Gibsons' filmmaker Liz Marshall explores the question “are non-human animals property to be owned and used, or are they sentient beings deserving of rights?” in her thought-provoking and award-winning documentary The Ghosts in Our Machine.
St. Hilda’s Green Forum speaker series presents a special free screening of Marshall’s film on Friday, October 28 at 7pm, which will take place in-person at St. Hilda’s Church and on Zoom. The event will also feature a Q&A with Marshall.
The Ghosts in Our Machine is a consciousness-raising documentary that gently reveals one of the most haunting moral dilemmas of our modern world. While the provocative film Blackfish made waves for exposing the consequences of keeping orcas in captivity, The Ghosts in Our Machine illuminates the plight of many other animals rescued from and living within the machine of our modern world, from captive foxes to rescued dairy cows. Marshall directs this visually arresting documentary through the heart and lens of animal rights photojournalist Jo-Anne McArthur.
The film follows McArthur over the course of a year as she documents several animal stories in parts of Canada, the U.S. and in Europe. Each story and photograph is a window into global animal industries: Food; Fashion; Entertainment and Biomedical Research. The Ghosts in Our Machine charts McArthur’s efforts to bring wider attention to a topic that most of humankind strives hard to avoid.
Liz Marshall, who recently relocated to the Sunshine Coast, is a multi-award-winning documentary filmmaker (Director, Writer, Producer) and cross-platform creator who fuses character-driven cinematic storytelling with social and environmental justice issues. Since the ’90s she has created a body of international documentaries that focus on a range of significant issues including animal rights; the right to water movement; HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa; sweatshop labour; corporate-globalization; gender; censorship affecting writers and journalists; and war-affected children.
The Green Forum series, which takes place at St. Hilda’s Church at 5838 Barnacle Street in Sechelt, creates opportunities for discussion of environmental issues and how individuals and communities can take effective action.
For more information or to request a Zoom link for the film screening, email greenparish@sthilda.ca.
The next Green Forum event, featuring public policy researcher and author Seth Klein, will take place at 7pm on Friday, November 25.
For more information about St. Hilda’s Green Forum, email Bruce Pond.
BACKGROUNDER
Acclaim for THE GHOSTS IN OUR MACHINE:
Awards include: Top Ten Audience Favourite Award, Hot Docs Film Festival; Best Nature/Environment Golden Sheaf Award, Yorkton Film Festival; Special Jury Prize – International Competition, DMZ Docs; Best Canadian Feature, Planet in Focus Environmental Film Festival; Green Screen Award, 2nd place, Planet in Focus Environmental Film Festival; Top Twenty Audience Favourite Award, IDFA.
Haunting beauty…Ghosts is urging us to rethink our relationship with the animal population — what they owe us, what we owe them.
– Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles TimesA film whose sense of urgency and purpose is utterly engrossing.
– Ernest Hardy, Village VoicePowerful…disturbing…beautifully shot. A superb example of committed filmmaking.
– Susan G. Cole, NOW Magazine