A new film about the old growing forests of BC, focusing on Fairy Creek exclusions, debuts at the Whistler Film Festival this month.
Before they fall, directed by Cam MacArthur, produced by Whistler-based Ecologyst Films.
McArthur said he had no plans to make a film about the Fairy Creek River Basin, which has become one of the largest acts of political disobedience in Canadian history.
“It’s supposed to be an eight-minute short film,” MacArthur said. “One month in production, [the Fairy Creek blockade] it just exploded and we knew there was no reason to tell this story without making Fairy Creek a huge part of it. So now it’s half the movie. ”
The Fairy Creek River Basin is one of the last remaining unprotected old clusters of Vancouver Island offshore rainforests. Some of the huge trees in the area – such as yellow cedars and Douglas firs – are up to 2,000 years old, support a wide variety of ecological diversity and store a lot of carbon. The area is the traditional site of the First Pacheedaht Nation.
Protesters arrived at the site, two hours’ drive from Victoria, more than a year ago to prevent Surrey-based logging company Teal-Jones from operating. The company received an order against the protesters on April 1, which the RCMP has imposed since mid-May. More than 1,100 people have been arrested.
MacArthur’s film is a reflection of this timeline and the interaction between land defenders, law enforcement and logging companies. He says this is not a solution-oriented film, but a film from the heart.
“We did not go into his finances or some of the more detailed details. We really started making a movie festival of all the people who protect the forest,” he said.
Rande Cook, a Ma’amtagila heiress and artist appearing in the film, says the film comes at a very important time for British Columbia and Canada.
“It’s a debate that is so important right now because it concerns us all. It really concerns the future of our planet and our environment,” Cook said.
“As a person of the First Nations, talking about the history of our connection to the earth and our philosophy that we have been supporting for a long time, where there is essentially an obligation that we have to protect Mother Earth.”
The Whistler Film Festival continues to air online until the end of the month. Over 66 movies are available for viewing online anywhere in Canada.
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