For pete’s sake, it’s about time we had a film club at the fest!
So, we’ve teamed up with the Organic Food Council of Manitoba to create a special event for attendees after the fest. Join OFCM and filmmaker Thayer MacInnis for a screening & panel discussion of the newly released For Our Peat’s Sake.
FOR OUR PEAT’S SAKE is an examination of the economic benefits and ecological impacts that are incurred through the production and use of ancient reserves of peat mosses. The 35 minute documentary film focuses on the Lake Winnipeg watershed region, where desperate Canadians and First Nations peoples are fighting for the protection of water, as nutrient runoff, flooding, and extreme weather has resulted in suffocating lakes and toxically undermined water sources.
Mature peatland ecosystems stand as an integral balancing force in the face of climate change, sequestering more carbon than all of the world’s forests combined and reinforcing the resiliency of the water-tables across vast regions. Peat plays a critical role in maintaining the ecological equilibrium upon which we all depend.
Jobs and economic growth are the returns of the peat mining industry. FOR OUR PEAT’S SAKE investigates what it really means to accept peat mining within a threatened local watershed and globally undermined atmosphere. Top scientists in geography, hydrology, and biology, as well as traditional users of the land, politicians, and environmental advocates, explain the true costs and returns of peat mining as well as the misleading rhetoric that blurs consumers’ and policy makers’ perspectives alike.
THAYER MACINNIS is a filmmaker currently based out of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. For Our Peat’s Sake marks his directorial debut and represents the amalgamation of his passion for the natural world with his extensive background in the motion-picture industry. Having worked as a technician and film crew member for nearly a decade on projects ranging from multi-million dollar feature films to shoestring independent documentaries, web-series, and music videos, Thayer is now breaking new ground as a documentary storyteller. Growing up on a small organic farm in Manitoba’s Interlake, Thayer was provided with a vantage point that enabled him to look beyond the mainstream norms of many Western conventions. It is from this distinct perspective that he now hopes to empower viewers of his films to further recognize the interconnected nature of all living things that share our planet.
