Fairy Creek

Saturday March 15 at 1:30pm

Preceded by: Paddling Tu DessDes

Documentary
1 hr 25 min – Not Rated – Released 2024

The Fairy Creek (Ada’itsx) valley sprawls across Pacheedaht First Nation territory on southwestern Vancouver Island and its old growth forest ecosystem thrives with lush foliage, ancient tree trunks, and a variety of wildlife. However, the decimating chainsaws and tractor machinery of the Teal Jones lumber corporation disrupt this equilibrium as they ravage an environmental haven into pavement for their road-building project. Amidst the tumult, Jen Muranetz’s Fairy Creek captures the vast collective protests against this destructive logging operation: a movement which has spawned both the largest demonstration of civil disobedience in Canadian history and the mass arrests of 1200 people.

The film assembles visceral front-line footage of activists faced with an RCMP-enforced injunction, protesting from ground to sky as blockaders form barriers with their bodies and tree-sitters’ forest canopies are assailed by officers deployed from helicopters. Weaving together an array of perspectives, Fairy Creek is an urgent and heartbreaking portrait of collective resistance that simultaneously explores the contradictions in a mass movement of civil disobedience. Quickly, a conflict of intentions emerges, split between Indigenous land sovereignty and preservation of old growth forests. With nuance, Muranetz captures divisions between settler protestors and Indigenous activists. The film also elucidates stark disagreements between Pacheedaht youth and their band council, refuting the misconception of a monolithic Indigenous perspective. FAIRY CREEK depicts this historic struggle to defend Canadian old growth forestry as a dialogue of voices, where unity and disagreement constitute a growing movement.

Fairy Creek is a gripping frontline dive into the lives of activists urgently blocking logging roads on Vancouver Island, in a last-ditch attempt to stop old-growth logging in the untouched Fairy Creek valley. When police begin arresting people for standing in the way of forestry workers, thousands more protestors flock to the woods to participate in a dramatic and historic stand-off. Following a cast of blockaders, Indigenous land defenders, and loggers, the film takes an insider look at the rise and fall of the contentious Fairy Creek blockade. The film assembles visceral front-line footage of activists faced with an RCMP-enforced injunction, protesting from ground to sky as blockaders form barriers with their bodies and tree-sitters’ forest canopies are assailed by officers deployed from helicopters. Weaving together an array of perspectives, “Fairy Creek” is an urgent and heartbreaking portrait of collective resistance that simultaneously explores the contradictions in a mass movement of civil disobedience.