Tonight: Victoria premiere of Directly Affected
For immediate release November 19, 2014
Are you Directly Affected by the Kinder Morgan proposal?
Victoria premiere of film documentary on the Trans Mountain pipeline controversy screens tonight 7:00PM at UVic’s Bob Wright Centre
Sidney, BC – As Kinder Morgan’s recently granted injunction looms against community members on Burnaby Mountain, Wednesday night November 19th will see the Victoria premiere of the first documentary focused on the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline and oil tanker proposal.
“As a result of Bill C-38 and a dramatically weakened Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, applicants for public participation in the National Energy Board (NEB) review of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Expansion proposal had to prove they were ‘directly affected.’ This qualification, coupled with an onerous online application process, left many individuals and community groups excluded from sharing their opinions in the review process,” said Ross Dixon of Raincoast Conservation Foundation.
“Directly Affected is our response to the frustration felt by communities across British Columbia and beyond who want to have their voices heard,” said Raincoast Executive Director Chris Genovali.
Raincoast has teamed up with two Vancouver filmmakers, Zack Embree and Devyn Brugge, to produce Directly Affected, a documentary profiling the exclusionary NEB process. From First Nations to Burnaby homeowners to Chilliwack fishermen to Gulf Islands residents, the film tells how we are all directly affected.
“In a funding competition with over 70 projects, Directly Affected started at number one on voting day and we received seed funding from Telus’s Storyhive program directly as a result of community support. This story is rapidly evolving with relevance not only to Kinder Morgan’s proposal, but to similar developments across the continent, where communities want their story told,” said Zack Embree, the film’s director.
Directly Affected premieres tonight November 19th in Victoria, 7:00PM, at the University of Victoria’s Bob Wright Centre. The film screening will be followed by an expert panel featuring climate scientist and Oak Bay MLA Andrew Weaver, Raincoast biologist Misty MacDuffee, and UVic environmental law professor Chris Tollefson. Raincoast Science Director, and Hakai-Raincoast Professor of Geography at UVic, Chris Darimont will MC the event, which is being presented by Raincoast and the UVic Society of Geography Students.
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Contact:
Zack Embree, Film Director: 604-836-7434/zack [dot] embree [at] gmail [dot] com
Ross Dixon, Raincoast Conservation, Policy and Program Manager: 604-607-3494/ross [at] raincoast [dot] org
Chris Genovali, Raincoast Conservation, Executive Director: 250-888-3579/chris [at] raincoast [dot] org
You can help
Raincoast’s in-house scientists, collaborating graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and professors make us unique among conservation groups. We work with First Nations, academic institutions, government, and other NGOs to build support and inform decisions that protect aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, and the wildlife that depend on them. We conduct ethically applied, process-oriented, and hypothesis-driven research that has immediate and relevant utility for conservation deliberations and the collective body of scientific knowledge.
We investigate to understand coastal species and processes. We inform by bringing science to decision-makers and communities. We inspire action to protect wildlife and wildlife habitats.
