Planet in Focus International Environmental Film & Video Festival

Mikael Rioux became an activist when the river he loved, Trois-Pistoles in Quebec, was threatened. Once an angry young man, now a young father, he worries about the legacy he will leave to his son. His mentor, Christian de Laet, suggests meeting visionaries with projects for the future of society. Earth Keepers is a manifesto against apathy. We meet India's Ashok Khosla, who is putting development back in the hands of local populations. Canadian 'eco-designer' John Todd shows his 'living machines' which mimic the cycles of nature for waste-water reclamation. Sweden's Karl-Henrich Robort teaches corporations and municipalities how to integrate the cycles of nature into their management practices. Finally, we meet Kenya's Wangari Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement, which has overseen millions of trees planted by women who are taking the future of their environment into their own hands. Mikael comes home energized and plans his own legacy.

If Farley Mowat invited you to visit, what would you do? Leanne Allison and Karsten Heuer knew Canada's storyteller through his books, activism, and through controversy . They couldn't imagine flying to see him. So they packed their 2-year old son Zev and dog Willow into an 18-foot canoe. Travelling 5,000 kilometers from Canmore, Alberta to Cape Breton, the family chose a route across the prairies, barren lands and the Maritimes. Mapping settings from many of their hero's beloved classics, they paddled, walked and sailed to create a film that revisits literary landscapes and reassures us the Canadian wilderness still exists. On the way, they frame breathtaking vistas of our country far from well-traveled roads and capture intimate family moments with a whittled canoe, rhyming games by the campfire and the bugs in the pants. Farley Mowat once wrote: "I'll never forget how it felt, a place without walls. Of being in an open, unfettered world." This family will never forget this trip, and neither will you.