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The annual Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) is coming upon us soon, and, as always, will feature an outstanding variety of independent award-winning films. The festival takes place at various local theatres from September 26th to October 11th, 2019, and a full schedule can be found here. To start this show, our guest co-host Namir shares a review of the film “Murmur“.
It’s a Canadian docufiction picture, directed by Heather Young, and tells the story of a woman who fulfills a community service sentence at an animal shelter, after which she adopts a dog, and takes on more and more companion animals to fill a void in her life. This film plays at VIFF on September 27th and 29th. To purchase tickets for this film, you can click here.
Be Fair Be Vegan Toronto Campaign Takes Over the TTC
On September 1st, Toronto was struck by its most widespread and visually stunning animal rights campaign to date. It’s a large scale multimedia animal justice campaign called “Be Fair Be Vegan“, and is run by the Colorado non-profit Be Fair Be Vegan, created by activist Joanna Lucas. “Be Fair Be Vegan” is the first high-profile vegan campaign in the US to present the end of all animal use as a prerequisite for a fair and just society, and was launched in New York City in August of 2016. Since then, it has made its way to places such as Melbourne, Australia; Seattle; and Montréal.
Actor and vegan activist Joaquin Phoenix visited the subway display this Monday. Photo by Jo-Anne McArthur.
Earlier this week, the mainstream media headlined this campaign as life-long vegan and animal activist Joaquin Phoenix was in town to receive an award at the Toronto International Film Festival. Local campaign organizers asked him the day before if he would be able to take part in a media event to showcase the displays at a Toronto subway station, and he agreed. Toronto activist Anita Kranjc spoke for him before the many cameras of the media and the next day it was all over the news in over 25 outlets, pushing forth the message of veganism and animal compassion even further than imagined!
In this interview, we speak to “Be Fair Be Vegan” spokesperson Angel Flinn to learn more about the impacts of the current Toronto campaign and other worldwide campaigns, and to find out how YOU can, too, bring such a ad campaign to your city.
The giant and striking bus and subway displays will be there for at least the month of September, but it can go further if funds are raised. If you would like to support the continuation of the “Be Fair Be Vegan” campaign in Toronto, you can make a donation at the GoFundMe page here.
Almira Tanner, of Direct Action Everywhere, on the New State-wide Fur Ban in California
Almira Tanner, DxE’s new lead organizer.
More headlines this week for the animals! The non-profit organization Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) has been working hard in the past years to enact a ban on the sales of fur, which they successfully achieved in the City of San Francisco last year. And now, just this week, another win for the animals was achieved.
This Wednesday, the California Senate voted YES to ban the sale of new fur products state-wide. (Yes, that includes Canada Goose!) The ban will take place in 2023 and this marks the first state or province world-wide that has enacted a fur ban.
Worldwide, over 100 million animals are abused and killed for their fur every year. Whether raised on fur farms or trapped from the wild, fur-bearing animals including: foxes, coyotes, wolves, bobcats, beavers, otters, dogs, cats, and raccoon dogs, have unimaginable cruelty inflicted upon them by the fur industry.
In this interview, new leader of Direct Action Everywhere – SF Bay area chapter, Almira Tanner, speaks to us about the steps that had to take place in this lengthy campaign against the fur industry, and what this now may mean for future state-wide (or province-wide) bans to come. Is the fur industry now crumbling down, as it seems to be? (we think so!) We also speak about some of the deceitful tactics that the $5 billion fur industry employs in order to create a façade of “humane” fur and proponents for the industry (who are picked off the street and paid to show up to protests and government meetings).
Almira also speaks with us about what she foresees in the future for the growth in liberation for the animals under her leadership in DxE.