Jim Finnel
Fallen Cannabis Warrior & Ex News Moderator
VANCOUVER -- Nick Wilson was 26, developing a documentary - his first - about online infidelity, when he had a conversation with his 68-year-old aunt that sent him in a new direction. Aunt Wendy had seen a news story on TV about the Vancouver marijuana activist Marc Emery and she was incensed. Why were U.S. authorities after him? And why would Canada even consider extraditing a Canadian to face up to life in prison, simply for selling marijuana seeds?
"She hates potheads, hates drugs, has no patience for any of it, calls them layabouts and bums," Wilson said at a Vancouver coffee shop this week, "but she saw that story ... and she was on Mark's side."
Wilson switched gears; this was a story he wanted to tell.
The result, The Prince of Pot: The US vs. Marc Emery, is one of three Canadian films at this year's Vancouver International Film Festival focusing on marijuana and asking audiences to rethink its illegality.
If it feels like a cliché to have films about pot at a film festival in Vancouver, so be it. Wilson, now 27, wanted his film to have its world premiere in Vancouver, because of what he calls the city's cannabis culture. "It's very visible," he says. "It's like being gay in San Francisco."
Besides, he says, "Vancouver is the town [Emery] picked to do battle in. It's kind of the front line."
Emery, 49, has been lobbying for the decriminalization of marijuana for years. He heads the B.C. Marijuana Party, runs a magazine called Cannabis Culture, has a website called pot-tv.net and operates a mail-order marijuana-seed distribution business.
In 2005, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration asked Canada to extradite Emery and two of his employees to face drug-trafficking charges for sending seeds south of the border. Vancouver Police moved in and arrested him.
And it was that fact - the co-operation of a Canadian police force with American anti-drug forces - that drew Wilson in. "Emery is a symptom of a much bigger issue, which is Canadian sovereignty," Wilson says. "Who's setting our priorities? Is it us or is it the Americans?"
Wilson was in no way motivated to make this film by a personal desire to decriminalize marijuana. He is a very occasional pot smoker, who, after following Emery's fight, now believes it should be decriminalized, but who gave the matter very little thought before making the film.
Burnaby, B.C., director Brett Harvey doesn't smoke much pot either. But audiences might be led to think otherwise after watching his first film The Union: The Business Behind Getting High. The feature-length documentary offers argument after argument in favour of decriminalizing marijuana. At its heart is the thesis that there are big business forces at work - ranging from pharmaceutical giants to prison-guard unions - fighting to keep pot illegal. The people who run grow-ops and sell pot in the vast underground market don't want it legalized either. Drug traffickers and Drug Enforcement Administration agents may make strange bedfellows, but this is the world, the film argues, that criminalizing pot creates.
The idea for the film started with its executive producer, Adam Scorgie. Three years ago, he returned to British Columbia from New York, where he had tried to make a go of it as an actor. Friends in Kelowna, B.C., suggested he could make some easy money by starting a grow operation. Rather than join the underground pot industry, though, Scorgie (who doesn't smoke pot at all) decided to make a film about it.
But when he and Harvey began their research, they discovered a much more compelling angle: that the enormous profitability of the industry is what's driving the continued criminalization of marijuana. "The point of the film is to wake people up," says Harvey. "The number-one reason that grow-ops are in communities is that [the laws] have created a situation that puts them there."
There are overlapping themes for sure, in The Prince of Pot and The Union, and you'll see some recurring characters. Emery, the Prince of Pot himself, appears in The Union. Senator Larry Campbell, Vancouver's former mayor, is also in both films, decrying the mess caused by pot's criminalization and ultimately predicting its legalization - although not, he believes, in his lifetime.
For a completely different pot-on-the-big-screen experience, there's Weirdsville. Unlike the two documentaries, this is a feature with a much subtler pro-pot message (in fact, you might mistake it for an anti-drug message). And unlike first-time directors Wilson and Harvey, veteran filmmaker Allan Moyle, 60, has a personal interest in the subject. He is very much a proud pothead. "The people who made the movie think pot is a sweet food," he says. "Pot ... makes you conscious and is inclusive and makes you more sensitive to the people around you."
The film stars Scott Speedman (Felicity) and Wes Bentley (American Beauty) as a couple of stoners in Hamilton, Ont., who have a run-in with a satanic cult. Zaniness ensues, but there is a serious message here: Hard drugs are bad, but pot has the power to bring people together and make them happy. Its illegality is what creates opportunities for shady characters to break legs and make fortunes.
Like Wilson, Moyle believes Vancouver's drug culture makes it a good spot to show his film. And the city has personal meaning for him. "I smoked my first pot in Vancouver," he says on the phone from London. In between screenings of Weirdsville, he plans to return to the spot in Stanley Park "where my mind was opened." He figures scoring pot in Vancouver won't be a problem. "I just know that it'll be coming out of the woodwork."
If there's a reason these films have all found their way onto the big screen at this time, it's as much about politics as it is pot. With the current U.S. administration and its war in Iraq, the distinctions between Canada and the United States have never been so obvious. These Canadian filmmakers would like to see Canada distance itself from America's war on drugs, too.
The Prince of Pot screens this Monday, Friday and Oct. 8 at VIFF and airs on CBC Newsworld on Oct. 23. The Union screens at VIFF on Oct. 10 and 11. Weirdsville screens at VIFF tomorrow and Tuesday and opens in four Canadian cities on Oct. 12.
News Hawk- User https://www.420magazine.com
Source: Globe & Mail.com
Author: MARSHA LEDERMAN
Contact: globeandmail.com: Canada's National Newspaper
Copyright: 2007 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc.
Website: globeandmail.com: Cannabis culture lights up the festival
"She hates potheads, hates drugs, has no patience for any of it, calls them layabouts and bums," Wilson said at a Vancouver coffee shop this week, "but she saw that story ... and she was on Mark's side."
Wilson switched gears; this was a story he wanted to tell.
The result, The Prince of Pot: The US vs. Marc Emery, is one of three Canadian films at this year's Vancouver International Film Festival focusing on marijuana and asking audiences to rethink its illegality.
If it feels like a cliché to have films about pot at a film festival in Vancouver, so be it. Wilson, now 27, wanted his film to have its world premiere in Vancouver, because of what he calls the city's cannabis culture. "It's very visible," he says. "It's like being gay in San Francisco."
Besides, he says, "Vancouver is the town [Emery] picked to do battle in. It's kind of the front line."
Emery, 49, has been lobbying for the decriminalization of marijuana for years. He heads the B.C. Marijuana Party, runs a magazine called Cannabis Culture, has a website called pot-tv.net and operates a mail-order marijuana-seed distribution business.
In 2005, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration asked Canada to extradite Emery and two of his employees to face drug-trafficking charges for sending seeds south of the border. Vancouver Police moved in and arrested him.
And it was that fact - the co-operation of a Canadian police force with American anti-drug forces - that drew Wilson in. "Emery is a symptom of a much bigger issue, which is Canadian sovereignty," Wilson says. "Who's setting our priorities? Is it us or is it the Americans?"
Wilson was in no way motivated to make this film by a personal desire to decriminalize marijuana. He is a very occasional pot smoker, who, after following Emery's fight, now believes it should be decriminalized, but who gave the matter very little thought before making the film.
Burnaby, B.C., director Brett Harvey doesn't smoke much pot either. But audiences might be led to think otherwise after watching his first film The Union: The Business Behind Getting High. The feature-length documentary offers argument after argument in favour of decriminalizing marijuana. At its heart is the thesis that there are big business forces at work - ranging from pharmaceutical giants to prison-guard unions - fighting to keep pot illegal. The people who run grow-ops and sell pot in the vast underground market don't want it legalized either. Drug traffickers and Drug Enforcement Administration agents may make strange bedfellows, but this is the world, the film argues, that criminalizing pot creates.
The idea for the film started with its executive producer, Adam Scorgie. Three years ago, he returned to British Columbia from New York, where he had tried to make a go of it as an actor. Friends in Kelowna, B.C., suggested he could make some easy money by starting a grow operation. Rather than join the underground pot industry, though, Scorgie (who doesn't smoke pot at all) decided to make a film about it.
But when he and Harvey began their research, they discovered a much more compelling angle: that the enormous profitability of the industry is what's driving the continued criminalization of marijuana. "The point of the film is to wake people up," says Harvey. "The number-one reason that grow-ops are in communities is that [the laws] have created a situation that puts them there."
There are overlapping themes for sure, in The Prince of Pot and The Union, and you'll see some recurring characters. Emery, the Prince of Pot himself, appears in The Union. Senator Larry Campbell, Vancouver's former mayor, is also in both films, decrying the mess caused by pot's criminalization and ultimately predicting its legalization - although not, he believes, in his lifetime.
For a completely different pot-on-the-big-screen experience, there's Weirdsville. Unlike the two documentaries, this is a feature with a much subtler pro-pot message (in fact, you might mistake it for an anti-drug message). And unlike first-time directors Wilson and Harvey, veteran filmmaker Allan Moyle, 60, has a personal interest in the subject. He is very much a proud pothead. "The people who made the movie think pot is a sweet food," he says. "Pot ... makes you conscious and is inclusive and makes you more sensitive to the people around you."
The film stars Scott Speedman (Felicity) and Wes Bentley (American Beauty) as a couple of stoners in Hamilton, Ont., who have a run-in with a satanic cult. Zaniness ensues, but there is a serious message here: Hard drugs are bad, but pot has the power to bring people together and make them happy. Its illegality is what creates opportunities for shady characters to break legs and make fortunes.
Like Wilson, Moyle believes Vancouver's drug culture makes it a good spot to show his film. And the city has personal meaning for him. "I smoked my first pot in Vancouver," he says on the phone from London. In between screenings of Weirdsville, he plans to return to the spot in Stanley Park "where my mind was opened." He figures scoring pot in Vancouver won't be a problem. "I just know that it'll be coming out of the woodwork."
If there's a reason these films have all found their way onto the big screen at this time, it's as much about politics as it is pot. With the current U.S. administration and its war in Iraq, the distinctions between Canada and the United States have never been so obvious. These Canadian filmmakers would like to see Canada distance itself from America's war on drugs, too.
The Prince of Pot screens this Monday, Friday and Oct. 8 at VIFF and airs on CBC Newsworld on Oct. 23. The Union screens at VIFF on Oct. 10 and 11. Weirdsville screens at VIFF tomorrow and Tuesday and opens in four Canadian cities on Oct. 12.
News Hawk- User https://www.420magazine.com
Source: Globe & Mail.com
Author: MARSHA LEDERMAN
Contact: globeandmail.com: Canada's National Newspaper
Copyright: 2007 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc.
Website: globeandmail.com: Cannabis culture lights up the festival
