Face 2 Face With David Peck

Nandita Das and David Peck talk about her new film Manto, dignity and context, subversive push back, normalized equality, deep convictions, having a social conscience and activism and why you need to be yourself, because everyone else is already taken.  Trailer Synopsis Manto begins in an optimistic India waiting to be free from British colonial rule. No one has any idea of the upheaval the Partition of India and Pakistan will soon bring. Riots between Hindu and Muslim pit neighbour against neighbour, and strain even the deepest friendship. During this period, Manto - one of history’s greatest short story writers - is torn between his beloved Bombay, and moving to Pakistan. Increasingly, his writings bear shocking witness to a society caught up in communal violence in which people become, for no reason at all, predators or prey. Meanwhile, Manto’s own flawed humanity drives him to shine a light on the dark underbelly of society that so many chose to ignore.  As Manto fights to clear h

There are two certainties in life right? And one of those things is taxes. At least that’s the cliché we are so often reminded of in casual conversation. Death, assisted care and ending life well are not things we often talk about. Janet Dunnett wants to change that. The stats suggest that one in four Canadians will be living in assisted care in the not so distant future. Sobering though really isn’t it?Janet Dunnett and Face2Face host David Peck talk about her new book The Dwindling, A Daughter’s Caregiving Journey to the Edge of Life, the death positive movement, guilt, shame, responsibility and the importance of story. BiographyJanet Dunnett came of age in a remote part of the Himalayas where she worked as a volunteer teacher of pre-schoolers. The experience led her into a career in the federal government’s development assistance program where she became adept at pushing for policies that would work to make things better for people whose voices were not being heard. Caregiving came as second nature though

Molly Murphy and David Peck talk about The Mudgirls Building Initiative, patriarchy, capitalism, applied activism, patience and problem solving and why its important not to leave anyone behind. Biography The Mudgirls are a network of women builders on the west coast of BC, Canada. They specialize in using local, natural and recycled materials and can be hired to build with you or for you and to create whatever your heart desires. They are experienced in building everything from cob cabins, ovens and benches to installing natural insulation, earthen floors and wall plasters in any style of home.The Mudgirls live and work in Vancouver, Nanaimo, Saltspring Island, Denman Island, Lasqueti island and the Sunshine Coast.For more information head here: www.mudgirls.ca Image Copyright: The Mudgirls. Used with permission. For more information about David Peck’s podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here. With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound. See

Filming in difficult conditions led producer Marina Cordoni to comment that she faced, …one of the most important days of her life. This was on the set of the new film Never Saw It Coming. This is a feminist drama starring her and director Gail Harvey.Keisha Ceylon is a psychic. At least, that’s what she passes herself off as. She watches the news for stories of missing family members and by the way, she charges for this service, and likes to see the money up front. Keisha’s latest mark is a man whose wife disappeared a week ago. So she pays a visit to our troubled husband and tells him her vision. The trouble is her vision just happens to be close enough to the truth that it leaves this man rattled. And it may very well leave Keisha dead.Please check out the new Trailer here.This led Gail Harvey and Marina Cordoni and Face2face host David Peck to talk about the cement ceiling for women, hope, communication and hard work, people management and collaboration, pushing boundaries, and why women in the indus

The current Indian act was first passed in 1876 -- it's been amended but the original act is still in force. In 2002, there were twenty major amendments made but the fact remains that it's based on an old act that was written when settlers' relationships with Indigenous people was different than it is today.The Indian Act is a dense document and there are many things wrong with it. Today's Face2Face guest, Bob Joseph, doesn't tackle the entire Indian Act, but he does have plenty of meaningful things to say about a way forward. His book, released in the spring is called 21 Things You Didn't Know About The Indian Act.He spoke to Face2Face host and producer David Peck about the book, identity, culture and potlatches, Canadian soul searching and why we’re not a melting pot.Bob Joseph is the founder of Indigenous Corporate Training Inc., and member of the Gwawaenuk Nation. He has provided training on Indigenous and Aboriginal relations since 1994. He is a certified master trainer, former associate p

Dev Aujla and David Peck talk about 50 Ways to Get A Job, finding meaning in the simple things, giving back, the road less travelled and why relationships are key to pretty much everything.Dev Aujla is the CEO of Catalog, an insight and recruiting firm that has provided talent and strategy to some of the world’s most innovative companies including BMW, GOOD Magazine, Change.org, and Planned Parenthood.His writing and work have been featured in dozens of media outlets including the New York Times, Glamour, MSNBC, CBC and The Globe and Mail. He is the author of Making Good: Finding Meaning, Money and Community in a Changing World and 50 Ways to Get a Job: An Unconventional Guide to Finding Work on Your Terms. Image Copyright: Dev Aujla. Used with permission.For more information about David Peck’s podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here.With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-ou

    Adriane Franklin and David Peck talk about feminine hygiene, poverty and social justice, simple solutions, her desire for a more equitable playing field and why the little things matter. Adriane Franklin is the volunteer creator and team leader of the Mississauga Days for Girls team.  She started the team in March 2016 after hearing about it the Christmas before and thinking about what a perfect fit it would be for her.  Adriane has extensive experience, particularly in working with teenage girls through her work at camps, a pregnancy support centre, coaching teams, tutoring and her position as a secondary school business and economics teacher. One of her hobbies is sewing and she is very interested in and passionate about social justice issues.  She also freely discusses feminine issues like inequality and health issues and has a keen interest in bettering the world for girls as she raises two of her own. So, Days for Girls is a natural fit. Days for Girls’ focus is giving days of education and work bac

Greg Paul and David Peck talk about his weapons of love, bad, crazy, vicious religion, belief, and the politics of fear, vulnerability, oppression, exclusion and the enormous problem of faith. Greg Paul is a pastor and member, as well as the founder, of the Sanctuary community in Toronto. Sanctuary, a community in which people who are wealthy and people who are poor live, work and share their experiences and resources on a daily basis, makes a priority of welcoming and caring for some of the most hurting and excluded people in Canada’s largest city, including people struggling with addiction, mental illness, prostitution, and homelessness. Greg is the author of the recently released Resurrecting Religion and several other award-winning books: Simply Open; Close Enough to Hear God Breathe; The Twenty-Piece Shuffle; and God In The Alley.  He is the father of four children, and married to Maggie, who has three children of her own. For more information please head here: www.sanctuarytoronto Image Copyright: Greg

Andrew MacLeod and David Peck talk about mental health, choices and social context, addiction, brokenness, trauma, thinking collectively and a health in all policies approach to wellness. Synopsis Never before have individuals faced so much conflicting information about how to be healthy: a constant rotation of fad diets, extreme workout regimens and celebrity-endorsed supplements are regularly hyped as the latest cure for all modern ills. We also maintain a massive health care system that absorbs a steadily growing share of public spending. As health has increasingly come to occupy a prominent role in our lives and headlines, however, we’ve tended to ignore that many of the the most significant contributors to making and keeping us well lie outside both the medical system and our individual control—income, education, employment, housing, environmental factors and social supports. In All Together Healthy, award-winning author Andrew MacLeod digs deep to discover how to build a healthy society, examines inequ

Ajay Parasram and I talked about redemption songs and protest music, solidarity as a verb, inspiration, cosmopolitanism, Bob Marley and why some of the best activists are in the hard sciences. Biography Ajay Parasram is a transnational, multi-generational by-product of British empire living and working in K’jipuktuk, unceded Mi’kma’qi. He is Assistant Professor in the departments of International Development Studies and History at Dalhousie University, where he researches and teaches on the broad significance of the colonial encounter and the colonial present, as well as a third year course in International Development Activism. ---------- Image Copyright: Ajay Parasram. Used with permission. For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here. With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Cameron Mullenneaux and David Peck talk about her brave and brilliant new film Exit Music, regrets and imagination, living and dying well, short-term goals and being guided by love. Synopsis Exit Music is a documentary film that travels the intimate and complex path of terminal illness. Ethan Rice was born with cystic fibrosis, an incurable genetic illness that eventually leads to respiratory failure. At their home in a small upstate New York community, Ethan and his family live in constant uncertainty as the disease takes more and more away from them. While medical interventions continue to keep him alive well beyond his prognosis, 28-year-old Ethan questions day-by-day how long he is willing to fight and what his absence will mean to those he leaves behind. With stunning access, the film closely follows Ethan’s final months, weeks, days and hours and is witness to death’s transformative influence on a family. Home video footage traces the bond between Ethan and his father Ed, a Vietnam veteran with PTSD who

Margarita Cadenas and David Peck talk about her new film Women of the Venezuelan Chaos, truth and justice, human rights abuses, food shortages and why we must speak truth to power. Synopsis Five Venezuelan women, from different backgrounds and generations, draw a portrait of their collapsing country that faces a significant social, economic, power, and political crisis in its 200-year history.  Their lives and testimonies speak of the urgency in which the locals are plunged into. Each of them lets us inside of their lives as they face critical food and medicine shortages, rampant injustice, and widespread criminality.  Their stories are a part of what’s currently going on inside Venezuela. Watch the trailer here. Biography Margarita Cadenas is a screenwriter, director and producer of French-Venezuelan nationality based in Paris, France.  Before becoming a director, Margarita Cadenas produced numerous French commercials around the world and worked as a co-writer and producer for French television. Learn more

  Velcrow Ripper, Nova Ami and David Peck talk about the myth of Proteus, cynicism, grieving loss, submersive art, futurelessness and what wise and radical hope really looks like. Synopsis A poem for the planet, Nova Ami and Velcow Ripper’s film Metamorphosis takes the pulse of our Earth and bears witness to a moment of profound change: the loss of one world, and the birth of another. Metamorphosis captures the true scale of the global environmental crisis. Forest fires consume communities, species vanish, and entire ecosystems collapse. Economic growth, tied to increased speed of resource extraction, has created a machine with the capacity to destroy all life. But this crisis is also an opportunity for transformation. Through a tidal flow of stunning images, Metamorphosis carves a path from the present to the future, and offers a bold new vision for humanity and the world. In Milan, architects design vertical forests, urban towers covered with trees and bushes that reduce CO2, produce oxygen, and give new li

Mor Loushy, Daniel Sivan and David Peck talk about The Oslo Diaries, secret meetings, common languages, enemies as friends, land disputes and what we’re leaving behind for our children. Synopsis In 1992, with Israeli-Palestinian relations at an all-time low and any communication punishable with jail time, a small group of Israelis and Palestinians gathered in Oslo – secretly and against the law. Although the meetings that came to be known as The Oslo Accords changed the Middle East forever, they were never officially sanctioned and were chronicled only by the negotiators' diaries. In The Oslo Diaries, directors Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan (Censored Voices, Sundance 2015) bring us a riveting account of 1100 days of secret talks as told by the people who were there at the table.  The participants’ detailed and often emotional entries recount the political intrigue, fiery rhetoric, unlikely friendships, and overwhelming desire for peace that were the heart of the negotiations. Featuring never-before-seen footage

  Matthew Shoycet, Ricki Gurwitz and David Peck talk about their new film The Accountant of Auschwitz, guilt, complicity, brainwashing and where one draws moral versus legal lines. Synopsis In the sleepy town of Luneberg, Germany, most days are quiet and uneventful. But one morning in September 2014, a 93 year-old man was charged with accessory to murder...of 300,000 people. Seventy years earlier, Oskar Gröning was an accountant at Auschwitz, the infamous concentration camp where more than 1 million people were murdered by the Nazis. As men, women and children spilled out from overcrowded trains, Gröning’s job was to catalogue their valuables – belongings, he said, “they no longer needed”. After the war, Germany had little interest in prosecuting its own and the vast majority of perpetrators went unpunished. With a shift in legal thinking, Germany is now using a wider net to go after SS guards, complicit cogs in Hitler’s killing machine. But by now, most have either died or are too sick to face prosecution. O

Julie Eng, Daniel Zuckerbot and David Peck talk about their new film The Science of Magic, change blindness, assumptions, subverting reality, free will, doubt and the problems of perception. Synopsis Magic has become the latest investigative tool for scientists exploring human cognition, neurobiology, and behaviour. Across Canada, the US and Europe, our film follows researchers who are bringing magicians’ tricks into the laboratory.  With impossible magic, amazing facts, and opportunities for viewers to participate in the magic, this extraordinary exploration peeks behind the curtain into a fascinating world where ancient magic meets modern science.  Canadian magician and executive director of the arts organization Magicana, Julie Eng not only mystifies us with magic, she also takes us to Montreal’s McGill University to meet Jay Olson. He is one of the scientists spearheading this novel and powerful approach to experimental psychology.  On the streets of Montreal Julie and Jay use card tricks to help us under

Brian McLaren and David Peck talk about his new book The Great Spiritual Migration, framing stories, confirmation bias, difference as assets, patriarchy as a weapon, a system of beliefs versus a way of life and the way of love. Biography Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for a new kind of Christianity – just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good. He is an Auburn Senior Fellow and a leader in the Convergence Network, through which he is developing an innovative training/mentoring program for pastors, church planters, and lay leaders called Convergence Leadership Project. He works closely with the Center for Progressive Renewal/Convergence, the Wild Goose Festival and the Fair Food Program‘s Faith Working Group. Born in 1956, he graduated from University of Maryland with degrees in English (BA, summa cum laude, 1978, and MA, in 1981). His academic interests included medi

Elizabeth Mirzaei and David Peck talk about her new film Laila At The Bridge, opium production in Afghanistan, freedom and oppression, bravery, corruption and persistence, corruption, systemic misogyny and the love of a Mother.  Synopsis In a country offering almost no treatment services despite a crisis of addiction, Laila Haidari took the highly unusual decision to found her own pioneering addiction treatment center and a restaurant where all of the waiters are recovering heroin addicts. Her brother Hakim, a solidly recovered addict, runs her free treatment center, which offers services for both men and women. As a former child bride she has known hardship in her 40 years. And she revisits that misery regularly as she mingles with drug-addicts, huddled under a Kabul bridge. She encounters corpses. And she meets the near-dead, malnourished and sick who she tries to convince to accompany her to Mother Camp. “When I listen to their pain, I forget my own,” says Laila, who has struggled to provide sanctuary for

Pablo Bryant, Fish and David Peck talk about their new film Cartooning from the Deep End, politics and power, personal responsibility, why life is precious and asking good questions and living in a sell out culture. Synopsis In this feature documentary we discover the dangerously funny cartoonist Mr. Fish, struggling to make a living in an industry that is dying out. In a world where consumerism is king, and opportunities are few, will this uncensored artist find a way to sell his art, or be forced to sell himself out? Mr. Fish has been published in the LA weekly, Harpers, the Village Voice, The Nation and truthdig.com, as well as having his first book GO FISH published through Akashic press. F.X Feeney says, “He places you in the contradiction….He is a poet who’s operating with a cartoonists pen, and with a satirist’s goal of making you see further.” This intimate documentary follows the artist as he struggles to stay true to his creativity in a world where biting satiric humour has an ever-diminishing comme

Alba Sotorra and David Peck talk about her new film Commander Arian, liberation, gender disparity, equal rights, real democracy, implementing a feminist state and women, war and freedom. Synopsis Filmmaker Alba Sotorra embeds with this group of Kurdish resistance fighters gaining unprecedented access to the Commander and her troops, when Commander Arian is hit by 5 bullets, Sotorra helps nurse her back from the brink of death. On the front line of the Syrian war, 30-year-old Commander Arian guides a female battalion towards the city of Kobane to release its people from the grip of ISIS in Alba Sotorra's empowering tale of emancipation and freedom. When the war in Syria broke, a group of women from the Kurdish resistance assembled the YPJ—Women's Protection Unit. Arian, who witnessed at a young age the nefarious treatment of sexual assault victims, leads the unit and dedicates her life to battling ISIS. As the YPJ inches closer to their target, she implores her comrades to discover the true meaning of their fi