One Millionth Tower is a new interactive documentary on the hyper-local level focusing on Kipling Ave. in Toronto. It’s a logical follow up to Out my Window (we’ve looked at it before) and explores how participatory urban design can change our highrise urban landscape.
The highrise re-imagined.
One Millionth Tower re-imagines a universal thread of our global urban fabric — the dilapidated highrise neighbourhood. More than one billion of us live in vertical homes, most of which are falling into disrepair. Highrise residents, together with architects, re-envision their vertical neighbourhood, and animators and web programmers bring their sketches to life in this documentary for the contemporary web browser.
The result of this unique collaboration is a lush visual story unfolding in a 3D virtual environment. Visitors explore how participatory urban design can transform spaces, places and minds.
Paul Watson and Sea Shepherd have had a lot of success in stopping whalers from murdering defenceless whales and other sea life. Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist looks at the success of Sea Shepherd as well as the drama.
“There have been many films made about Sea Shepherd but none as hilarious and revealing as CONFESSIONS OF AN ECO-TERRORIST, which was three decades in the making.” Watson said. “Peter Brown, a Sea Shepherd insider expertly exercises aikido with his camera by turning a negative accusation into a positive confession of influential activism.
Filmmaker and longest-serving SSCS crew member Peter Jay Brown documented the mythic deeds of the organization while acting as the cinematographer, first mate, deckhand, quartermaster, Zodiac driver and officer/captain in Watson’s absence starting in 1980. He gives us an intimate and honest look at what really goes on behind the scenes on some of the most infamous environmental campaigns ever. He has recorded the breathtaking beauty of the life aquatic in all its glory, as well as anguishing despair, bearing witness to the brutal slaughter of the helpless.
Risking their freedoms and their lives, the renegade eco-warrior and his band of environmental pirates combat those who seek to pillage and profit from the destruction of the ocean and its inhabitants. Using guerilla tactics, they boldly, even jubilantly patrol the world’s waters targeting kill-happy poachers and covert corporate cabals, terrorizing and provoking confrontation while flying the Jolly Roger (skull and crossbones) flag of their fleet. Watson’s use of manufactured awareness and strategic media traps defies convention as he brilliantly navigates his fleet by ramming vessels, inflicting damage to whalers, drift-netters, long-liners, and seal hunters who operate illegally worldwide.
Here’s the trailer (some graphic animal killing inside):
Out my Window is NFB online documentary that is really great! It provides a 360 degree view of a person’s apartment in an urban centre from around the world. It’s really neat to see how so many people live and how similar and different a lot of things are.
Cizek says in her Director’s Statement: “To be human in this century is — more than ever before — to be urban.” There is a strong social justice message in the piece, in particular, highlighting how the peripheries where many highrises are built are too often ignored by downtown politics. Out My Window, and the larger multi-year Highrise project by the NFB that it is part of, might be one way to bridge realities between suburban and urban and raise awareness, but Cizek also insists that the periphery needs to be physically brought back into the fabric of the city. “In some places it may mean proper access to public transit (Toronto), in other places it might mean other forms of infrastructure like water, roads, electricity (Istanbul). We also need to link these realities culturally, in both directions (Amsterdam [as depicted in Out My Window] is a great example of doing this right).”
In terms of doing it right, the highrises have lessons to teach planners and politicians, if they are listening, in terms of local needs. The informal and illegal economies of the highrises are often harmless, quotidian services like barbers, and fresh vegetable delivery. Cizek says that these local entrepreneurs “…are technically illegal due to zoning and permits, but are vital to the communities: halal meat distributor on the third floor, daycare on the seventh, etc.” In Toronto, the Tower Renewal project aims to address and foster some of this entrepreneurial spirit.
The National Film Board of Canada has a great website for the documentary Waterlife. The site has music by Brian Eno and features a neat way to explore the issues surrounding water in the Great Lakes region of Canada.
Here’s some info on the film.
Waterlife follows the epic cascade of the Great Lakes from Lake Superior to the Atlantic Ocean, telling the story of the last huge supply of fresh water on Earth. Filled with fascinating characters and stunning imagery, Waterlife is a cinematic poem about the beauty of water and the dangers of taking it for granted. Narrated by Gord Downie, lead vocalist of The Tragically Hip and Waterkeeper’s Trustee of Lake Ontario. Featuring music by Sam Roberts, Sufjan Stevens, Sigur Ros, Robbie Robertson and Brian Eno.
Here’s a trailer for a documentary that is playing in Toronto as part of the Hot Docs festival and it looks like it’s all about goodness. If you’re in the city you should try to check this out.
Need a little inspiration these days? This stirring experiential journey connects us to the core of how spiritual activists, such as Desmond Tutu and Alice Walker, find motivation to keep fighting for good despite impossible odds.