The fourth annual Projecting Change Film Festival (PCFF) takes place May 26-29, 2011 at SFU Woodwards Theatre. PCFF is a forum for film and dialogue about social and environmental issues. The marquee four-day event features inspiring, eye-opening, and often award-winning films from around the globe, each followed by a dynamic speaker and panel discussion. The unique festival format is a platform for audience engagement, with all proceeds donated back to local initiatives.
With 4 days and over 20 films, the 2011 lineup is stacked with inspiring films including:
Women Are Heroes, an extraordinary film that explores the lives and courageous stories of women living in impoverished and unsafe neighborhoods around the world through the eyes of a French photographer JR.
Living Downstream, an eloquent and cinematic documentary film based on the acclaimed book by ecologist and cancer survivor Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D.
Wade in the Water, Children, a passionate mixture of private videos offering a poetic and devastating look at life in the Crescent City through the eyes of its youngest citizens.
Bella is the newest addition to Hello Cool World, enlisting for the cause at the end of 2010. A graduate of BCIT's Broadcast Communications for TV program, she's worked in all aspects of production and has a knack for new media & technology.
Last week, the Supreme Court of Canada heard the Federal Government's Appeal of the decision to allow the Insite supervised injection facility to continue to operate. Tomorrow, May 17th, join Pivot Legal Society, the SFU Woodwards Community Engagement Office and moderator Donald MacPherson for a forum exploring what this case is all about and what the Supreme Court's decision will mean for people living with addictions and for the future of Canadian drug policy.
We will see footage straight from the courtroom in Ottawa. We will hear from Monique Pongracic-Speier, lawyer on the case and a representative from Insite. Dr. Thomas Kerr of the Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and Maxine Davis, Executive Director of the Dr. Peters Aids Foundation with offer an assessment of the health impacts of this decision. Plaintiff Dean Wilson will reflect on his journey through the court process and Downtown Eastside activists Bud Osborn and Dave Murray will talk about what the fight for a legal supervised injection facility has meant to them and their community.
Doors open at 6pm. Suggested Donation $10. No one turned away.
Heading off to OpenGovWest this weekend in Portland to be on a marketing panel. Check out the full schedule here.There is still time to register!
When asked to be part of this conference by the organizer Sarah Schacht who I met a few years ago at Hollyhock i began to think about Hello Cool World and what we might have to do with the idea of 'open government'. As it happens, of late our main clients are government agencies. The work we are doing would have been unthinkable even a few years ago.
Specifically we are creating grassroots campaigns, that engage real people as advocates using all the lovely tools social media now has to offer. And we manage databases that intersect issues and encourage involvment. Plus our websites don't look at all like the standard issue government fare. Two examples of this are the LACE Campaign we created for BC Cancer Agency, Cervical Cancer Screening Program, and our most recent is the I Have Immunity campaign for ImmunizeBC. We've also been doing some interesting work with BC Transplant, as official distributors of the film 65_RedRoses.
Katherine Dodds AKA "Kat" is the founder of Good Company Communications and HelloCoolWorld.com. Trained in renegade advertising & branding through her work with Adbusters in the '90s, Kat's early induction into the possibilities of the web-world was inspired by the term hypertext, which she immediately found comforting. She is dedicated to cause-related communication and to the development and use of tools that promote democratic processes.
On November 4 2008, Proposition 8 was passed in the state of California to ban same-sex marriages. Considering that same-sex marriages were legalised merely 5 months prior to the Prop 8 amendment, you can imagine how the LGBT community reacted, and no, they were not stoked.
The NOH8 Campaign was created by celebrity photographer Adam Bouska and his partner Jess Parshley to silently protest Proposition 8 with a series of photos. You may recognise these photos featuring subjects with duct tape over their mouths, symbolizing their voices being silenced by Prop 8 and similar legislation around the world, with "NOH8" painted on one cheek.
By holding open photo shoots around the world, the NOH8 Campaign has grown exponentially since its grassroots beginnings uniting over 13,000 faces to the social cause. This weekend NOH8 will be in New York City to host yet another open photo shoot, but to also fundraise for AIDS Walk NY. With a social agenda to end discrimination in all its forms, this cause couldn't be more important to me, a fellow gay.
My dear friend (and Hello Cool World's Media Buyer) Kevin Young will be flying out of Vancouver on his own bill to volunteer at this NYC event, and we couldn't be more proud of him. Best of luck Kev! You're gonna do big things :)
Hello Cool World is thrilled to be a communty partner for the upcoming DOXA screening of Raw Opium on May 7. We think this film is a timely and much-needed look at the impacts of the war on drugs, from our own DTES 'hood to the case study of Portugal as a decriminalization success story.
And of course we also are big supporters of InSite Safe Injection Site. Now that Harper's conservatives are in again, we really need to go to battle keep InSite open. the story of insite is woven through the film Raw Opium, and we hope the film will spark debate over this issue. And of course we hope people will want to take action!
To this end we are working with the filmmakers to engage audiences as the film launches. Please JOIN US and help us in getting the word on the street by printing and distributing some flyers:
Heading off to 
Katherine Dodds AKA "Kat" is the founder of Good Company Communications and HelloCoolWorld.com. Trained in renegade advertising & branding through her work with Adbusters in the '90s, Kat's early induction into the possibilities of the web-world was inspired by the term hypertext, which she immediately found comforting. She is dedicated to cause-related communication and to the development and use of tools that promote democratic processes.
On November 4 2008, Proposition 8 was passed in the state of California to ban same-sex marriages. Considering that same-sex marriages were legalised merely 5 months prior to the Prop 8 amendment, you can imagine how the LGBT community reacted, and no, they were not stoked.
