and travels to India. Ray goes from punk artist and becomes the Monk Raghunath. What follows is the confluence of two opposites, hardcore punk and spirituality. The film follows a pilgrimage guided by Raghunath through the holy cities of India, chronicling a spiritual journey of transformation.

In 2017, Essig first went on pilgrimage to India with Monk Raghunath. What he believed was to be a yoga trip, was in fact a journey into yogic philosophy and transformation of oneself – the catalyst that forever changed his life.
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Official Trailer for Secret World of Sound With David Attenborough

secret-world-of-soundNetflix has revealed a new trailer for its nature documentary series Secret World of Sound with David Attenborough.

As Attenborough says in the show, “the natural world is filled with sound, but so far we’ve been hearing only part of it,” and the Netflix series showcases those sounds.

In the documentary, advanced audio tech reveals never-before-heard animal behaviors: caiman chirping in eggs, lions and hyenas nocturnal skirmishes, puzzling fish humming, avian mimicry precision.

Here’s the two trailers for Secret World of Sound with David Attenborough:

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