CROSS CANADA CAMPUS TOUR
Tour stops will take place February – September 2024
The Cross Canada Campus Tour is back! Fill out the form below to program a free environmental film screening on your campus. Planet in Focus will assist each school with the organization of a post-screening discussion with filmmaker or local guest experts to delve deeper into the issues and suggestions for action. Questions? Email schooltour@planetinfocus.org
THE NATURAL WORLD
Biocentrics
Fernanda Heinz Figueiredo, Ataliba Benaim | Brazil | 01:48:29
Major themes: Wildlife, Design, Innovation
How would you reinvent some part of your world using nature as a model? In “Biocentrics”, this and other provocations are answered by the eyes and voice of biologist Janine Benyus. Traveling to different corners of the planet, it reveals the birth and principles that guide biomimicry, a transdisciplinary methodology of technological innovation inspired by a master with 3.8 billion years of experience. As a hub connecting knowledge, cultures, natural technologies and initiatives that choose the continuity of life as the premise of their projects, the charismatic activist proposes a common agenda, a new posture and a tool that is at the tip of the spear of contemporary science to face the global challenges that lie ahead.
This program includes the short film:
Losing Blue 
Leanne Allison | Canada | 00:16:40
Major themes: Climate Change, Deep Time
What does it mean to lose a colour? Losing Blue is a cinematic poem about losing the otherworldly blues of ancient mountain lakes, now fading due to climate change. With stunning cinematography, this short doc immerses the viewer in the magnificence of these rare lakes, pulling us in to stand on their rocky shores, witness their power and understand what their loss would mean—both for ourselves and for the Earth.
INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVES
s-yéwyáw: Awaken
Stories of hope and homecoming intersect as Indigenous multimedia changemakers learn and document the teachings of their Elders.
Ecko Aleck of the Nlaka’pamux Nation (Lytton, BC,) Alfonso Salinas of the shíshálh Nation (Sunshine Coast, BC,) and Charlene SanJenko of Splatsin of the Secwépemc Nation (Shuswap, BC,) are learning and documenting the traditional cultural teachings and legacies of their Elders, including the impacts of genocide resulting from Canada’s Indian Residential School (IRS) system. Calling the audience’s attention to the filmmaking process of narrative collaboration between an Indigenous and settler team, this character-driven documentary connects the transformative stories of three Indigenous multimedia changemakers and their four Elders. Infused by Indigenous ceremony, s-yéwyáw: Awaken walks alongside the process of intergenerational healing.
This program includes the short film:
Tiny
Forestry
Silvicola
The program includes the short film:
Keepers of the Land
Deirdre Leowinata, Douglas Neasloss | Canada | 00:28:28
Major themes: Environmental Stewardship, Intergenerational Responsibility
In the heart of British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest, the Kitasoo Xai’xais Nation reclaims ancestral power amidst colonial impacts. As stewards in Canada’s reconciliation era, the story unfolds through elder Nismuutk, hereditary chief Ernest Mason Jr., and the new generation of leaders, revealing a powerful tale of resurgence and responsibility.
EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRY
Wochiigii Lo: End of the Peace
Heather Hatch | Canada | 90 min
Major themes: Extractive Industries, Water Pollution
Shot over five years by Haida filmmaker Heather Hatch, this is a stirring chronicle of resistance and environmental stewardship, pitting First Nations people against the British Columbia government. At issue is the ongoing construction of Site C, a multi-billion-dollar mega-dam along the province’s Peace River. If completed, the project will flood thousands of acres of agricultural land, threaten critical habitat, and endanger a way of life that has been sustainably practiced for millennia—even as official assessments suggest the dam’s potential benefits are difficult to discern.
This program includes the short film:
Bill Reid Remembers
Alanis Obomsawin | Canada | 24 min
Themes: Legacy, Cultural Identity
Bill Reid Remembers is a beautiful tribute from Alanis Obomsawin to her friend’s remarkable life and rich legacy. Despite spending his early life away from his nation’s culture, renowned Haida artist Bill Reid always kept Haida Gwaii close to his heart.
THE NATURE OF WORK
After Work
Erik Gandini | Sweden | 1:20:00
Themes: AI, Job Displacement, Cultural Work Ethic
The majority of jobs that exists today will disappear within a few decades. As technology surpasses human capacity, we have the opportunity to rethink the role of work in our lives. Are we ready for an excess of time? For a work-free existence? Sweeping across four continents, the film describes widely different lives where some barely spend any time outside of work while others bathe in leisure. Through these stories and characters we are thrown into the existential tension between that which is and that which could be.
The program includes the short film:
The Wilderness Within
Jason van Bruggen | Canada | 00:12:32
Themes: Ecology, Toronto
A realist’s assessment of the declining health of urban wilderness and our fleeting opportunity to restore it. This is the story of one man’s obsessive quest to re-wild Toronto’s ravines by bringing the offspring of ecological elders, or mother trees, back to their natural homes. It is a call to arms for nature lovers around the world.
COSMOLOGY
!Aitsa
Dane Dodds | Denmark | 1:28:30
Themes: Ancient Knowledge, Astronomy
Bringing together ancient spiritual knowledge and cutting-edge science !AITSA is a transcendental film about humans in the Great Karoo desert of South Africa seeking meaning in the infinite darkness surrounding us all.
The program includes the short film:
Blue Wail
Jason Lee O’Hara | Canada | 00:05:58
Themes: Ocean Health, Plastic Pollution
Experimental documentary which combines digital underwater cinematography (found footage/archives), with analog phytograms, interrogating the crisis of plastics in our oceans. The film’s entire soundtrack was produced exclusively from plastic retrieved from our oceans, which is revealed in the closing credits.
This program is generously funded by
