Betsy Carson

Bevel Up

Bevel Up is an educational film designed to give students and instructors access to the experience of health care practitioners who work with the drug-using population of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Produced by the same street nurses who work with these users on a daily basis, the film contains invaluable knowledge that can't be found in nursing schools and teaching hospitals.

Neurons to Nirvana

Through interviews with leading psychologists and scientists, Neurons to Nirvana explores the history of four powerful psychedelic substances (LSD, Psilocybin, MDMA and Ayahuasca) and their previously established medicinal potential. Strictly focusing on the science and medicinal properties of these drugs, Neurons to Nirvana looks into why our society has created such a social and political bias against even allowing research to continue the exploration of any possible positive effects they can present in treating some of today's most challenging afflictions.

Tracks Across Sand

In sixteen chapters containing four and a half hours of materials, Tracks Across Sand offers a unique chance to travel to the edge of the Kalahari, to a struggle for indigenous rights, and into the heart of contemporary South Africa. Driven from their lands, forced into a life of destitution, and denied the right even to speak their own languages, the ‡Khomani San fight for their heritage. Culled from over 130 hours of video recorded between 1996 and 2010, Tracks presents a unique record of the ‡Khomani San, bringing together the story of Africa's first Bushman claim, from preparation through to ten years after the claim was granted. Seen through the eyes and told in the words of the ‡Khomani San themselves, this film chronicles the struggle for indigenous rights by a people who are defying a history that has attempted and failed to make them disappear.

Surviving Progress

Humanity’s ascent is often measured by the speed of progress. But what if progress is actually spiraling us downwards, towards collapse? Ronald Wright, whose best-seller, “A Short History Of Progress” inspired “Surviving Progress”, shows how past civilizations were destroyed by “progress traps”—alluring technologies and belief systems that serve immediate needs, but ransom the future. As pressure on the world’s resources accelerates and financial elites bankrupt nations, can our globally-entwined civilization escape a final, catastrophic progress trap? With potent images and illuminating insights from thinkers who have probed our genes, our brains, and our social behaviour, this requiem to progress-as-usual also poses a challenge: to prove that making apes smarter isn’t an evolutionary dead-end.

Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space

Star Wars is no longer science fiction The prospect of Earth being ruled from space is no longer science-fiction. The dream of the original Dr. Strangelove, Wernher von Braun (from Nazi rocket-scientist to NASA director) has survived every US administration since WW2 and is coming to life. Today the technology exists to weaponize space, a massive American industry thrives, and nations are maneuvering for advantage. PAX AMERICANA tackles this pivotal moment. Are war machines already orbiting Earth? Can treaties keep space weapons-free? Must the World capitulate to one super-cop on the global beat? With startling archival footage and unprecedented access to US Air Force Space Command, this elegant, forceful documentary reveals the state of play through generals, space-policy analysts, politicians, diplomats, peace activists, and hawks.

Waterlife

Waterlife is a documentary film about the Great Lakes that follows the flow of the lakes' water from the Nipigon River to the Atlantic Ocean. The film's goal is to take viewers on a tour of an incredibly beautiful ecosystem that is facing complex challenges.

Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action

Captures the exciting movement of Spiritual Activism that is exploding around the planet, and the powerful personalities who are igniting it.

Fix: The Story of an Addicted City

Dean Wilson may be Canada’s most powerful junkie. He shoots heroin in Vancouver’s downtown Eastside and strategizes with federal health policy advisors. He is the president of a network of street-level drug users demanding that Vancouver open North America’s first safe injection site – the most controversial step of a daring new drug strategy. Users, residents, activists and police clash while Dean struggles to shake his addiction and discovers an unlikely ally in Vancouver’s conservative mayor.

The Barghest

Following the unexpected death of their wealthy father, two estranged sisters return home to sort out the estate. But the women share a dark secret from their childhood, one that will lead to a confrontation with the ghastly supernatural creature known as The Barghest. Camp meets horror in this low-budget thriller in the tradition of 1960s William Castle films.

A Place Called Chiapas

In 1994, the Zapatista National Liberation Army, made up of impoverished Mayan Indians from the state of Chiapas, took over five towns and 500 ranches in southern Mexico. The government deployed its troops and at least 145 people died in the ensuing battle. Filmmaker Nettie Wild travelled to the country's jungle canyons to film the elusive and fragile life of this uprising.

A Place Called Chiapas

In 1994, the Zapatista National Liberation Army, made up of impoverished Mayan Indians from the state of Chiapas, took over five towns and 500 ranches in southern Mexico. The government deployed its troops and at least 145 people died in the ensuing battle. Filmmaker Nettie Wild travelled to the country's jungle canyons to film the elusive and fragile life of this uprising.

Blockade

"Blockade" takes place in the mountains and valleys of northern British Columbia, at the heart of the boldest aboriginal land claims case to challenge the white history of Canada. The Gitksan and Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs claim that everything within 22,000 square miles, including the trees, is rightfully theirs.