Peter A Allard School of Law

NECESSITY: DOCUMENTARY SCREENING AND DISCUSSION

Centre for the Law and the Environment Assistant

Centre for the Law and the Environment Assistant

Oct 20, 2022

Announcing NECESSITY Documentary Screening
Tuesday, October 11th, 2022, 5:30 PM PT
Norman Bouchard Memorial Theatre, UBC Vancouver

The Centre for Law and Environment (CLE) and Green College hosted a screening of Jan Haaken's NECESSITY, a two-part documentary on legal strategies, allyship & climate resistance.

This two-part film series unfolds around activists and their use of the necessity defense in jury trials in different regions of the US after being charged with trespassing.  Legal strategies in the climate movement take center stage as Indigenous leaders and Native and non-Native activists respond to the growing climate emergency.  From the Mississippi Headwaters, wild rice fields and Great Lakes in Part I to the rivers and mountains of the Columbia River Gorge in Part II, awe-inspiring terrains are sites of coordinated resistance to corporate expansion of oil through pipelines, rail and terminals to get their lethal products to market. As inspiring and hopeful as they are informative, the films show how alliances form around shared commitments to save the planet.

Running time for the two films is one hour and 52 minutes. The films were shown consecutively, with remarks by the director, Jan Haaken, followed by commentary from Professor Naomi Klein and a Q&A.

Tickets are pay what you can (suggested contribution of $10) and can be purchased at the door. 

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Photo of Jan Haaken

Jan Haaken is professor emeritus of psychology at Portland State University, a clinical psychologist, and an award-winning documentary filmmaker. Prior to the Necessity films, Haaken directed six feature films, including Our Bodies Our Doctors (2019), Milk Men: The Life and Times of Dairy Farmers (2016), Mind Zone: Therapists Behind the Front Lines (2014), Guilty Except for Insanity (2008), Queens of Heart: Community Therapists in Drag (2006) and Diamonds, Guns and Rice (2005). Her films focus on stressful jobs performed in liminal spaces and on the social margins. From refugee camps, war zones, psychiatric hospitals and abortion clinics to dairy farms, drag bars and hip-hop clubs, Haaken’s documentaries focus on people working in various border zones and their insights on the world around them.

Photo of Naomi Klein

Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, columnist, and international bestselling author of eight books including No LogoThe Shock DoctrineThis Changes EverythingNo Is Not Enough and On Fire, which have been translated into over 35 languages. She is Senior Correspondent for The Intercept and an inaugural Marielle Franco fellow of the Social Justice Initiative Portal Project at the University of Chicago. In 2018, she was named the inaugural Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University, and is now Honorary Professor of Media and Climate at Rutgers. In September 2021, she joined the University of British Columbia as UBC Professor of Climate Justice and is the founding co-director of the UBC Centre for Climate Justice.

Headshot of Stepan Wood

The event was moderated by Stepan Wood, Professor of law, Canada Research Chair in Law, Society & Sustainability and Director of the Centre for Law & the Environment at UBC’s Allard School of Law.

Flyer announcing NECESSITY documentary screening

  • Centre for Law and the Environment
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