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/

Ross Dixon, Raincoast Conservation, Policy and Program Manager: 604-607-3494/

Chris Genovali, Raincoast Conservation, Executive Director: 250-888-3579/

Directly Affected

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