I am pleased to announce that Surviving In The Cracks has been selected for the 2012 program at the ReFrame Film Festival in Peterborough, Ontario.

ReFrame has featured exceptional documentaries such as Burma VJ and Wasteland. A little more about the festival:
“ReFrame celebrates the latest works created by film and video makers from our community, Canada and around the world. Although we primarily screen documentary film and video we accept some fictional/narrative work each year. We select films that will develop the audience’s appreciation and awareness of arts and culture and the social justice issues being explored in contemporary media today. We select films that will develop the audience’s appreciation and awareness of the potential and impact of the arts – particularly contemporary media – to convey social justice issues. ReFrame also offers programming for children (REELKids) and teens (Changing Our World).”

The screening will take place on Saturday, January 28 at 11:30am at the Showplace cinema. For more info: click here

Surviving In The Cracks website
ReFrame Film Festival website

My iPhone told me it was 31 West Hastings but I didn’t know it wasn’t until Carrall that East turns into West. So I parked in front of the Balmoral and walked. I must be kidding myself if I think I’ll ever be able to tell it like it really is in the Downtown Eastside. [...]

Dispossession will be opening a ‘solo’ show in the Lobby Gallery of the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the University of British Columbia on Tuesday, November 15. I will be there for the opening (4-6pm, food and drink will be served) to give a brief, informal artist talk and to chat about the next [...]

From the 2010 vault: Here’s a fun little piece that spawned from what was (and probably still is) the most stressful four days of my film career. Check out the musical talent that answered the call in less than 24 hours… and we had to turn away a few too! We drove all over the [...]

I am pleased to announce that the DVD and VOD (rental) of my documentary Surviving In The Cracks are finally available. It’s been two years since I wrapped shooting on this project. It’s seen the big screen a couple of times and gone through some tweaking but it has finally reached this point. I envisioned [...]

A new show Grant Mercs | For All Our Entropic States + Branko Djuras | Black and White With(out) the Grey opens this Friday, April 8 at the Gallery Gachet at 88 East Cordova in Vancouver. The showing of my piece, Dispossession, is enjoying its second extension and will be viewable in the salon area [...]

Well Kizuna is now complete. How times flies… but fortunately, Dispossession, the piece I created for Kizuna, will live on as it travels next to the Downtown East Side’s Gallery Gachet (88 East Cordova) to be shown for the second of three communities that helped make it possible. Dispossession will be on display in the [...]

We live in a fu*ked up world. Just go to a documentary film festival near you (or not so near you) and have a look at the program guide. Conflict minerals. Child labour. War. Rape. Murder. Oppression. Slavery. Afghanistan. The Congo. Palestine. Chechnya. Themes abundantly present in the documentaries we consume every day. Consume. Consumer. [...]

Hmmm… I have €20€17, $20, and £10 let in my wallet. Will that enough to get me through my sightseeing tomorrow? This morning I was preparing myself to leave and learned that I was off by a day. Sometime in the last 5 days I lost track of the date… here I was thinking I [...]

This morning we talked about distribution with two panel members Esther van Messel of First Hand Films and Andrew Mer of Snag Films with our very own Rudy Buttignol moderating. It was nice to hear the contrast between the more traditional distributor, First Hand Films, with that of Snag Films, an internet distributor. Nothing earth [...]