Tag Archives: Film

Arts, Politics

Film Night at Linnaea: Climate Action, Politics and Societal Change

Two films by veteran journalist, educator, and NDP candidate Avi Lewis are being shown at the Linnaea Education Centre this weekend. At 7 PM on Friday, January 23, 2026, Lewis and his wife Naomi Klein tell the story of Argentinian workers who took control of a bankrupt auto plant and turned it into a cooperative. At 7 PM on the following night, their documentary ‘This Changes Everything’ connects climate action to economic justice.

Max Thaysen, who is organizing the showings, explained, “Avi Lewis is running for the leadership of the Federal NDP, and he has made a couple of awesome films that I actually haven’t seen yet. So, I thought that it would be interesting to see his films, learn more about him, share that with the community, and take the opportunity to chat about the leadership race and how people can get involved if they want to.”

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Cost of Climate Change

Happy New Year Humanity – The Quadra Project

When the outside world is too disturbing to confront, people seek
relief through the vicarious safety of fantasy. This explains why 2025
was a banner year for horror movies. J.G. Ballard, an English novelist
and essayist, noted that, “The ultimate dystopia is the inside of
one’s own head.” Dr. Coltan Scrivner, a behavioural scientist agrees.
“You walk around with your mask of tranquillity, but inside your mind
is a maze of worries. Horror allows you to take off your mask.” (The
Guardian Weekly, Editorial, Oct. 24, 2025.) So with this genre of
movie you get to experience horror, but not the real kind that you
might be reluctant to confront.

As we mark the beginning of 2026, we are one quarter of our way
through the 21st century and are coming closer to the haunting
forecasts of climate catastrophe by the end of the century, if we do
not reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. So a review of 2025 seems
appropriate.

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Arts

“Eco Warriors” — A Story of Resistance and Reverence

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Jennifer Pickford will be showing her documentary ECO Warriors at Mansons Hall on Tuesday April 22. 

 “This film is telling the story of several environmental activists who have faced imprisonment for their actions, as well as the actual and real threat of being labeled terrorists for protecting the land and the forest that they love,” she explained. 

“Eco Warriors is about 12 years old. It’s one of my earlier works, but following on the footsteps of last year’s Earth Day screening of ‘Sacred India, A Plastic Revolution,’ I wanted to show another film because I felt that not only is it still a relevant topic, but also it’s just nice to have that continuity of having an Earth Day screening here on Cortes Island.”

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Rivers & Oceans

The Documentary ‘Salmon Secrets’ Comes to Cortes Island

French filmmaker Jérémy Mathieu’s award winning documentary ‘Salmon Secrets,’ will be coming to Gorge Hall at 1 PM on Sunday, January 12.    

This 40 minute film was produced by Clayoquot Action, whose co-founders Bonny Glambeck and Dan Lewis will be speaking at the screening. 

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Forests

The Most Exciting Conservation Story on Cortes Island

Transcript of a radio broadcast by Sabina Leader Mense

Just last weekend several of us were at the Cortes Island Museum for the launch of Sheila Harrington’s new book ‘Voices For The Islands: 30 Years Of Nature Conservation In The Salish Sea.’ What Sheila does in this book is she celebrates this amazing community of conservationists that are living and working in the Salish Sea.  

In the foreword, Briony Penn wrote, “If you’ve picked up this book, chances are that you’ve fallen in love with the islands in the Salish Sea. You might have wondered how the heck they’ve retained their natural beauty against the hostile tsunami of contemporary clear-cuts, cookie cutter suburbs, and mindless malls that are encroaching elsewhere.” 

Briony talks about the collective efforts of thousands of people over generations that have actually been working to maintain the beauty of the islands. 

Sheila’s book documents the last 30 years of people (voices in the islands) who have been working at conservation. She includes a chapter on Cortes, so we’re in there with the best of them! I encourage everybody to pick her book up and have a read  to see what the island community of conservationists have been doing. 

Map of the Children’s Forest

The most exciting conservation story on Cortes today is definitely the Children’s Forest! This is the 624 acres of forest lands that stretch all the way from the Carrington Bay Road trailhead, east across Carrington Lagoon to Goat Mountain, just on the northern shore of Blue Jay Lake.  These are lands owned by Island Timberlands. It’s part of their privately managed forest land base on Cortes Island.

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