On April 23, the sixth annual Earth Week Film Festival, organized by the City of Campbell River and the Youth Action Committee, will show the award-winning film Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story.
The event takes place at the Tidemark Theatre, with doors opening at 6:30 p.m. and the film starting at 7 p.m.
This eye-opening yet humorous film follows two B.C. filmmakers/food lovers as they dive into the issue of food waste from farm, through retail, all the way to the back of their own fridge. Inspired by the staggering estimate that nearly half of all food in North America ends up in the landfill, a young Vancouver couple, Grant Baldwin and Jenny Rustemeyer, pledge to quit grocery shopping and survive only on discarded food for six months.
“We waste a lot of food and don’t even realize it – such pointless waste,” says Nigel Neufeld, a Grade 11 student and chair of Campbell River’s Youth Action Committee. “We need food to live so why waste it?”
This year’s audience is in for a treat as filmmakers and stars of the film, Baldwin and Rustemeyer, will attend the Earth Week Film Festival. After the film, they will be available for a discussion and questions from the audience.
In 2012, the couple attended the Earth Week Film Festival for the showing of their previous award-winning film The Clean Bin Project, in which they dared each other not to produce any household waste for an entire year.
The festival is an action-packed event that coincides closely with Earth Day, and is intended to inspire the community and support local action on environmental projects. The event is often thought-provoking, humorous, and each year community organizations set up informative booths in the lobby to raise awareness about local environmental initiatives. This year, the Compost Education Centre, Comox Strathcona Waste Management, Greenways Land Trust, the city, the Youth Action Committee, Ross Mountain Farm, and Fiesta Greenhouses will be on hand to promote their local food and environmental initiatives.
The city’s Youth Action Committee (YAC) has helped organize the Earth Week Film Festival for the past three years, and has raised funds from the event for local environmental programs and student bursaries.
Admission for the festival is by donation at the door, and proceeds from the event will support a post-secondary environmental bursary for a graduating SD72 student.