Planet in Focus International Environmental Film Festival (PIF), Canada’s largest and longest-running environmental film festival, has announced its 23rd iteration with an impressive lineup slated for October 13-23rd, 2022.
This year’s festival will be delivered in a hybrid format highlighted by nationwide virtual viewings, local live screenings from an outstanding curation of Canadian and International short and feature-length documentaries. With environmentalism at its core, Planet in Focus International Environmental Film Festival showcases a selection of films anchored in timely themes of social justice, climate activism, sustainability, and allyship that captivate, build awareness, and actively engage its wide-reaching audience.
Opening the festival with its Toronto premiere will be Canadian filmmaker Rita Leistner’s Forest for the Trees for an outdoor screening at Stackt market. The film explores the physical and emotional aspects of a community of Canadian west coast tree planters. Deftly weaving together still photos and film footage, Rita Leistner, an award-winning photographer, photojournalist, filmmaker, and erstwhile tree planter (who has been nominated for a 2022 Canadian Screen Award for Best Cinematography for her work in this film), depicts the contradictions in the experiences of the tree planters—the hardship and the healing; the solitude and the joy of belonging—creating an eloquent cinematic metaphor for the human condition.
Speaking of the event, Katherine Bruce, Executive Director of Planet in Focus International Environmental Film Festival shares, “We’re thrilled to return for our 23rd edition with a varied collection of films that continue ongoing conversations on timely environmental and social issues. We have filmmakers from across the globe who artfully capture critical stories about the world we inhabit in an impactful way while amplifying marginalized narratives that offers rich and nuanced insight to our understanding of the human experience within nature. As we’ll see in Rita Leistner’s Forest for the Trees, a film that gives us an intimate portrait of this connection through the life of the tree planters.”
Accompanying the Opening Night screening will be a lineup of live in-person events at Paradise Theatre, followed by an Industry Conference at the Centre for Social Innovation – Spadina for a memorable and enlightening festival experience. Among the Canadian feature films in the lineup are Ali Kazimi’s Beyond Extinction: Sinixt Resurgence which traces Indigenous matriarchs who revive traditions and fight to save an ancient burial ground in BC’ Slocan Valley, documenting their intimate living histories and their decades-long struggle for recognition; Jacquelyn Mill’s Geographies of Solitude featuring Planet in Focus 2022 Canadian Eco Hero Zoe Lucas, is an immersion into the rich ecosystem of Sable Island, guided by Lucas, an naturalist and environmentalist who has lived over 40 years on this remote sliver of land in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean; and Transmission by Dan Minsky where doctors, farmers, biologists, & volunteers come together to fight a deadly disease threatening both wild & domestic sheep.
PIF will reprise its impressive Canadian and international shorts program delivered via specialized programming, including Indigenous Experiences; Encounters in the Natural World; Taking Action; Diverse Eco Visions; and Innovation and Technology, showcasing films in the likes of Australia-based, Ola Ka Honua by Jilli Rose, Run to the Source by Matt Kay (UK) and The Billboard Squad by Toronto filmmaker Cat Mills and more. Closing out the festival will be a live screening of Into the Ice by Lars Ostenfeld, a compelling journey of discovery to the vast masses of ice and the secret of our future that the ice harbours, at Paradise Theatre.
Planet in Focus will also host the annual free Family Day event on Saturday, October 15 at Paradise Theatre. The Family Shorts Program features a screening of Wings Over Water narrated by Michael Keaton alongside a selection of Canadian and international titles expressly curated for young people. The films will be complemented by a breakfast and live dance break from Toronto choreographer Neil Lordson Tangcuangco.
Virtual films will be available for screening anytime within the festival dates with an allocated 48 hours to complete the viewing. PIF 2022 All Access Fest Pass are available here, granting access to:
- The Opening Night Gala at Stackt market
- All of the live events at the Paradise Theatre
- The virtual film program
- Industry Conference at the Centre for Social Innovation – Spadina
For further information and the full screening schedule, visit https://planetinfocus.org/
Images from Rebellion (primary) and Forest for the Trees, courtesy of PIF and Konvo Media Inc.
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