A City in the Forest

Co-presented by OPIRG

Time: 7:00pm Venue: Guelph Youth Music CentreTickets: $20/PWYW

Lev Omelchenko, Nolan Huber ⋅ USA ⋅ 99 min

When a police unit in Atlanta moves to raze an urban forest for the country's largest police training facility, a grassroots movement fights to defend the land. In this startling unconventional and frankly radical feature debut, directors Lev Omelchenko and Nolan Huber embed their camera within the protests, capturing a diverse, decentralized resistance that connects environmental racism, political corruption, police violence and the criminalization of dissent. What emerges is a collective portrait of one of America's most urgent social justice stories, where the fight to save a forest becomes about something much bigger.

Post Screening Event: The story of Atlanta's Cop City resistance movement is far from over. Join us for an update straight from the source - we will hear from Stop Cop City's Collective Defense Coordinator Jess Fuller on where cases currently stand and how people can best support defendants. Tying in a local context, we welcome Rachelle Friesen (Community Peacemaker Teams and Legal Support Committee in Toronto) in presenting We Keep Us Safe: 5 Lessons we have learned from 3 years of criminalization.

Director Bios:

Lev (he/him) is an Emmy Award-winning ATL and NYC based director. Born in Kramatorsk, Ukraine he immigrated with his family to Brooklyn at the age of 9. As a filmmaker, he is driven by collaborations with cultural and community labourers whose practice is outside the traditional film industry.

Nolan (they/he) is an Emmy Award-winning ATL and NYC based director, cinematographer, and visual journalist. Applying doctoral research on Narrative Paradigm Theory and Appreciative Inquiry to their cinematic approach, Nolan focuses on stories about subversive power and liberation movements in the American South.

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