Courage to Dream

Writer Arundhati Roy says “At a time when opportunism is everything, when hope seems lost, when everything boils down to a cynical business deal, we must find the courage to dream. To reclaim romance. The romance of believing in justice, in freedom and in dignity. For everybody. We have to make common cause, and to do this we need to understand how this big old machine works…who pays, who profits.” Our film festival is a venue for sharing stories that help us to understand the world we live in and to imagine the future that will sustain all of us.

Courage
We are inspired by the courageous people in the films we share. The women of Liberia [Pray the Devil Back to Hell], the union organizers in Colombia [The Coca Cola Case], and the video journalists in Burma [Burma VJ] all risked their lives to affect positive changes for people in their countries.  What they have in common is the courage to dream.

Resistance/ Resilience
Many of our films tell stories of the “curse of resources” and the impacts on indigenous peoples [Land of Oil and Water, H2Oil, Mirage of El Dorado, Sweet Crude, Justicia Now, and Under Rich Earth].  All over the world, where companies are extracting resources, environmental devastation and human rights violations are the cost of doing business. Canadian mining companies are among the worst. 
[See: www.miningwatch.ca]

With tremendous courage, resilience and dignity, local people are resisting injustice and holding companies accountable. In solidarity, it behooves us to find out where and how our pension funds are being invested -- and if need be, to take action to demand justice. Transparent and independent human rights and environmental impact assessments must be required as a minimum first step.  

Creativity
Creativity is alive and well in the world.  Filmmakers, artists and creative organizers are helping us to imagine new dreams for our shared future.  Whether in the hands of skilled filmmakers or local people who have never held a camera before, video cameras are playing a critical role in documenting the present and in shaping our dreams for a more just future.  The musicians, filmmakers, artists, writers, visionary farmers and other social change agents featured in our festival are all cultural creatives with the courage to dream.  We honour them.

"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory." Howard Zinn