Film Series – Freedom Riders

Celebrate Black History Month

with Word Community’s screening of the film,

Freedom Riders

Tues. 7pm Feb. 21 – North Island College Theatre, Courtenay

Admission is by donation -115 minutes

Freedom Riders is the powerful, harrowing and ultimately inspirational story of six months in 1961 that changed the United States forever. From May until November 1961, more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives—many endured savage beatings and imprisonment—for simply traveling together on buses and trains as they journeyed through the Deep South.

Organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the self-proclaimed “Freedom Riders” came from all strata of American society—black and white, young and old, male and female, Northern and Southern. They embarked on the Rides knowing the danger but firmly committed to the ideals of non-violent protest, aware that their actions could provoke a savage response but willing to put their lives on the line for the cause of justice.

Says award-winning filmmaker, Stanley Nelson, “The lesson of the Freedom Rides is that great change can come from a few small steps taken by courageous people. And that sometimes to do any great thing, it’s important that we step out alone.” (previously screened at the Sundance Film Festival)

For more information, call (250) 337-5412.

World Community Screens ‘Consuming Kids’

The World Community Film Series continues with another thought provoking

and provocative sneak preview from our upcoming World Community Film Festival.

Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood

Tues. Nov. 29th, 7:30 pm

North Island College Theatre, Courtenay

(admission by donation)

Consuming Kids throws desperately needed light on the practices of a relentless multi-billion dollar marketing machine which sees North American children as one of the most powerful and profitable consumer demographics in the world. Drawing on the insights of health care professionals, children’s advocates, and industry insiders, the film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the wake of deregulation. While youth marketers have used the latest advances in psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to target this lucrative market, ordinary consumers will find that Consuming Kids helps them deal with the onslaught of holiday marketing that is aimed at us and our kids right now.

Consuming Kids pushes back against the industry which sells kids and their parents everything from junk food and violent video games to bogus educational products and the family car. Challenging the ethics of children’s marketing and the wholesale commercialization of childhood, this film has audiences looking at advertising aimed at children in a totally different light.

Get a head start on your film festival viewing, and a new perspective on the commercialization of childhood and what you can do about it this holiday season.

A 5 minute trailer can be viewed here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maeXjey_FGA

More info: 250-337-5412

Film Series: The Economics of Happiness

Tues. Nov. 8th 7:30 pm, North Island College Theatre, Courtenay Campus

Admission by donation

Economic globalization has led to a massive expansion in the scale and power of big business and banking. It has also worsened nearly every problem we face: fundamentalism and ethnic conflict; climate chaos and species extinction; financial instability and unemployment.

The Economics of Happiness describes a world moving simultaneously in two opposing directions. On the one hand, an unholy alliance of governments and big business continues to promote globalization and the consolidation of corporate power. At the same time, people all over the world are resisting those policies, demanding a re-regulation of trade and finance—and, far from the old institutions of power, they’re starting to forge a very different future. Communities are coming together to re-build more human scale, ecological economies based on a new paradigm – an economics of localization.

The film shows how globalization breeds cultural self-rejection, competition and divisiveness; how it structurally promotes the growth of slums and urban sprawl; how it is decimating democracy.

The second half of The Economics of Happiness provides not only inspiration, but practical solutions. Arguing that economic localization is a strategic solution multiplier that can solve our most serious problems, the film spells out the policy changes needed to enable local businesses to survive and prosper. We are introduced to community initiatives that are moving the localization agenda forward, including urban gardens in Detroit, Michigan and the Transition Town movement in Totnes, UK. We see the benefits of an expanding local food movement that is restoring biological diversity, communities and local economies worldwide. And we are introduced to Via Campesina, the largest social movement in the world, with more than 400 million members.

We hear from a chorus of voices from six continents, including Vandana Shiva, Bill McKibben, David Korten, Samdhong Rinpoche, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Michael Shuman, Zac Goldsmith and Keibo Oiwa. They tell us that climate change and peak oil give us little choice: we need to localize, to bring the economy home. The good news is that as we move in this direction we will begin not only to heal the earth but also to restore our own sense of well-being. The Economics of Happiness challenges us to restore our faith in humanity, challenges us to believe that it is possible to build a better world.

To see the film trailer and more info go to   http://www.theeconomicsofhappiness.org/

Film Series – Urban Roots

Tues. October 18th, 2011 – 7:30pm North Island College Theatre  (90 min.)

The industrial powerhouse of a lost American era has died, and the skeleton left behind is present-day Detroit.

But now, against all odds in the empty lots, in the old factory yards, and in-between the sad, sagging blocks of company housing, seeds of change are taking root. A small group of dedicated citizens, allied with environmental and academic groups, have started an urban environmental movement with the potential to transform not just a city after its collapse, but also a country after the end of its industrial age. Urban Roots is the story of a group of dedicated Detroiters working tirelessly to fulfill their vision for locally-grown, sustainably farmed food in a city where people — as in much of the county — have found themselves cut off from real food and limited to the lifeless offerings of fast food chains, mini-marts, and grocery stores stocked with processed food from thousands of miles away. The people of Detroit have taken on the enormous task of changing this for themselves, and to under-stand their story is to understand how we can change it for us all.

URBAN ROOTS, directed by Detroit-native Mark McInnis is a documentary that tells the powerful story of a small group of unique individuals involved in Detroit’s urban agricultural movement.

The film follows the inspiring stories of several agricultural programs, each one designed to address a specific issue. Not only are the organizations amazingly productive and emotionally driven, but the people tilling the soil and picking the harvest have fantastic stories to tell.

Urban Roots Trailer (3:22)

World Community Film Series – Dirty Business

World Community Film Series Fall Start-up…

World Community Film Series starts our fall program with a “Best of Festival” screening of a film which sold out at the 2011 World Community Film Festival. If you missed it at the film festival, or if you saw it and want to drag your friends out to see this “must see” film about a topic that is very hot in the Comox Valley right now, join us at the theatre at North Island College, Tuesday, Oct. 4th at 7:30pm for our season kick off.

NOTE: This is the film originally scheduled for last week, but cancelled due to the weather closure of NIC.

Please share this info with your friends via email, Facebook, etc. … Continue Reading