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Photo: Kristen Holliday
Kamloops Film Festival hosted a Sustainability Evening in partnership with BCLC on March 7. A panel of climate experts and filmmakers discussed climate change.
Experts at the Kamloops Film Festival believe that community organizing is the best way to tackle climate change.
Robert Sandford — a water and climate security expert at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health — appeared as part of a panel for the festival’s Sustainability Evening, held in partnership with the BC Lottery Corporation on March 7.
Appearing virtually in front of panelists and dozens of attendees at the Paramount Theatre, Sandford said if the right actions aren’t taken imminently, we will live in a changed world — but there is still hope.
“In my view, the greatest hope is at our community level, an individual and community level. It’s there where we have the greatest power to make effective change. And it’s also there where we tell one another the stories that are important to us,” Sandford said.
“What we need is courageous, informed, relentless citizenship at this time, to help our communities and ourselves get through this, because as I said, that’s where we’re going to find the greatest opportunity to do anything, we shouldn’t be waiting for others to come and help us.”
Three films were shown to the audience throughout the evening: Fly Monarca, Unicorn Code, and Returning Home. This documentary examines the effects of residential schools on Indigenous communities as well as the challenges arising from a struggling salmon fishery.
The panel followed the first two film screenings and was moderated by Peter ter Weeme, BCLC’s chief social purpose officer and vice president for player experience.
Panelists also included Dr. Michael Mehta from Thompson Rivers University as professor of geography. Also, filmmakers Martin Glegg, Katherine Koniecki and Nina Sidorczuk were on the panel.
Mehta said that he saw a correlation between how humanity treats nature, animals, and natural resources and the way humans treat each other.
“Our minds and hearts and soul are still products of colonization. We may not know it, and I think that’s the power of colonization, that it’s hidden, it’s veiled,” he said.
“Once you start to pull that aside — and I really think our First Nations communities for revealing that to us in very painful ways — you start to see those intersections between spirituality, environmentalism, creating a healthy, sustainable society, looking after your children, looking after future generations. All of that is connected.”
Glegg, the writer and director of The Unicorn Code said that the film demonstrated the importance for everyone to connect with and listen the the environment.
He stated that storytelling is an important tool for communicating the urgency of climate change.
“It’s really important for us storytellers to listen. I think listening is a big part of It, and listening to different people that are out there and are connected to the land, and are struggling because what they’re going through,” Glegg said.
Panel discussion attendees had the opportunity to ask the panelists questions at night’s end.
One participant stressed the importance of lobbying together to take collective action on climate change, rather than focusing on individual actions.
This person urged people in the audience to speak up in support of the City of Kamloops’ supplemental budget item which details a funding strategy for its climate action plan.
Another attendee asked how communities could be motivated to take action in the face of disinformation.
Glegg said storytellers play an important role in changing the narrative and mobilizing communities.
“I think truth is on our side,” he said.
“The climate suffers because of what we’re doing to the planet, and I think if we can find ways to get that out into the world and challenge the status quo, that’s a big part of what we need to do moving forward.”
