Pubdate: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 Source: Kootenay News Advertiser (CN BC) Copyright: 2003 Kootenay News Advertiser Contact: http://www.kootenayadvertiser.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2651 Note: editor prefers to receive letters by email NETTIE WILD IN CRANBROOK TO SHOW HER AWARD-WINNING FILM The winner of the Most Popular Canadian Film at the Vancouver International Film Festival will show in Cranbrook Thursday, April 3 at Columbia Theatre at 7:00 pm. A community forum will follow the screening, moderated by producer/director Nettie Wild. For over two years Wild and her documentary crew delved deep into the alleys and politics of Vancouver's notorious drug scene. The result is FIX: The Story of an Addicted City, a documentary as unexpected as it is compelling. Wild is familiar to film audiences as the director of A Place Called Chiapas (1999), Blockade (1993) and A Rustling of Leaves: Inside the Philippine Revolution (1989). FIX: The Story of an Addicted City follows a human story that will resonate in every big city and small town across Canada. Dean Wilson is in love with drugs and with activist Ann Livingston. As Dean struggles to overcome his addiction, he and Ann organize the drug users of Vancouver's downtown eastside to open Canada's first safe injection site. Together they forge an unexpected alliance with the conservative mayor of Vancouver, Philip Owen. The mayor ends up being pushed out of his own political party because of his support for the addicts and safe injection sites. The result is a dramatic story about love, drugs and politics. Renowned novelist Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient) says, "As a political act FIX is an urgent and just and heartbreaking film. As a work of art it expands the known limits of human nature with remarkable portraits." MacLean's magazine credits FIX with having influenced the outcome of Canada's first "drug election," Vancouver's mayoral race that swept Mayor Larry Campbell and his COPE party into power calling for safe injection sites and a new way of dealing with drugs and addiction. Guest speakers for the community forum include Pat Gibson Public Health Nurse, Interior Health, Cranbrook; Dean Nicholson, Adminis-trator, EK Alcohol & Drug Counselling Services; Alex Sherstibitoff, Needle Exchange, ANKORS West; and Megan Lewis, Project Coordinator, ANKORS West and one of the founding mothers of the Prostitutes Empowerment, Education & Resource Society in Victoria. FIX: The Story of an Addicted City is produced by Canada Wild Productions, in association with CTV, with the assistance of Telefilm Canada and British Columbia Film. with the participation of the Canadian Television Fund, CTF License Fee Program, Telefilm Canada Equity Investment Program, the participation of the Rogers Documentary Fund, in association with Knowledge Network, W-a Corus Entertainment Company, British Columbia Arts Council, CanWest Western Independent Producers Fund, with the assistance of the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit, and the Telus New Media and Broadcast Fund. The Kootenays tour of FIX: The Story of an Addicted City has been made possible in part by the BC Nurses' Union, Telefilm Canada and funds raised by Philip and Christian Owen. Special thanks go out to the Kootenay Moving Pictures Film Festival in Nelson. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth