From Straight.com – Feb 11, 2011

by Matthew Burrows

When local filmmaker Damien Gillis took his equipment up to B.C.’s north
and central coast and got to witness firsthand the humpback whales
swimming freely, he almost got a lump in his throat. And that’s hard to
do to the burly 31-year-old who looks like a rugby forward and has a
baritone voice made for broadcasting.

“I love this province, and my primary function is to serve, through my
media work, to highlight issues that I see as being the biggest threats
to the environment and public interest in B.C.,” Gillis told the Georgia Straight by phone on February 10. “Along with [long-time radio broadcaster] Rafe Mair, through our new organization [Common Sense Canadian], we are touring the province and really talking about rivers, salmon, and oil tankers and oil pipelines.”

It is the last two on that list that make up the subject matter for
Gillis’s thought-provoking 17-minute documentary short entitled “Oil in
Eden: The Battle to Protect Canada’s Pacific Coast”, which will screen this Sunday (February 13) at the World Community Film Festival at Langara College.

The film details the issues involved in building the proposed Enbridge
Northern Gateway Pipelines from Alberta’s tar sands to Kitimat, B.C.,
where oil supertankers would load and ply coastal waters off the
province’s Great bear Rainforest for the first time. For people who
can’t make it to the WCFF screening, “Oil in Eden” will screen at the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival on Wednesday (February 16) at North Vancouver’s Centennial Theatre
(2300 Lonsdale Avenue). A discussion will follow, with speakers from
pipeline opponents at Pacific Wild, Sierra Club B.C., the Gitga’at First
Nations, and others. (Tickets are $18 in advance or $20 at the door.)

Through his strong narration, Gillis explains in the movie that the area
he visited is home to orca, humpback whales, wild salmon, wolves,
grizzlies, and “the legendary spirit bear”, which is found only in that
region.

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