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Rainforest documentary shortlisted for award

Richard Boyce’s next project will look at potential implications on the coast because of Enbridge’s proposed pipeline

Even as he continues to go from strength to strength with his last movie, Errington filmmaker Richard Boyce is gearing up for an even more ambitious project — and he’s getting some encouraging signals about it from Canada’s national arts community.

Boyce’s 2011 film, Rainforeset, the Limit of Splendour, is currently slated to be shown at the Planet in Focus Film Festival, which runs from Oct. 10-14 in Toronto.

The event is considered to be the premier environmental film festival in the country.

Rainforest, a documentary that explores the issues around clearcut logging in British Columbia, premiered at last year’s Vancouver International Film Festival and won the Mountain Culture film award at the Whistler International Film Festival that same year.

Meanwhile, Boyce said he has been shortlisted for the Planet in Focus Green Pitch award for his next project.

“The Green Pitch is part of the Planet in Focus film festival but it’s a different event,” Boyce said. “It’s a juried competition where five people get to present their idea and concept to a jury and an audience of about 300 to 400 people. You then follow that with four minutes of questions from the jury, with no notes or prepared speech.”

It’s an important audition, with the winner being awarded $10,000 worth of services and cash to produce the film.

Boyce’s next project, he said, is called Coastal Tar Sands and deals with the potential implications of increased oil tanker traffic on the B.C. coast because of the proposed Enbridge pipeline.

“It’s a look at the implications of the supertankers that Enbridge plans to have on our coast,” he said. “The look is from the water and the coast, looking at the storms, surge tides, the fog, the landslides and the people who live along that coast and the wildlife that’s on those beaches and rocks.”

 

His idea was chosen from about 100 films to be on the shortlist. He makes his pitch to the jury on Oct. 12.