Face 2 Face With David Peck

Cameron Mullenneaux and David Peck talk about her brave and brilliant new film Exit Music, regrets and imagination, living and dying well, short-term goals and being guided by love. Synopsis Exit Music is a documentary film that travels the intimate and complex path of terminal illness. Ethan Rice was born with cystic fibrosis, an incurable genetic illness that eventually leads to respiratory failure. At their home in a small upstate New York community, Ethan and his family live in constant uncertainty as the disease takes more and more away from them. While medical interventions continue to keep him alive well beyond his prognosis, 28-year-old Ethan questions day-by-day how long he is willing to fight and what his absence will mean to those he leaves behind. With stunning access, the film closely follows Ethan’s final months, weeks, days and hours and is witness to death’s transformative influence on a family. Home video footage traces the bond between Ethan and his father Ed, a Vietnam veteran with PTSD who

Margarita Cadenas and David Peck talk about her new film Women of the Venezuelan Chaos, truth and justice, human rights abuses, food shortages and why we must speak truth to power. Synopsis Five Venezuelan women, from different backgrounds and generations, draw a portrait of their collapsing country that faces a significant social, economic, power, and political crisis in its 200-year history.  Their lives and testimonies speak of the urgency in which the locals are plunged into. Each of them lets us inside of their lives as they face critical food and medicine shortages, rampant injustice, and widespread criminality.  Their stories are a part of what’s currently going on inside Venezuela. Watch the trailer here. Biography Margarita Cadenas is a screenwriter, director and producer of French-Venezuelan nationality based in Paris, France.  Before becoming a director, Margarita Cadenas produced numerous French commercials around the world and worked as a co-writer and producer for French television. Learn more

  Velcrow Ripper, Nova Ami and David Peck talk about the myth of Proteus, cynicism, grieving loss, submersive art, futurelessness and what wise and radical hope really looks like. Synopsis A poem for the planet, Nova Ami and Velcow Ripper’s film Metamorphosis takes the pulse of our Earth and bears witness to a moment of profound change: the loss of one world, and the birth of another. Metamorphosis captures the true scale of the global environmental crisis. Forest fires consume communities, species vanish, and entire ecosystems collapse. Economic growth, tied to increased speed of resource extraction, has created a machine with the capacity to destroy all life. But this crisis is also an opportunity for transformation. Through a tidal flow of stunning images, Metamorphosis carves a path from the present to the future, and offers a bold new vision for humanity and the world. In Milan, architects design vertical forests, urban towers covered with trees and bushes that reduce CO2, produce oxygen, and give new li

Mor Loushy, Daniel Sivan and David Peck talk about The Oslo Diaries, secret meetings, common languages, enemies as friends, land disputes and what we’re leaving behind for our children. Synopsis In 1992, with Israeli-Palestinian relations at an all-time low and any communication punishable with jail time, a small group of Israelis and Palestinians gathered in Oslo – secretly and against the law. Although the meetings that came to be known as The Oslo Accords changed the Middle East forever, they were never officially sanctioned and were chronicled only by the negotiators' diaries. In The Oslo Diaries, directors Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan (Censored Voices, Sundance 2015) bring us a riveting account of 1100 days of secret talks as told by the people who were there at the table.  The participants’ detailed and often emotional entries recount the political intrigue, fiery rhetoric, unlikely friendships, and overwhelming desire for peace that were the heart of the negotiations. Featuring never-before-seen footage

  Matthew Shoycet, Ricki Gurwitz and David Peck talk about their new film The Accountant of Auschwitz, guilt, complicity, brainwashing and where one draws moral versus legal lines. Synopsis In the sleepy town of Luneberg, Germany, most days are quiet and uneventful. But one morning in September 2014, a 93 year-old man was charged with accessory to murder...of 300,000 people. Seventy years earlier, Oskar Gröning was an accountant at Auschwitz, the infamous concentration camp where more than 1 million people were murdered by the Nazis. As men, women and children spilled out from overcrowded trains, Gröning’s job was to catalogue their valuables – belongings, he said, “they no longer needed”. After the war, Germany had little interest in prosecuting its own and the vast majority of perpetrators went unpunished. With a shift in legal thinking, Germany is now using a wider net to go after SS guards, complicit cogs in Hitler’s killing machine. But by now, most have either died or are too sick to face prosecution. O

Julie Eng, Daniel Zuckerbot and David Peck talk about their new film The Science of Magic, change blindness, assumptions, subverting reality, free will, doubt and the problems of perception. Synopsis Magic has become the latest investigative tool for scientists exploring human cognition, neurobiology, and behaviour. Across Canada, the US and Europe, our film follows researchers who are bringing magicians’ tricks into the laboratory.  With impossible magic, amazing facts, and opportunities for viewers to participate in the magic, this extraordinary exploration peeks behind the curtain into a fascinating world where ancient magic meets modern science.  Canadian magician and executive director of the arts organization Magicana, Julie Eng not only mystifies us with magic, she also takes us to Montreal’s McGill University to meet Jay Olson. He is one of the scientists spearheading this novel and powerful approach to experimental psychology.  On the streets of Montreal Julie and Jay use card tricks to help us under

Brian McLaren and David Peck talk about his new book The Great Spiritual Migration, framing stories, confirmation bias, difference as assets, patriarchy as a weapon, a system of beliefs versus a way of life and the way of love. Biography Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for a new kind of Christianity – just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good. He is an Auburn Senior Fellow and a leader in the Convergence Network, through which he is developing an innovative training/mentoring program for pastors, church planters, and lay leaders called Convergence Leadership Project. He works closely with the Center for Progressive Renewal/Convergence, the Wild Goose Festival and the Fair Food Program‘s Faith Working Group. Born in 1956, he graduated from University of Maryland with degrees in English (BA, summa cum laude, 1978, and MA, in 1981). His academic interests included medi

Elizabeth Mirzaei and David Peck talk about her new film Laila At The Bridge, opium production in Afghanistan, freedom and oppression, bravery, corruption and persistence, corruption, systemic misogyny and the love of a Mother.  Synopsis In a country offering almost no treatment services despite a crisis of addiction, Laila Haidari took the highly unusual decision to found her own pioneering addiction treatment center and a restaurant where all of the waiters are recovering heroin addicts. Her brother Hakim, a solidly recovered addict, runs her free treatment center, which offers services for both men and women. As a former child bride she has known hardship in her 40 years. And she revisits that misery regularly as she mingles with drug-addicts, huddled under a Kabul bridge. She encounters corpses. And she meets the near-dead, malnourished and sick who she tries to convince to accompany her to Mother Camp. “When I listen to their pain, I forget my own,” says Laila, who has struggled to provide sanctuary for

Pablo Bryant, Fish and David Peck talk about their new film Cartooning from the Deep End, politics and power, personal responsibility, why life is precious and asking good questions and living in a sell out culture. Synopsis In this feature documentary we discover the dangerously funny cartoonist Mr. Fish, struggling to make a living in an industry that is dying out. In a world where consumerism is king, and opportunities are few, will this uncensored artist find a way to sell his art, or be forced to sell himself out? Mr. Fish has been published in the LA weekly, Harpers, the Village Voice, The Nation and truthdig.com, as well as having his first book GO FISH published through Akashic press. F.X Feeney says, “He places you in the contradiction….He is a poet who’s operating with a cartoonists pen, and with a satirist’s goal of making you see further.” This intimate documentary follows the artist as he struggles to stay true to his creativity in a world where biting satiric humour has an ever-diminishing comme

Alba Sotorra and David Peck talk about her new film Commander Arian, liberation, gender disparity, equal rights, real democracy, implementing a feminist state and women, war and freedom. Synopsis Filmmaker Alba Sotorra embeds with this group of Kurdish resistance fighters gaining unprecedented access to the Commander and her troops, when Commander Arian is hit by 5 bullets, Sotorra helps nurse her back from the brink of death. On the front line of the Syrian war, 30-year-old Commander Arian guides a female battalion towards the city of Kobane to release its people from the grip of ISIS in Alba Sotorra's empowering tale of emancipation and freedom. When the war in Syria broke, a group of women from the Kurdish resistance assembled the YPJ—Women's Protection Unit. Arian, who witnessed at a young age the nefarious treatment of sexual assault victims, leads the unit and dedicates her life to battling ISIS. As the YPJ inches closer to their target, she implores her comrades to discover the true meaning of their fi

Yasemin Şamdereli and David Peck talk about her new film Night of all Nights, love, sex and relationships, living in fast times, patience, romanticism, cloud 9, others and what really counts in a relationship. Synopsis An inter-caste couple from India that had to break with their families in order to get married, a Japanese couple that was forced to marry and struggles with love, a German postwar couple and two gay men from the United States, who were only allowed to marry after five decades, solving the associated legal problems by adopting each other. Four couples from three continents talk openly and honestly about what it means to be together for 50 years or longer. Whatever brought them together, whether it was love or an arranged marriage, they all have one thing in common: they have devoted their entire life to this relationship. Yasemin and Nesrin Şamdereli have made an amusing and touching, an entertaining and profound film about love. With surprising openness, their protagonists talk about sex and m

Beatrice Behn and René Gebhardt talk about their new film The Artist and the Pervert, love and destructive desires, the complicated relationship between art and life, voyeurism, the clichéd representation of others and espresso machines as inspiration. Watch the Trailer here. Synopsis Georg Friedrich Haas is arguably the most important living composer of symphonic music, but also a descendant of a Nazi family. His wife, whom he met through the dating site “OkCupid,” is an African-American kink educator. Their deep relationship is based on an open, yet controversial role-playing game between a white male master and a black female slave. This groundbreaking film documents their lives between perversion, art, love, and radical self-determination. Biography Beatrice Behn is a freelance film critic with 10+ years of experience and senior film critic and editor-in-chief of Kino-Zeit, the largest German language film magazine for arthouse and independent film. She is also about to graduate from Freie Universität Ber

Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck talk about their fascinating and important new film The Cleaners, censorship, the new digital public, content moderators, and what it means to outsource responsibility. Watch the Trailer here. Synopsis Enter a hidden third world shadow industry of digital cleaning, where the Internet rids itself of what it doesn't like. Here we meet five “digital scavengers” among thousands of people outsourced from Silicon Valley whose job is to delete “inappropriate” content off the net. In a parallel struggle, we meet people around the globe whose lives are dramatically affected by online censorship. A typical “cleaner” must observe and rate thousands of often deeply disturbing images and videos every day, leading to lasting psychological impacts. Yet underneath their work lies profound questions around what makes an image art or propaganda and what defines journalism. Where exactly is the point of balance for social media to be neither an unlegislated space nor a forum rife with censorship

Håvard and I talked about his new film "Golden Dawn Girls", far-right ideology, Greece and how love is interpreted. Watch the Trailer here. Synopsis "Whatever has happened to Greece?" wonders filmmaker Håvard Bustnes out loud at the start of this disturbing documentary. In recent years, its image as a country of sunny beaches and friendly people has been overshadowed by political ideologies that are terrifyingly close to Nazism. With many prominent members of the far-right Golden Dawn party now behind bars, a daughter, a wife and a mother continue to propagate its message—and all three of them are seasoned enough to avoid any slips of the tongue during interviews. The resulting material, supplemented with archive footage that leaves no room for doubt about the depraved side of this political party, reveals an ever-widening gulf between clear facts and political image-making. While it’s frustrating that the women are so unbending in their views, it does illustrate how wearing blinders can derail an entire soci

Joseph and I talk about his new film The Game Changers, plant based diets, nutrition and diet, why it’s important not to be self-righteous. Watch the Trailer here. Synopsis Directed by Oscar-winner Louie Psihoyos, THE GAME CHANGERS tells the story of James Wilks — elite special forces trainer and winner of The Ultimate Fighter — as he travels the world on a quest for the truth behind the world's most dangerous myth: that meat is necessary for protein, strength and optimal health. Executive produced by James Cameron and featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger, THE GAME CHANGERS fuses live, groundbreaking science with cinematic stories of struggle and triumph showcasing some of the strongest, fastest and toughest athletes on the planet. Meeting elite athletes, special ops soldiers, visionary scientists, cultural icons, and everyday heroes, what James discovers permanently changes his relationship with food and his definition of true strength. Biography Joseph Pace is a Canadian writer and researcher who has been focuse

Shasha and I talk about her new film Take Light, the power crisis in Nigeria, poverty, corruption, Illegal electricians, suffering and smiling, hope and the legacy of colonialism. Watch the Trailer here. Synopsis Over 50 per cent of Nigeria's nearly 200 million citizens don't have access to electricity. For Africa's largest energy producer and most populous nation, that number is shocking. Those dependent on the unreliable grid are limited to a few hours of power a day at best. Taking matters into their own hands, many households illegally and dangerously wire their homes by tampering with transformers. While a bungling bureaucracy attempts to privatize the electrical system, an electrician risks his life on power poles, trying to provide for his daughter's education. His colleague in customer service has the more difficult task of going door to door collecting fees from disgruntled customers. The problems are complex and systemic, but director Shasha Nakhai delicately balances the big picture of a country tr

The Sentimentalists and I talk about skepticism, assumptions and religious belief, burlesque theatre, mentalism and magic, scientific headspace and what it means to be a collector of rare oddities. Biography World-renowned mentalist Mysterion partners with mentalist Steffi Kay to create a mind reading experience that is truly breathtaking. Steffi brings a grace, flair and elegance to the mentalism she practises and with her vintage look, approach and style you will feel transported back to Vaudeville to the golden age of magic. Mysterion has appeared on stages around the globe, with hundreds of television and media appearances to his credit. Together they showcase their special way of communicating, with a touch of humour and most importantly class. Imagine your thoughts transferred across the room into Steffi's mind with 100 percent accuracy. Someone thinks of the name of their favourite film and Mysterion and Steffi are able to divine that movie. Spoons bend, drawings are duplicated and as a special treat T

Kathy Kortes-Miller and I talk about her new book Talking About Death Won’t Kill You, the death trade, access to true choice, meaning making, death education, anxiety and literacy, and living life to the fullest. Find out more info on Kathy here. Biography Kathy thinks about dying and death a lot. She knows it helps her to embrace life full on. She is an unconventional death educator with a passion for palliative care and improving the end of life care for all. Kathy has been teaching and researching at Lakehead University for over a decade inspiring and challenging the future healthcare providers of tomorrow to be prepared to care for individuals who are dying and their families in all healthcare settings. She leverages her experiences as a cancer survivor and as a palliative care provider to challenge us to have the important conversations about dying, death and life. Kathy strives to make an impact with her teaching, research and speaking to discover, share and communicate the information that we are all "

Stephen Campanelli and I talk about his new film Indian Horse based on the Richard Wagamese novel of the same name. We cover residential schools, honesty, bravery and authenticity, why words can be visual, and how stories were meant to heal. Find out more info about the movie here. Synopsis: In late 1950s Ontario, seven-year-old Saul Indian Horse is torn from his Ojibway family and committed to one of  Canada’s notorious Catholic residential schools. In this oppressive environment, Saul is denied the freedom to speak his language or embrace his indigenous heritage and he witnesses all kinds of abuse at the hands of the very people who were entrusted with his care. Despite this, Saul finds salvation in the unlikeliest of places and favourite Canadian pastimes — hockey. Fascinated by the game, he secretly teaches himself how to not only play but develops a unique and rare skill. It’s as if he has eyes in the back of his head and can see the game in a way no other player can. His talent leads him away from the m

Filmmaker Ann Shin and Face2Face host David Peck do a, Part 2, follow up conversation and talk about inclusion, approaching others, what it means to be a neighbor, healing all wounds and how to be a supportive listener. Ann is a multiple award-winning Director, Producer and principal of Fathom Film Group. Her latest film, My Enemy, My Brother the short version was shortlisted for a 2016 Academy Award and nominated for an Emmy and was an 8-time winner of Best Short Documentary at international film festivals including Traverse City Film Festival, Grand Prize Winner of the Best Shorts Humanitarian Awards, the Sepanta Award for Best Short Film. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42YFUwCnWzE Her cross-platform project The Defector film and interactive was selected into 27 international film festivals, and was nominated for 6 awards, winning Best Documentary and Best Documentary Director at the 2014 Canadian Screen Awards. The Defector Interactive won the FITC Award, the Canadian Digi Award, and at the SXSW Interacti