Coextinction

DIRECTED BY gloria pancrazi, elena JEAN
produced by gloria pancrazi, elena JEAN, andrew luba, nicholas castel
www.coextinctionfilm.com

After the mother orca Tahlequah carries her dead calf for 17 days, Indigenous leaders and scientists make a desperate attempt to save the last 73 Southern Resident orcas from extinction. Coextinction takes audiences deep into the interconnected web of ecosystem collapse on the frontlines of the Pacific Northwest’s most pressing environmental threats. Fish farms, pipelines, dams, increasing vessel traffic, climate change, pollutants and centuries of injustice against Indigenous peoples are all connected. No species goes extinct in isolation.

IMPACT GOALS

Invigorate communities in BC to take directed actions to protect their immediate ecosystems.

Cross-pollinate streams of support to strengthen existing movements (especially Indigenous led), and their connection to each other.

Assist coalition building between movements to center a common call to action using the Coextinction film.

SELECTED ATTENDEES

SELECTED PLEDGES & PARTNERSHIPS

28 partners attended

$1250 donated

11 screenings pledged

9 networks opened

Canadian Orca Rescue Society
Eric Pittman, Co-Founder
Organize a screening, bring experience in educating people on these issues to the event. Will help reach out to organizations. Can provide a screening venue.”

Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment
Tim Takaro, Member
CAPE and Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility would be interested to see the film and explore some showings. $100 donation.

Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society BC
Rippon Madtha, Communications Manager
Can help promote the film and get as many eyes on it as they can. Would like to help support a screening.

Centre for Biological Diversity
Sophia Ressler, Staff Attorney
Will reach out to coworkers and hope to time a screening with some of the work they’re doing in Oregon.

Don't Cage Our Oceans
Andrianna Natsoulas, Campaign Director
Would love to do a joint screening with all affected communities. Share calls to action with current aquaculture initiatives.

Ecojustice
Caroline Simpson, Marketing Strategy Manager
Organize a screening for their supporters with a panel. Can offer to make introductions to people in their network. Can also help with promotion.

Friends of the San Juans
Lovel Pratt, Marine Protection and Policy Director
Will follow up with ideas for screenings.

Georgia Strait Alliance
Christianne Wilhelmson, Executive Director
Can help connect the film and its campaign with their network and funders.

Idaho Conservation League
Abbie Abramovich, Salmon Campaign Grassroots Coordinator
Would like to get a screening going in Washington State with a partner of Idaho Conservation League, with help organising and making introduction from Abbie.

Insight Global Education
Alicia Breck, Director of Community Programs
Would like to help connect youth, see if there’s a way to get this film screened in schools. Would work with SMI to organize talks/panels for the film. Would be great for youth to learn how to bring about change through their awareness, sharing on social media, possibly starting their own campaigns/initiatives, etc.

Marine Education and Research Society
Jackie Hildering, Co-Founder and Director of Education and Communications
Would like to support a screening. Will take direction from Ernest Alfred on how they can help and be of use on Northern Vancouver Island. Will promote the film and screenings!

Pacific Wild
Sydney Dixon, Marine Specialist
Happy to promote on their social media platform to share the film’s message and also happy to amplify the work of other organizations on these issues. Can also make introductions to other organizations on the West Coast.

Protect the Planet
Kate Tairyan, Member
Kate offered to share documented ecocide videos and images to support the work of anyone in the room. Interested in screening the film with her students and colleagues. Kate is a Health Sciences professor at Simon Fraser University. Offer to connect with anyone in the room, and help organize a screening. $50 donation.

The Whale Trail
Donna Sandstrom, Founder & Director
Would love to take meetings with film team to share perspective on the film and support efforts addressing noise pollution and how it affects Orcas.

University of Bergen
Karin Pittman, Professor of Fish Biology
Can help with the Norway screening at a film festival in Bergen. The Bergen international film festival is interested in screening the film in 2023. Kate teaches the environmental impact of aquaculture which is a discussion-based class exploring complex ethics so she would love to screen the film in class. The film also has a lot of overlap with her work in Chile.

Story Money Impact
Leonard Schein, board member
$1000 donation

Story Money Impact
Annette Frymer
$200 donation

FILMMAKERS STATEMENT

GLORIA: My name is Gloria. I am the co-director of Coextinction. Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved orcas. They are intelligent and compassionate. They grieve and celebrate together. And they work together through any adversity that comes their way. They teach us wisdom that the planet, and us as a society, deeply need right now. 

But the Southern Resident Orcas are facing extinction. They are starving to death.

In 2018, the world watched as a mother orca, J35 “Tahlequah”, carried her dead calf for 17 days. Many saw this tour of grief as a warning and a call for help. Her population, her family, is down to 73 individuals.

NICHOLAS: Hi there, I’m Nicholas, a Producer for Coextinction. I’ve been working with Indigenous communities on film projects for most of my professional life.

When we began Coextinction, we followed the thread of orcas starving. This quickly led us to Will George, a land defender from Tsleil-Waututh Nation fighting tirelessly to stop The Trans Mountain Pipeline from being built through his people’s unceded land. A pipeline that would increase tanker traffic in the Salish Sea by 700% making it incredibly difficult for the orcas to find their main food source – salmon.

The orcas also led us to the Broughton Archipelago, where Chief Ernest Alfred from ‘Namgis First Nation was in the middle of leading a 284 day occupation of illegal fish farms, built without consent in his Nation’s sacred waters. Fish farms that are killing wild salmon by spreading diseases. 

The orcas also took us inland, to Washington State, where 4 obsolete dams along the Snake River are killing millions of wild salmon every year. Where Carrie Nightwalker Schuster, from the Palouse tribe, was forcefully removed by the police at just 7 years old, in order for the dams to be built. She and her family continue to fight the government to be allowed back, to steward their lands and waters where she comes from.

All these stories may feel different, but they are inextricably linked. Coextinction ties these stories together into a single story about the interconnectedness between our environment and Indigenous rights. We are privileged to be working with Indigenous knowledge systems that have been stewarding the lands and waters of the orca since time immemorial. 

What began as a love for these whales, has become a movement for justice.

[Remarks from Chief Ernest Alfred] 

ANDREW: Hi, I’m Andrew! I used to work in environmental law with Ecojustice, and I’m one of the producers of Coextinction. 

Conservation work and documentaries have historically excluded Indigenous people from the conversation. In making Coextinction, our team worked to change that by ensuring that their traditional ecological knowledge remained front and center to the story. We built trust and mutual respect by openly communicating the intent of the film and ensuring that our co-collaborators had informed consent and veto power. As filmmakers, our role was to listen, amplify their voices, and provide a platform. We are so grateful for everyone in the film, how working together with them has transformed each of our lives, and the sense of family and care we’ve all created and continue to create together.

ANDREW: Coextinction shows that protecting the Southern Resident Orcas is intrinsically connected with dismantling colonial systems that have violently and covertly taken power from the rightful stewards of the lands and waters that the orcas call home.

Indigenous peoples are on the forefront of almost every regenerative movement that relates to the protection of the natural world. We must return power to these communities - the people who know.

Coextinction supports their work: 

1. By moving and changing people after they watch the film. Hosting more screenings of Coextinction, means more people will take action. 

2. By directing people to think interconnectedly. Audiences that walk into a theater caring about one issue, are given the tools to engage with and act on more.

3. By holding space for frontline Indigenous land defenders and organizations to work together to achieve mutual goals. 

NICHOLAS: The opportunity we have here, is for you to use our film as a tool to bring people together, to gather resources, and to unite audiences to solve these issues. We have invited each of you here, because of your expertise in these fields.

We are asking for your help with our impact campaign in 3 ways:

1. Do you know someone who needs to see Coextinction? Could you provide a venue, organize a meeting, or host a screening with a panel discussion?

   • We’re trying to get this film seen all across Cascadia – BC, WA, OR, in front of policy makers, and more.

   • Can you help us organize a screening in Alert Bay, Tsleil-Waututh, and Norway?

1. Can you support the work of our co-collaborators like Chief Ernest Alfred, Will George, and Carrie Nightwalker Schuster by giving direct introductions to philanthropists or funders?

1. Can you help us build a Coextinction Coalition of frontline partners and organizations across Cascadia that can support and empower each other around the issues in the film? 

GLORIA: Coextinction is ready to be seen and deployed in communities right now. We have already hosted around 50 screenings to over 5,000 people. And this is just the beginning. We are continuing to host screenings all across the Cascadia region.

Coextinction has a robust supporter network that is already reaching millions. We have a website, with many resources to take action. 

We’re sharing a link in the chat now where you can donate, and immediately receive a Canadian charitable tax receipt. There’s also a button on your screen!

We are already doing this work, and we’re in this for the long-run. But we need your help. The only way we’re going to create real change is by working together. Like the orcas are teaching us, let’s be the community the world needs.

PROGRAM FUNDERS

2022 SMI DONORS

SUPER APPRECIATED CHAMPION CIRCLE

Brian Hamilton
David Paperny & Audrey Mehler
Karen Lam
Leonard Schein
Lisa Purdy
Thunderbird Entertainment

SMI TEAM

BOARD

Tinu Mathur - President
Mary Barroll - Secretary
Vishal Hiralal - Treasurer
Annette Frymer
Cory Generoux
John Dippong
Leonard Schein
Loc Dao
Laura Plant
Liz Shorten
Marsha Newbery
Sholeh Fabbri

SMI Team

Sue Biely, Executive Director
Anthony Truong Swan, Impact Director
Brianna Girdler, Technical Director
Tamo Campos, Campaigns & Mentoring Lead
Josli Rockafella, Senior Impact Coordinator
Nikita Takkar, Impact Coordinator
Clare Clovechok, Impact Coordinator
Ari Conrad Birch, Media & Programming Coordinator
Val Hoye, Bookkeeper
Nancy Strong, Operations Manager
Caroline Manuel, Development Lead