As part of THE NFB IN LIBRARIES annual programming, the Carnegie Branch of the Vancouver Public Library is offering free public screening of the following films:

Modern Goose (Karsten Wall |2023 | 22 min 41 sec)

Director Karsten Wall’s exquisitely observed film essay Modern Goose embeds in the daily life of these iconic animals. In flipping the usual nature-film perspective to centre another form of consciousness, something radical begins to happen. The concrete sprawl of parking lots, drive-thru restaurants and busy highways transforms from normalized to something extremely unsettling. It isn’t the geese who are the interlopers here, but people who have forced the birds into the margins, disrupting age-old patterns.

Combining beauty, humour and profound empathy, Modern Goose reveals how the mysteries of the natural world persist in the face of continual urbanization. From the s-curve of their elegant black necks to the tips of their dinosaur-clawed toes, geese are tough, resourceful survivors, not only adapting but thriving. They wing their way forth, creating a living calligraphy against the evening sky, offering a deeper message of continuity and connection. The will and determination of wild creatures to find their way home endures.

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Sovereign Soil (David Curtis | 2019 | 91 min)

At the far-flung edge of Canada’s boreal forest, outside the tiny sub-Arctic town of Dawson City, Yukon, a handful of unlikely farmers are growing everything from snow-covered Brussels sprouts to apples. These modern-day agrarians have carved out small patches of fertile soil in an otherwise unforgiving expanse of isolated wilderness to make a living and a life.

Over the course of a year, Dawson filmmaker David Curtis follows these resilient, unassuming farmers—including a German immigrant, a young family that taps birch trees for syrup, a First Nations youth, and a matriarch who can shoot and quarter a moose—exploring life, death, and time through the simple, rich day-to-day of people deeply tied to the wilds. Sovereign Soil is an ode to the beauty of this ferocious, remote land and the wisdom of those who’ve chosen to call it home.

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Please visit organiser’s website for more info : https://www.vpl.ca/location/carnegie-branch