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The Fairy Creek (Ada’itsx) valley sprawls across Pacheedaht First Nation territory on southwestern Vancouver Island and its old growth forest ecosystem thrives with lush foliage, ancient tree trunks, and a variety of wildlife. However, the decimating chainsaws and tractor machinery of the Teal Jones lumber corporation disrupt this equilibrium as they demolish an environmental haven for their road-building project. Amidst the tumult, Jen Muranetz’s FAIRY CREEK captures the vast collective protests against this destructive logging operation: a movement which has spawned both the largest demonstration of civil disobedience in Canadian history and the mass arrests of 1200 people.
The film offers visceral front-line footage of activists faced with an RCMP-enforced injunction, protesting from ground to sky as blockaders form barriers with their bodies and tree-sitters’ forest canopies are assailed by officers deployed from helicopters. FAIRY CREEK is an urgent portrait of resistance, documenting an assembly of protestors organizing together despite varying backgrounds, ideologies, and tactics. Muranetz highlights the rapture of a united eco-activist community, coinhabiting the earth, dancing together, and cherishing biodiversity. At the same time, this breathtaking documentary tremors with the challenges of political consciousness in an age of rampant extractive capitalism, where industries working with governments eviscerate everything in their path, including the last pristine ecosystems. FAIRY CREEK depicts a historic struggle to defend Canadian old growth forests as an experience of absolute devotion, thrust between whiplashes of triumph and heartbreak.
Jen Muranetz - Director, Producer:
Jen Muranetz (she/her) is an award-winning documentary filmmaker living on unceded Coast Salish territories in the place now known as Vancouver, BC. She is a director, producer, editor and former video journalist. Her films are character-driven and impact-focused, centered around environmental justice and human resilience. Her previous works have screened in festivals such as DOXA, DOK Leipzig and Planet in Focus. Her credits include Lost Nation Road and What About Our Future? which was a finalist at the Social Impact Media Awards and won the Nigel Moore Award for Youth Programming at DOXA 2021.
Sepehr Samimi - Producer, DP
Sepehr Samimi (he/him) is an Iranian-Canadian documentary cinematographer and producer (BFA film production from SFU). He specializes in filming on the frontlines of urgent social and political movements across the world such as: If [I Was] To Retain You, shot in Hong Kong during the Umbrella movement, hit global climate movement film The Magnitude of All Things, and Constant Battles for TELUS originals featuring the Woman Life Freedom movement in Iran. Sepehr is a member of Intl Cinematographers Guild (ICG669) and Canadian Cinematographers Society, and alumni of HotDocs Doc Accelerator program. Samimi’s credits also include Light Through The Blindfold, and Abundance.
Rafi Spivak (Editor) is an award-winning film editor, filmmaker, educator and post production specialist. He has edited 12 dramatic features, 15 feature length documentary films and more than 40 hours of television series for major Canadian and US broadcasters. His work has been presented at some of the world’s best film festivals (TIFF, HotDocs) and has been shown on television stations in Canada and the US (CBS, Lifetime, Hallmark, CBC, Bravo!, PBS, National Geographic, Discovery, History). He has been an adjunct professor at UBC for the past 18 years and teaches regularly at Emily Carr University, and Capilano University. He holds an MFA from Emily Carr University and a bachelor of science degree in mathematics and computer science. Credits include Raised to be Heroes for the NFB (Hotdocs, 2005) and the dramatic feature Kingsway (TIFF, VIFF 2019).
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