Green Film Fest
Thursdays in April | 7PM | Nelson District Youth Centre | Free Admission
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April 2: SNK'MIP Dig Deeper
7PM Nelson District Youth Centre // Free Admission
As an idealistic conservation group strives to restore a damaged wetland and tensions escalate with local off-road motorized users, an unexpected revelation uncovers the site's ancient Indigenous heritage, propelling them on a transformative journey of reconciliation with the Sinixt People and reshaping perspectives on land stewardship.
Filmed over six years in the Sinixt tmxÊ·úlaÊ”xÊ· (traditional territory), and co-produced and co-directed by Autonomous Sinixt Matriarch Marilyn James, this feature-length documentary challenges the settler constructs of history, land, and power.
SnkÌ›míp Dig Deeper takes viewers on a transformative journey, revealing how ecological restoration and reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples are intertwined. It’s a compelling exploration about wetland restoration and of how true stewardship of the land must honor the ancient wisdom and enduring presence of its original inhabitants.
Post-show Q&A with Lori Barkley: Political Anthropologist, Autonomous Sinixt
April 9: Safe Haven
7PM Nelson District Youth Centre // Free Admission
Despite decades of clearcut logging, British Columbia is still home to some magnificent ancient forests, whose rich, intricate webs of life have evolved, untouched, since the last ice age. Safe Haven takes audiences on a journey back in time, deep into the Rainbow-Jordan Wilderness, with the people working to preserve its rare ecosystems and 2,000 year-old trees.
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The Rainbow-Jordan Wilderness proposal was designed to protect a globally significant Inland Temperate Rainforest near Revelstoke, BC. Since 2017 Valhalla Wilderness Society has studied the incredible biodiversity of this intact wilderness area that was previously unknown to science. Two years of filming in the proposal’s ancient forest led to the creation of Safe Haven. The film is a call to action for British Columbians to support the campaign to protect three remaining biodiversity havens of the inland temperate rainforest.
Post show Q&A with Amber Peters, Biologist with Valhalla Wilderness Society
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April 16: Losing Blue
7PM Nelson District Youth Centre // Free Admission
What does it mean to lose a colour? Losing Blue is a cinematic poem that delves into the impending loss of some of the most extraordinary blues on Earth—the otherworldly blues of ancient mountain lakes.
Glacier-fed alpine lakes each have a unique blue formed by the mountains and ice that shaped them. These intense colours hold the memory of “deep time,” geological processes millions of years old. Now climate change is rapidly accelerating environmental shifts and causing some of these spectacular blues to vanish.
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Losing Blue is an expansive metaphor for the massive and subtle impacts of climate change. With stunning cinematography, the film immerses viewers in the magnificence of lakes so rare that most have never seen them, pulling us in so that we experience these bodies of water as if we were standing alone on their rocky shores—witnesses to their power and acutely aware of what their loss would mean, both for ourselves and for the Earth.
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Filmmaker Leanne Allison’s narration intimately balances J.B. MacKinnon’s eloquent science writing. This short documentary gently asks what it might mean to forget that the ethereal blues of these lakes ever existed.
April 16: Wildflowers
7PM Nelson District Youth Centre // Free Admission
Mary Schäffer Warren (1861-1939) was 43 years old and recently widowed when she bucked Victorian-era conventions and reinvented herself as a mountain explorer, writer, and photographer. Over a century later, Meghan J. Ward — an outdoor writer, historian and Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS) — encounters Mary’s remarkable story. Captivated by the mystery of this woman she can’t meet in person, Meghan embarks on a journey of archival research and backcountry adventures to better understand Mary’s legacy and motivations.
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She invites photographer/RCGS Fellow Natalie Gillis and travel writer Jane Marshall on a six-day hiking and paddling expedition to retrace the final leg of Mary’s famous 1908 expedition to Maligne Lake in Jasper National Park, Alberta. Delving into a landscape that connects adventurers across time, the modern-day team compares past to present, reflects on Mary’s legacy, and discovers that sometimes we must look back to blaze a better trail forward.
Post-show Q&A with Wildflowers Producer, Meghan Ward
April 23: A Beekeeper's Life in The Kootenays
7PM Nelson District Youth Centre // Free Admission
A Beekeeper's Life in the Kootenays introduces many aspects of life on a rural homestead in the Kootenay region of southeastern B.C. Through the eyes and dialog of one such homesteader, Laena Brown, the viewer is introduced to Brown’s children, crops grown, and livestock raised – especially bees.
Brown, narrator and on-screen performer, grew up in the Kootenays, and trained as an actor at Capilano University. She is a beekeeper and a popular performer, who goes by the stage name LBee.
Director and editor Kaia Fitz-Earle’s interest in film production began a few years ago when she attended the Director’s Seat summer film camps at Selkirk College. There, she discovered her passion for video editing. After two summers directing the shoot, and many hours of editing, Fitz-Earle completed A Beekeeper’s Life in the Kootenays in November 2024 at age 18.
Post -show Q&A with Actor and Narrator Laena Brown
April 23: Deconstructing Dinner: HONEY
7PM Nelson District Youth Centre // Free Admission
From flower to plate, the story of how pure honey ends up in a jar is an awe-inspiring reminder of the work of the honeybee and the ecological relationships we are all a part of. There are, however, many options of honey to choose from and consumers might want to question if what’s on the label, is what’s really in the jar? Featuring Pastry Chef Heather Carlucci formerly of PRINT, Andrea Reimer – City of Vancouver, Blair & Cheryl Tarves – Similkameen Apiaries, Brian Campbell – Blessed Bee Farm, Claire Marin – Catskill Provisions, Pat Bono – Seaway Trail Honey, Ron Phipps – CPNA International, Vaughn Bryant – Texas A&M University, Asia Warner, and others.
Deconstructing Dinner was launched by Jon Steinman in 2006 as a weekly radio show and podcast produced at Kootenay Co-op Radio in Nelson, British Columbia. By the end of 2010, the show was being rebroadcast on over 50 radio stations across Canada and the US and was ranked by iTunes as the most-listened-to food podcast in Canada. Shortly after the show went off the air, Steinman was nominated for a Jack Webster Award – British Columbia’s most prestigious awards for journalism. The show also received awards and recognition by the Canadian Farm Writers Federation (CFWF) and the National Campus and Community Radio Association (NCRA).
In 2011, a new Deconstructing Dinner project emerged between Jon Steinman, Declan O’Driscoll and Stornoway Communications. Deconstructing Dinner: Reconstructing our Food System was launched in 2013 as a six-episode television series with an accompanying 44 short-form webisodes. In each of the six episodes, Jon teams up with local farmers, scientists, backyard gardeners and award winning chefs to explore, demystify, and deconstruct six popular foods– Wheat, Tomatoes, Pork, Garlic, Honey and Eggs.
Post -show Q&A with Producer Jon Steinman
April 30: Wild Aerial
7PM Nelson District Youth Centre // Free Admission
Blending techniques from the disparate worlds of mountaineering and acrobatics, adventure aerialist Sasha Galitzki performs gravity-defying routines in subzero temperatures, all without being ‘tied in’. Her aerial adventures require immense physicality, sound risk-assessment, and unwavering confidence much like free soloing—only with flips, spins, and occasional splits.
Wild Aerial follows Sasha to dramatic ice-bound locations in Banff and Jasper National Parks where she overcomes extreme cold and dizzying heights to draw attention to the beauty and fragility of Canada’s mountain landscapes. The film culminates with Sasha’s most ambitious routine ever performed outdoors.
Post-show Q&A with aerialist performer Sasha Galitski
April 30: Embers
7PM Nelson District Youth Centre // Free Admission
On July 24, 2024, a wildfire tore through Jasper National Park, Canada, reducing aerialist Sasha Galitzki's home to ashes. Embers connects Sasha's loss in the wildfire and the glacial recession she has witnessed in her creative work to highlight their common cause: climate change.
Set in the year following the fire, Embers follows Sasha as she rebuilds her life and confronts the realities of a warming world. Through interviews with wildfire and glacier experts, she seeks to understand the heartbreaking changes affecting the mountains and community she loves. Gradually returning to her aerial practice, she performs over the ashes of her home and amidst the whirling winds of melting glaciers—inviting us on an intimate journey to find hope out of darkness. Embers captures a profound shift within Sasha, who channels her grief and art into a powerful and visually impactful message of environmental activism.
Post-show Q&A with aerialist performer Sasha Galitski
