Autumn, like spring, is a season of change.
Celebrate the season of crisp air, waning daylight and falling leaves by embracing the most powerful shift of all: Social change.
The 11th annual Agassiz-Harrison Social Justice Film Festival is returning to the Agassiz United Church with a focus on child poverty as a local, provincial and global problem.
The annual event brings light to social justice issues by screening educational films and documentaries that open viewers’ eyes to global crises and injustices along with providing frameworks and ideas to help create change. The films are open to the public and admission is by donation, with a canned food drive taking place both nights.
The films aren’t always easy to watch, but waking up to harsher realities is always a difficult, albeit necessary experience for those who want to contribute to a better world.
Related: Amazing women inspire Agassiz film festival
This year, the first film is ‘Four Feet Up,’ an National Film Board of Canada documentary by Nance Ackerman described as an ‘intimate look into the profound experience of poverty in Canada.’
Ackerman spent two years with a child who knows he has been categorized as ‘less fortunate’ and has seen a number of social workers, food banks and police interventions throughout his life. The film addresses Canadian poverty in such a way that it is impossible to ignore its generational impact, even in one of the world’s wealthiest countries.
‘Four Feet Up’ is screened on Thursday, Nov.1 at 7 p.m. at the Agassiz United Church.
Agassiz Harrison Community Services will be in attendance to talk about the needs of the community and how attendees can help.
The following night, Friday, Nov. 2 at 7 p.m., the church will screen ‘The Beginning of Life:’ a documentary formed ‘from interviews in nine countries and across cultures, ethnicities and social classes’ about the biggest investment humanity can make: ‘a loving and safe envionment for children.’
Promoted internationally by UNICEF, ‘The Beginning of Life’ is explains why people raising children need to care about the future of more than just their own child. Because, as a review in the Atlantic puts it, “the future of society quite literally depends on it.”
A representative from the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition will be present at Friday night’s screening.
nina.grossman@ahobserver.com
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