ORION lecture by award-winning documentary filmmaker Velcrow Ripper, giving a lecture entitled “Cinema as a Tool for Transforming Crisis.” This is a recording of the online event.

“We live in a time of record-breaking crisis, but it’s also a time of record-breaking vision.”

 Velcrow Ripper is a neurodivergent filmmaker who creates powerful, cinematic feature documentaries that deal with the central issues of our times. His films are released widely in movie theatres, streaming, broadcast and community screenings around the world. They have featured luminaries such as bell hooks, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Thich Nhat Hahn, Alice Walker, and Congressman John Lewis. His epic Fierce Light Trilogy began with Scared Sacred, a journey to the Ground Zeroes of the world, winner of the 2005 Genie (Canadian Academy) Award for best feature documentary, continued with Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action, and concluded with Occupy Love. His film about elders and the struggle to save the ancient forests, Bones of the Forest (co-directed with Heather Frise) won nine awards.