Face 2 Face With David Peck

Photo credit: Véro BoncompagniListen in today as these filmmakers, Mina Shum and Selwyn Jacobs, talk about Canada’s hidden history, implicit and explicit racism, why we need to listen to others and why they’re confident we can overcome our fears.Check out the trailer of their new NFB film Ninth Floor making its world premiere at TIFF 2015.Synopsis of FilmIt started quietly when a group of Caribbean students, strangers in a cold new land, began to suspect their professor of racism. It ended in the most explosive student uprising Canada had ever known. Over four decades later, Ninth Floor reopens the file on the Sir George Williams Riot – a watershed moment in Canadian race relations and one of the most contested episodes in the nation’s history.It was the late 60s, change was in the air, and a restless new generation was claiming its place– but nobody at Sir George Williams University would foresee the chaos to come.On February 11, 1969, riot police stormed the occupied floors of the main building, making mult

Listen in as Patrick and Michelle talk candidly about truth, injustice and provide important insights into the life of Omar Khadr.Synopsis of FilmOmar Khadr: child soldier or unrepentant terrorist? The 28-year-old Canadian has been a polarizing figure since he was 15. In 2002, Khadr was captured by Americans in Afghanistan and charged with war crimes. In October 2010, Khadr pleaded guilty to five war crimes, including “murder in violation of the laws of war,” in return for a plea deal that gave him an eight-year sentence and chance to return to Canada. Khadr later recanted his confession.His Guantanamo conviction is being appealed in the U.S courts. After spending nearly half his life behind bars, including a decade at Guantanamo, Khadr is suddenly released. Guantanamo’s Child: Omar Khadr features unprecedented access and exclusive interviews with Khadr during his first few days of freedom in Edmonton, where he was released on bail on May 7, 2015.This documentary delivers an intimate portrait of how a teenage

Listen in on our chat today with director Jamie Dagg about his new film River, corruption, justice, why storytelling matters and how unintended consequences can make all the difference.Read more about the film here and it’s World premiere at TIFF and check out it’s trailer here.Synopsis – RiverAccused of murder after intervening in the sexual assault of a young woman, an American volunteer doctor in Laos is forced to go on the run. One of the most energetic thrillers produced this year; Jamie M. Dagg’s debut feature River takes us on a frantic getaway in Laos, from the shores of the Mekong River, up to the mountains in the north.John Lake (Rossif Sutherland) is an American volunteer doctor working for an NGO in a village in southern Laos. On his way home after an alcohol-soaked evening at a local bar, John intervenes in the sexual assault of a young woman, and the violence quickly escalates. The next day, the assailant’s body is pulled out of the water.All the evidence points to John, who recognizes the night

Listen in as film maker Danae talks about her new film P.S. Jerusalem, racism, exploitation, why it’s so difficult to film in Jerusalem and how she has become increasingly uncomfortable pointing the camera at other people.The new P.S. Jerusalem trailer is here and for more info about Danae’s work check out her website.Film SynopsisReturning to her hometown of Jerusalem with her young family after several years abroad, documentarian Danae Elon offers an intimate, ground’s-eye view of one of the most fiercely contested cities in the world.In 2010, filmmaker Danae Elon was living in New York City and pregnant with her third child when she felt a powerful urge to move back to her hometown of Jerusalem. Her husband Philip is a French-Algerian Jew who had never lived in Israel, but was game to try it. In P.S. Jerusalem, Elon chronicles her family’s three-year sojourn, during which time they bore witness to much of what makes the city such a fiercely debated territory.Even though Jerusalem is frequently in the headl

Listen in on today’s chat with Colombian filmmaker Ciro Guerra about his new film Embrace of the Serpent, mystery, the environment, the importance of indigenous cultures and why western science is still so close-minded.Film SynopsisYou can find trailer here.Tracking two parallel odysseys through the Amazon three decades apart, this visionary adventure epic from Colombian director Ciro Guerra offers a heart-rending depiction of colonialism laying waste to indigenous culture.Tracking two parallel odysseys through the Amazon, this historical epic from the fiercely talented Colombia filmmaker Ciro Guerra offers ethno-botanical adventure, mysticism, and a heart-rending depiction of colonialism laying waste to indigenous culture. In 1909, a canoe bearing ailing German explorer Theodor Koch-Grünberg (Jan Bijvoet) arrives at river’s edge, where the young shaman Karamakate (Nilbio Torres), ostensibly the last member of a decimated tribe, waits warily. Theodor is searching for an exceedingly rare flower that he believe

Listen in as Geeta talks about why she wanted to make a “kick ass” story about women, gender justice and how little things make a big difference.Film SynopsisDocumentarians Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (the Academy Award-winning Saving Face) and Geeta Gandbhirfollow the stories of three Bangladeshi policewomen who served with the UN peacekeeping mission to Haiti in the aftermath of the devastating 2010 earthquake.The role of United Nations peacekeepers is a true “mission impossible,” dropping soldiers who literally don’t speak each other’s languages into foreign countries rife with chaos and violence. Anything that goes wrong can become an international incident. Good luck.A Journey of a Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers acquaints us with the personal side of such a mission, focusing on five Muslim policewomen from Dhaka, Bangladesh who are part of a unit sent to maintain peace in the wake of Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake. Their training is inadequate, to say the least. Adding to the volatile situation are the loca

Join in today as my guest talks about non-GDP metrics for development, ideological tool kits, policy development and why the “weight of ideas” matters a great deal.BiographyLauchlan Munro is the Director, School of International Development and Global Studies at the University of Ottawa and a socio-economist and manager. Before joining the University of Ottawa, Lauchlan served as Vice-President at Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) from 2008 to 2012. From 2004 to 2009, he was Director of Policy and Planning and Chief of Staff to the President of IDRC. From 2000 to 2003, Lauchlan was Chief of Strategic Planning with UNICEF.Lauchlan also worked for UNICEF in DR Congo, Zimbabwe, and Uganda. From 1985 to 1987, he was a member of the Royal Bhutanese Civil Service. Lauchlan is a two-time graduate of the University of Toronto, and he earned his Ph.D. from the Institute for Development Policy and Management at the University of Manchester. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out informati

Photo: Getty Images Listen in today as Hermon and Max Conil talk about their film The Price of Love, about film making in Ethiopia, relationships and what makes us better human beings.TrailerFilm Synopsis A cab driver and a beautiful young prostitute fall in love while struggling to survive on the mean streets of Addis Ababa, in this frank, gritty drama from Ethiopian writer-director Hermon Hailay. One of the leading female filmmakers in Ethiopia, Hermon Hailay has never shied away from hard-hitting social issues. In her third feature, Price of Love, she offers a frank, gritty look at the sinister underworld of Addis Ababa’s commerce in flesh, and the toll it takes on those trapped within it. Outside a fancy nightclub, the alluring young Fere (Fereweni Gebregergs) frantically jumps into a taxi after freeing herself from the grip of a middle-aged man. Examining Fere in his rearview mirror, cab driver Teddy (Eskindir Tameru) can guess that she, like thousands of young Ethiopian women — including his own mother

Paul talks passionately today about Grace, gender, and inclusion. He’s also has plenty to say about his new book Eve and how The Shack is being made into a major motion picture.BiographyPaul is the 20 million-bestselling author of The Shack.Paul was born in Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada, but the majority of his first decade was lived with his missionary parents in the highlands of Netherlands New Guinea (West Papua), among the Dani, a technologically stone age tribal people.He’s a writer, husband, father and lover of life.The Shack is a novel by Canadian author William P. Young, a former office manager and hotel night clerk, published in 2007.The novel was self-published but became a USA Today bestseller, having sold 1 million copies as of June 8, 2008. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This conversation was a real pleasure for me. Listen to Avi chat about neo-liberalism, why movements are essential, a future of radical change, why he has hope and why his film this film is really about finding meaning through story, relationships and validating others.Film SynopsisDirected by Avi Lewis and produced in conjunction with Naomi Klein’s best-selling book of the same name, This Changes Everything is an urgent dispatch on climate change that explores how our violent disregard for our planet has endangered both it and ourselves, and how resisting this abuse and opposing the forces that propagate it can have a profound — even revolutionary — impact upon the makeup of our society.With Klein serving as narrator and guide, the film examines several individual cases worldwide — from ranchers in Montana dealing with floods and an oil spill to grandmothers in Greece protesting the arrival of a Canadian gold-processing complex, from fishermen in India rejecting a coal-fired power plant to migrant workers in

Kelly has a great story to tell and is a woman with a cause. Listen in as she proves that little things do indeed make a big difference and that moving the needle from a social change perspective requires commitment, passion and focus.BiographyInspired by her Uncle, Canadian astronaut Cmdr (Ret’d) Chris Hadfield, Kelly Hadfield was raised recognizing that a person has no limits to what they can accomplish. In 2007, Kelly co-founded a local non-profit organization in Ontario called the Prom Blitz, which enables marginalized graduating high school girls to proudly attend their prom with their peers and celebrate their achievements.During her B.Sc. Honours with a Major in Biomedical Science at the University of Guelph, Kelly gained experience in a diverse array of health improvement fields, including physiotherapy, peer counseling, global health, and research.While completing her undergraduate degree, Kelly founded Ghana Medical Help, an international charity aimed to alleviate suffering and improve health outco

Listen in as Paul talks about the complexities of war, how the world is “not settling down” and about his encounter with absolutes.Film SynopsisTrailer here.IMDB here. Paul Gross (Passchendaele) directs and co-stars in this taut war drama about Canadian troops in Afghanistan weathering Taliban attacks while struggling to complete construction on a crucial highway link.Writer-director-star Paul Gross’ new film portrays the heroic duties undertaken by Canadian armed forces in Afghanistan with the same gut-wrenching immediacy that Gross brought to the blood-soaked Belgian battlefields of World War I in his epic Passchendaele. Hyena Road is a masterful examination of modern warfare that drops viewers straight into the belly of the beast.Depicting an embattled Canadian- American initiative to increase safe transport across Afghanistan, Hyena Road is a group portrait of men and women at work in a dangerous and often confounding conflict zone.We meet a sniper (Rossif Sutherland who becomes precariously implicated in

Don’t miss this interview as Rossif talks about his move into acting, why he’s a storyteller at heart and why he feels “we’re all in this together.”Check out the quote from him below in a recent Toronto Sun article by Jane Stevenson.“I don’t mean to be existential or anything, but we find ourselves in this world with all these questions and so few answers and then we try and educate these beautiful children of ours and we try and guide them through one generation to another, we adopt whatever mistakes the previous generation has made. There’s a whole cycle to it all. This war, and this constant answer of correcting a wrong with another wrong. I hope one day…we get to accept each other and celebrate each others differences and in those differences realize how we are one and the same.”Film SynopsisTrailer here.IMDB here. Paul Gross (Passchendaele) directs and co-stars in this taut war drama about Canadian troops in Afghanistan weathering Taliban attacks while struggling to complete construction on a crucial hig

Listen to with David Verbeek and actor Gregoire Colin talk about their new film Full Contact, our disconnect from reality, how silence can be instructive and PTSD.Film SynopsisTrailer hereIMDBA drone operator tries to deal with his guilt after an air strike gone wrong, in this enigmatic drama from Dutch director David Verbeek.The hypnotic new psychological thriller from director David Verbeek is a startling and extremely unsettling look at a modern man caught in a puzzle that may or may not be of his own making. Verbeek presents the audience with a veritable Rubik’s Cube of a movie that is destined to be the subject of much analysis due to its form of storytelling. Each viewer’s response is bound to be different.Full Contact drills into the world — and deep into the psyche — of a drone navigator who, from his base in the Nevada desert, conducts surgical missile strikes against targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Maintaining a distance from his targets that is psychological as well as geographic, Ivan (Grégoi

Today's interview was a delight for me as I spoke with Leena and her three main actors from the film Parched. We talk about popular culture, shame, fear, gender disparity, and how we should question everything. You really don’t want to miss this one.Film SynopsisIMDBIn a rural Indian village, four ordinary women begin to throw off the traditions that hold them in servitude, in this inspirational drama from director Leena Yadav.This year has seen a cultural shift that puts more women at the active centre of Indian films. At the vanguard of this trend stands Parched, in which director Leena Yadav turns her lens on a group of ordinary women who, like the desert lands they inhabit, thirst for more than what life has given them.“Society has rules for a reason,” says a village elder at the opening of this modern melodrama. And the rural community — home to widowed Rani (Tannishtha Chatterjee, most recently seen at the Festival in Siddharth), her vivacious best friend Lajjo (Radhika Apte), and the erotic dancer Bijl

This week’s conversation is a real treat and with a good friend of mine. My advice is to listen closely. Pay attention as Dave talks about his deep passion for the two-thirds world, why he does what he does and why he thinks that we’re all able to give. He’ll tell you why he’s preoccupied with hope, about opportunities for peace and why gender justice is essential to building a better world.BiographyAs president and chief executive officer of World Vision Canada, Dave Toycen heads the country’s largest humanitarian relief and development agency. In his 26 years as a leader with World Vision Canada – 18 as president – donations have increased and the number of children sponsored through World Vision Canada has risen.Dave has led the agency into significant advocacy and public policy work, with an emphasis on issues that affect children. He has spoken before the World Bank, and has met with heads of state, key global executives and development leaders to discuss the well being of the world’s children.Dave’s car