DOXA to feature Greenpeace doc
Vancouver’s DOXA festival will be filled with movers and shakers this year.
The documentary film fest will feature a number of films about trailblazers and provocateurs, including Jerry Rothwell’s How to Change the World, about former Vancouver journalist and Greenpeace founder Bob Hunter, who created the world-renowned environmental organization in 1971.
“I am extremely happy about opening the festival this year with How to Change the World,” DOXA director of programming Dorothy Woodend said via email. “It is an incredible story, but more importantly, it is such a ‘Vancouver’ story. A great deal of the footage of Vancouver in the early ’70s, when Bob Hunter was working as a journalist for The Vancouver Sun, is material that I’ve never seen before.
“From Paul Spong’s early experiments with whale sentience at the Vancouver Aquarium, to the chin-dropping scenes from the very first Greenpeace campaigns, this is the Vancouver I remember as a kid: A hotbed of hippies, radicals, and eco-freaks, but possessed of a sweetness and a desire to do good in the world — that seems even more relevant and critical now.”
Also on the menu are films about musical group The Residents, satirical group The Yes Men, and Reid Fleming, “the world’s toughest milkman.” The festival will also feature a tribute to legendary American filmmaker Albert Maysles. DOXA will be closing its 14th edition with a screening of Maysles’ final film, Iris, about interior designer Iris Apfel, May 10.
The DOXA documentary film festival takes place April 30 to May 10. Tickets and info can be found at doxafestival.ca or 604646-3200.