Confounded by global warming and in search of an affirmative politics that links ecology with social change, Matt Hern and Am Johal set off on a series of road trips to the tar sands of northern Alberta—perhaps the world’s largest industrial site, dedicated to the dirty work of extracting oil from Alberta’s vast reserves. Traveling from culturally liberal, self-consciously “green” Vancouver, and aware that our well-meaning performances of recycling and climate-justice marching are accompanied by constant driving, flying, heating, and fossil-fuel consumption, Hern and Johal want to talk to people whose lives and fortunes depend on or are imperiled by extraction. 

They are seeking new definitions of ecology built on a renovated politics of land. Traveling with them is their friend Joe Sacco—infamous journalist and cartoonist, teller of complex stories from Gaza to Paris—who contributes illustrations and insights and a chapter-length comic about the contradictions of life in an oil town. The epic scale of the ecological horror is captured through a series of stunning color photos by award-winning aerial photographer Louis Helbig.

Seamlessly combining travelogue, sophisticated political analysis, and ecological theory, speaking both to local residents and to leading scholars, the authors propose a new understanding of ecology that links the domination of the other-than-human world to the domination of humans by humans. They argue that any definition of ecology has to start with decolonization and that confronting global warming requires a politics that speaks to a different way of being in the world—a reconstituted understanding of the sweetness of life.

Chair

Presenter for the BBC’s ‘One Show’, and columnist for the Observer, Lucy Siegle has focussed on social and environmental justice in her reporting for a number of years. Lucy has extensive experience in humanizing environmental science, from climate change to consumer energy use. In 2004, she created the paper’s Observer Ethical Awards (OEAs), dubbed the Green Oscars, which have been running for over eight years. She is a regular columnist for the Observer and contributes to Radio 4’s ‘Today Programme’.

Speakers

Matt Hern lives in East Vancouver on səlil’wətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) territory, with his partner and daughters.  He is co-directs Solid State Industries and has co-founded and directed many other community projects.  He currently teaches with multiple universities, and continues to lecture globally. Matt’s books and articles have been published on all six continents and translated into thirteen languages.

Am Johal is Director of Simon Fraser University’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. He is the author of ‘Ecological Metapolitics: Badiou and the Anthropocene’ (Atropos Press, 2015) and is co-author with Matt Hern (with contributions from Joe Sacco), of “Global Warming and the Sweetness of Life: A Tar Sands Tale.” (MIT, 2018). He is the co-founder of UBC’s Humanities 101 program and is an associate of SFU’s Centre for Dialogue and SFU’s Institute for the Humanities. He previously served as co-chair of the Impact on Communities Coalition, as a board member with the Vancity Community Foundation, the Or Gallery, the Vancouver City Planning Commission, the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House and many other organizations.

Documentary films often generate empathy in audiences, illuminating new perspectives and activating powerful emotions, but what happens next? How can empathy created by effective storytelling fuel action?

A panel of filmmakers and industry professionals will come together to discuss how they’ve carried their messages beyond the screen to incite engagement from viewers and response to social issues and injustices. Subjects to be discussed include storytelling methods for inspiring action, building campaigns through multimedia platforms, and engaging with the journalistic community.

Chaired by:
Sarah Mosses, CEO of Together Films, a new agency working with social issue film content to reach new audiences. She helps filmmakers craft Impact Distribution Campaigns to increase both their social impact, audience reach and revenue potential. As an award winning producer Sarah’s debut feature documentary They Will Have To Kill Us First had its World Premiere at SXSW 2015. Sarah is a mentor for Documentary Campus, Eso Doc, Sheffield DocFest, working with filmmakers to identify strategies and partners for their films.

The panelists:

Riddhi Jha is a UK Producer/Writer, educated at Royal Holloway, University of London. She started her career working in post-production and later began developing programmes for major UK television channels. Her debut in production was on a Channel 4 documentary ‘Why Don’t You Speak English?’ which followed the lives of those who had settled in the UK for the first time. Riddhi has since worked on the popular BBC television series ‘The Great British Bake Off’, has cast contributors and worked as Researcher for several productions for the BBC and Discovery and has scripted several commercials. “Riddhi came on board as an Associate Producer on India’s Daughter with the sort of commitment, energy and passion that a producer dreams of having at his/her side”, Leslee Udwin has said of her. Riddhi has a feature film in development as writer/producer – the story of a child bride.

Callum Macrae is a filmmaker, writer and journalist. An Emmy, BAFTA and Grierson nominee, his output has ranged from current affairs investigations to observational documentaries to polemics and he has filmed around the world, including Iraq, Sri Lanka, Japan, Haiti, Cote D’Ivoire, Uganda, Mali, and Sudan on subjects ranging from international and civil conflict to sex-workers rights.  He headed the Channel 4 team nominated in 2013 for a Nobel Peace Prize for their work on Sri Lanka which culminated in his feature documentary, No Fire Zone.  The product of a three year investigation, No Fire Zone is credited with playing a key role in convincing the UN Human Rights Council in March 2014 to launch a major international war crimes investigation into the events in the closing stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War.

Patrick Hurley is Distribution Manager at Dogwoof, a leading film distributor and world sales agent specialising in high-profile feature-length documentaries. Primarily responsible for theatrical-release campaigns and audience-building, Patrick has worked on over 60 cinema releases for documentaries in the UK over the past four years. For this discussion, Patrick will share insights from Dogwoof’s campaign for Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s Blackfish for which Dogwoof handled UK distribution, international sales plus website and social media.  Released in 2013, Blackfish has become a worldwide phenomenon, achieving an immense global audience and instigating a major impact on Sea World’s admissions and reputation for keeping orcas in captivity. Patrick will discuss how Dogwoof positioned and marketed the film to a broad audience while simultaneously leveraging support from key activist partners.

From Somalia to Iraq, Haiti to Columbia and many places in between, filmmakers What Took You So Long? do not only make films – they explore, connect and collaborate with communities worldwide.

Ahead of their distinguished Guerrilla Filmmaking Workshop at the Frontline Club, we caught up with the team for an exclusive Q&A:

First of all, will participants have the opportunity to make a film during the workshop?
YES!

How do you define guerrilla filmmaking?
Guerrilla filmmaking is about going in without an agenda, integrating with local communities and using the smallest amount of gear necessary. It’s about being able to convey compelling stories without lights, boom or massive cameras.

What have you been able to achieve which you wouldn’t have by “proper” methods?
Connection: to the people we film and the people we work with. The small effort to take a local bus, or finding a fixer/translator at an internet cafe gets you started in the process of participatory filmmaking.

Where has been your most challenging and/or inspiring location to film?
Somalia is challenging day-to-day because you’re never entirely sure that you’ll be safe. Most inspiring is hard to choose, but WTYSL’s recent journeys to Haiti have given us an in-depth look at a very stereotyped country. Western Sahara was problematic due to Moroccan secret service thinking we worked for Human Rights Watch. Uzbekistan was tough because our hosts thought we worked for the BBC and we had to escape.

How did you go about working in Somalia?
Filming the TEDxSummit in Doha motivated us to organise the first TEDx event in Somalia. TEDx Mogadishu inspired UNDP Somalia to contact us, and together we created the Social Good Summit Mogadishu. This lead to our visual capacity training with the UNDP, where we explored with local staff how they could use film and photography to share their work with the world.

How do you decide which organisations to work with?
It’s an organic process that comes from a lot of discussion with the potential partner. But our reputation is a good filter. We don’t often have to say no, because we don’t often get approached by people with missions incongruous to ours.

What’s the story with TEDx?
Sebastian was invited to speak about guerrilla filmmaking at TEDx Athens, and then about camel milk entrepreneurship at TEDx NHH in Norway. At TEDx Doha we met Nate, who was organising the whole conference. He is now an essential part of WTYSL. We like to think we stole him from TED.

Who could join WTYSL?
Anyone with a passion for filmmaking, nomadism and learning. Alicia and Sebastian are amazing teachers. You can tell by the makeup of the current WTYSL that we are all very different. We bring different things to the table and that keeps things interesting.

What’s most exciting about the workshop?
You’ll actually make something. The biggest barrier to break is the one that says we’ll be wasting our time and fail. In filmmaking you have to step outside of your comfort zone and do what’s right for the film.

Participants will get connected to our contacts in over 60 countries, and we’ll help get you kickstarted on your way to making great content.

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The comprehensive two-day workshop will cover both technical know-how and guerrilla filmmaking strategies. From live-streaming, iPhone apps (time lapse, photography, quality audio etc.), storyboarding and editing on the road – to finding accommodation (not hotels), inspiring the uninspired and incorporating laughing yoga into your visual life – this one of a kind workshop may change the way you connect to people.

Guerrilla Filmmaking with WTYSL will be held The Frontline Club on Saturday 29 & Sunday 30 June 2013. Click here for more information.

Bring your camera, wear comfortable shoes, and don’t forget your imagination!

All image credits: What Took You So Long?

A charming evening at the Frontline Club focused on a remarkably difficult theme: increasing disparities between rich and poor, powerful and powerless, and what they imply for our future.

Director of the think tank ResPublica, Philip Blond hosted the event, infusing it with humor as he led the panelists in a debate about the documentary Four Horsemen, which premiered in London at Frontline on 27 April. The documentary blames neoliberal and neoclassical economic theory for paving the way to an increasingly unjust, unstable, and unequal world.  Last night, the film’s director Ross Ashcroft elaborated its points with clarity and passion.

Daniel Ben-Ami journalist and author of Ferraries for All:  In Defense of Economic Progress, argued that the documentaries biggest mistake was to underestimate the role of the state in today’s crisis. Emeritus economics professor Victoria Chick, meanwhile, commented on the documentary’s suggestion that we return to the gold standard.  

"I sort of flinched," she said.  "Everything I’ve always known about the gold standard was so repressive, and it was a very deflationary regime.  [I] like the courageous quality of Minsky who said, ‘alright, I know banks are unstable, but they’re worth it, because they provide productive investment.’  Well that was when they did lend for productive investment.  And now they no longer do."

Giving voice to the sentiment of the evening, Mark Braund author of Four Horsemen:  The Survival Manual complained,

"We have democratic institutions which aren’t delivering democratic outcomes.  And that’s because I think too few people are interested enough to engage with what are quite complex ideas about how the ecomony works."

"X-box, cheap lager, and mass media" were Ashcroft‘s culprits for the public’s malaise in the face of a system that he believes is increasingly stacked against them.  

At several points, panelists emphasized that change would have to come "from the bottom up," but as one audience member regretted, what change "from the bottom up" really meant seemed hard to elucidate.

Amidst today’s troubling trends, Blond noted with optimism that ethics had returned to conversations about society and economics:

"This is an exciting time we’re in:  the left is arguing for ethics, when for many years ethics was akin to fascism and authoritarianism and being oppressive…  I think that’s genuinely a transformative, interesting moment."

Yet he ended the night on a sadder note, recalling a recent trip to his hometown of Liverpool:

"I was going around the northern neighborhoods, and people there haven’t worked since the first wave of globalization.  The deindustrialization there has essentially condemned three generations to endemic poverty.  What’s going to happen next is there’ll be a second wave, or a third wave, or a fourth wave, of automation, and that will take out middle class jobs.  And that’s already happening:  teaching, accounting, lawyers, etc….

Watch the full event here: