Hijacked Future
For 10,000 years farmers planted and saved their seeds. But now control of seeds – and control of our food crops – has shifted into the hands of a few multinational corporations. “Who controls the seed, controls the food”
“Watch this lucid, terrifying, and hopeful film..” Stephen Hume, Vancouver Sun
Ted Grant: the Art of Observation
A one-hour film for television (Bravo!, Knowledge Network and SCN) about the renowned Canadian photojournalist Ted Grant.
Turning on the Tap – Making Services work for the Urban Poor
A short film for IDRC about their Focus City project in Moreno, Argentina
C.O.S.A
A “how to” film about forming circles of support and accountability in Canadian communities for ex-offenders.
The Shipsinkers
A one hour television documentary about the creation of artificial reefs from old ships – and the people whose passion this is. (With Sea of Steel Productions and Dan Mauro, National Geographic International, OLN, ABC Australia, Knowledge Network and SCN)
Fatherhood: Indignenous Men’s Journeys
A 34 min. DVD for community and educational use; short profiles of six First Nations fathers. Produced with Dr. Jessica Ball of the University of Victoria as an adjunct to the FIRA (Father Involvement Research Alliance) study on fatherhood. Distribution enquires through Dr. Ball.
Water Detectives
A short (11 min.) film for children and grown-ups about the innovative “water detectives” project in Matamoros, Mexico which is designed to engage children as water activists to help their homes and neighbourhoods conserve water and in the process to create a new “culture of water” which values this precious resource. Produced by the NFB’s Pacific Region.
IdeaLogs
A series of short (1-3 min.) concise expositions of ideas about the world we live in and how it could be made to work better. They are presented by some of the leading thinkers of today: Jane Jacobs, Matthew Fox, Wayne Roberts, Stewart Brand, David Korten, Amory and Hunter Lovins. Designed primarily for both formal and informal educational settings, they are provocative, tasty morsels of thought for educators and their students who are hungry for discussion catalysts. 24 Logs are packaged on one dvd and fall into the subject areas of economics, ethics, philosophy and sociology.
Vacations from the Heart
1 hour documentary exploring volunteer tourism in Costa Rica, Belize, and Peru. For Global Television, with Insight Documentaries, Vancouver
Rainwolves
The coastal wolves of British Columbia, in the Great Bear Rainforest for Rainshadow Productions and Discovery Canada. Three Leo nominations
Cooking Fun for Families
Produced for the Coastal Health Authority, Vancouver about a cooking and nutrition project in Vancouver’s inner city schools.
Imagine... A World Without Birds
Two short videos produced for the North American Bird Conservation Initiative, Montreal.
Living Things We Love to Hate -
Why Certain Creatures Make Us Squirm and Shudder
A one-hour program based on the book by B.C. author Des
Kennedy; for the Discovery Channel Canada.
If things are to change, even at this late hour, we will begin with a wholesale change in attitude towards all living things, indeed towards life itself. Our task is one of reconnection with the natural world, including those parts of it that we have learned to fear and despise.
- Des Kennedy, from "Living Things We Love to Hate"
We are repulsed by the sight of a slug oozing its way across a garden path. We recoil at the sensuous movement of a snake. We shudder at even the sound - let alone sight - of a bat. We fear the seemingly impenetrable darkness of a forest at night. Why? Is it true we fear what we don’t understand?
Where do these responses come from? Is it from some deep, dark place in our individual psyches, or out of our collective unconscious? What do our attitudes about some of the natural world’s creatures tell us about ourselves and our relationship to nature - and - our desire to control, plunder, and pillage? If we viewed the natural world with the respect we offer to technology, would we then treat it accordingly?
In his book, “Living Things We Love to Hate”, Des Kennedy says that if we knew why we recoiled at the sight - never mind touch - of a slug and other garden creatures, we might open up a whole new world of understanding on much larger issues. This program looks at these creatures in squirmy closeups, learning about them - and our relationship with them - through the ages. We do so by focussing our cameras and our attention on one small part of the earth: a ten-acre homestead on Denman Island, on Canada’s west coast. This is the home of acclaimed author and gardener Des Kennedy, the home he shares with the creatures he writes about.
Narrator Kennedy explains the wonders of his corner of the planet on Denman Island, and offers his thoughts on why we react the way we do - with repulsion - to some of the creatures with which we coexist.
(Be forewarned: much of the program is shot in extreme closeup, for maximum ickiness.)
Biomimicry
Two one-hour programs for "The Nature of Things" based on the book, "Biomimicry" by Janine Benyus.
Nature has ingenious ways of overcoming obstacles of every imaginable sort. What can we humans learn from nature in tackling the problems we've created on this earth - and do so in such a way so as not to create even more environmental problems?
Biomimicry is a revolutionary new science that analyzes nature's best ideas - spider silk and eyes, seashells and brain cells, photosynthesis and DNA - and adapts them for human use. Janine Benyus takes us into the lab and out in the field with the maverick researchers who are discovering nature's ingenious solutions to the problem of human survival. The answers are there for the finding, poetic in their elegance and economy.
Co-produced and co-directed by David Springbett and Paul Lang
Awards: "Science in Society" Award / Science Writers of Canada
Finding the Future
13 x ½ hours. Leading edge thinkers explore how we might get there from here. For Vision TV and SCN
ReInventing the World
a series of five one-hour documentaries about some of the major issues
facing us as a society: food, work and time, sustainable cities, economics.
This series hosted by writer Des Kennedy, features some of the major thinkers
and writers of today who offer insightful ways of approaching problems
in order to live more sustainable lives. (Vision TV, SCN, 2001)
More info...
(“This is thoughtful television, full of talking heads... the heads talk well and the series is important.” Silver Donald Cameron, Halifax Herald, April 8/01)
The Man We Called Juan Carlos
A one-hour film that explores the filmmakers’ 25-year relationship with a Guatemalan campesino leader, the life choices we make, and the price we pay when we commit to political and spiritual ideals. (Vision TV, Knowledge Network, SCN, 2001) More info...
(“This sophisticated, troubling film raises important questions about human rights, the personal price of refusing to assent to evil and the responsibility of the ‘objective’ journalist who bears witness at somebody else’s cost...I was surprised and then enthralled by this powerful documentary.” Stephen Hume, Vancouver Sun, March 17/01)
GoodWood
1 hour documentary for the CBC’s Nature of Things asks “Can we have jobs and trees ?” using various examples of sustainable forestry in Honduras, Mexico, British Columbia, and the United States. More info...
(“...how a community can reverse its fortunes, and protect its environment, if willing to discover more value in the surrounding landscape.” David Leach, Monday Magazine, Nov. 25, 1998.)
("It's an inspiring, heart lifting film about the possibilities that await those who learn to see old things in new ways." Vancouver Sun)
Awards: Columbus International Film & Video Festival, Vermont International Film Festival, Equinox Environmental Film Festival
The
Monarch:
A Butterfly Beyond Borders
1 hour for Discovery Canada exploring the natural history of this astonishing
insect, and the threats to its annual migration. Filmed in Canada, Mexico
and the U.S.
More info...
("This video, superbly done, tells it all in a way that fans the flames of interest and wonder over this marvellous migratory insect, and its plight and the implications of that plight for man." The Toledo Blade)
Awards: International Wildlife Film Festival, Gemini nomination, Hazel Wolf Environmental Film Festival, Bronze Apple, National Educational Media Network, Columbus International Film & Video Festival , others
Ways We Live: Exploring Community
10 x 1/2 hour television series and companion book (New Society Publishers, 1997), that explore the meaning and expression of community in our lives.
(“It is precisely because “Ways We Live” is politically astute without being partisan that it is so compelling. This is the kind of television that asks the viewer to go on a personal voyage of discovery over several weeks, without making any snap judgments or belabouring a single point of view.” Alex Strachan, Vancouver Sun, March 3, 1997)
Program One
Community Animals
What's happened to our sense of community? In the first of ten programs,
some of oday's leading thinkers explore fundamental questions of work,
time, values, change and how we will live together in the next millennium.
Program
Two
Virtually Intentional
Is community a place or a state of mind? An 800 year old order of cloistered
nuns, an urban commune and cyberspace...It's surprising how much they
have in common.
Program Three
Community by Design
From hometown to the 'burbs - and back again. It's not just the design
of our houses and neighbourhoods that has changed over the years. Our
ways of living in our communities have changed too - but who gets to
make the decisions?
Program Four
Making Shelter - My Home With Others
A roof overhead isn't always enough to keep you warm...This program looks
at how both the poor and the middle class have found the shelter of community
by changing the ways they think about housing.
Program Five
Reclaiming Community
Two compelling stories of urban community renewal - a park in downtown
Toronto and a community garden in Oakland, California, illustrate how
communities can take back public space and forge new bonds of trust,
safety and togetherness.
Program Six
Ageing with Community
Where do we find community and retain our independence as we grow old?
Two very different options are profiled: a gated community for the newly
retired and an Abbeyfield home for older but still independent people
seeking a family community.
Program Seven
The Boundaries of Change
How do communities cope with change? Richmond, B.C. is a city on fast-forward
whose changing demographics have radically altered its community over
the years. How can people balance the need to accept change, while respecting
each others' personal boundaries for community?
Program Eight
Finding Us and Them
Who is "us" and who is "them"? This program asks
some difficult questions about how we, as a society, treat those who
don't seem to fit...And it shows us unconditional love in action as street
people, the mentally ill and physically challenged find places to belong.
Program Nine
On the Road
There's more to the RV life than spending your children's inheritance...Anthropologists
David and Dorothy Counts take us on the road to New Mexico and Texas
to explore a fascinating world of adventure and strong community ties.
Program
Ten
Maps with Teeth
Just where is "here"? Mapping is an ingenious way to communicate
visually a sense of place - be it rural or urban - by the people who
live in and care for that place. The process of creating bioregional
maps creates the potential for change and a sustainable future.
Produced with the participation of Telefilm Canada. Produced in association with Vision TV and British Columbia Film and with the participation of The Cable Production Fund, The Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund and Saskatchewan Communications Network.
Changing Places
Produced for the United Nations Population Fund, this documentary explores urbanization population, and the role of women buy focussing on three exceptional housing projects in Vancouver, Bangkok, and Mexico City.
The Open Door
A video about a Victoria drop-in centre that offers a safe haven and a sense of family.
How Much Is Enough ? (in the series "How To Save The Earth" with Jonathon Porrit) Director / Producer.
Population growth in the South, and over-consumption in the North are the two biggest environmental problems facing the world. Co-Production with Channel 4, NRK, TVO, Access, SCN, Knowledge Network and North-South Productions, England. 1993 Award: North American Environmental Film Festival
The Best We Have to Give? (1989)
a 26 min. documentary about the impact international debt has on the basic needs of children in one African country: Ghana. Part of the "Stolen Childhood" series. Co-produced with North-South Prod., London, CIDA and TV Ontario.
Awards: Blue Ribbon, American Film & Video Festival, Columbus Film Festival; Certificate of Merit, Chicago International Film Festival
That’s Right! (1989)
for UNICEF Canada: a 15 min. documentary profile of four children (two Canadian, two Ghanaian) for Canadian children on the rights of children and the work of UNICEF. Produced for UNICEF Canada
Awards: Golden Apple, National Educational Film & Video Festival; Honourable Mention, Columbus Film Festival
Nature Walk Creative Consultant (program format and structure, host casting); Director, 4 episodes.
Nature Walk is a half-hour program for Life: The Network, produced by Soma Television, Vancouver. (1994)
The Heart Challenge Director,
documentary segments. 1 hour special for CTV (1994)
Greening Business (The Nature of Things with David Suzuki) Producer/Director -
a look at how business and the environment can both be restored. CBC, January 1994, October 1995.
Awards: Vermont International Film Festival; Bronze, American Film & Video Festival.
Earth Journal with Dr. Richard Leaky Environmental magazine program, segment producer.
Produced by RHI Entertainment.
No Spare Parts (Co-production with "The Nature of Things with David Suziki") Director / Producer.
Appropriate Technology in Ghana. 1990, repeated 1993.
Awards: Blue Ribbon, American Film Festival; Columbus Film Festival
The Best We Have to Give ? (In the series "Stolen Childhood") Director / Producer.
How international debt affects the basic needs of children in Ghana. Co-production with Channel 4, NRK, TVO, Access, etc. 1989
Awards: Blue Ribbon, American Film & Video Festival, Columbus, Chicago
Willing to Learn Participatory Drama. Producer, co-director.
A collaboration between Canadian film-makers and literacy learners in St. Vincent.
Award: Tam Tam Film & Video Festival, Rome. 1989