VICTORIA: Hadwin’s Judgement – Film Screening Fundraiser for the Ancient Forest Alliance! Sept. 29

2015 Canada/UK 87 minutes

Directed by Sasha Snow

Produced by Elizabeth Yake, Dave Allen, David Christensen & Yves J. Ma

Featuring Doug Chapman, Herb Hammond, John Vaillant

Winner of VIMFF Best Canadian Film * Nominated for Canadian Screen Award for Best Feature Length Documentary & Best Cinematography

Website: www.hadwinsjudgement.com/thefilm#titlepage

Hadwin’s Judgement is a spellbinding and visually stunning account of environmentalism, obsession, and myth set in the Pacific Northwest.  It chronicles one man’s resolute struggle to reconcile what he regarded as an intolerable and conspiratorial affront – not just to the land, but to humanity as well.  Based on John Vaillant’s award-winning book The Golden Spruce, the film covers the events that led up to the infamous destruction of an extraordinary 300-year-old tree held sacred by the indigenous Haida nation of Haida Gwaii, British Columbia.

Grant Hadwin, a logging engineer and formidable survivalist, lived and worked happily for many years in BC’s remote and ancient forests.  But witnessing the devastation wrought by clear-cutting finally drove him to commit what some would say was an extraordinary and perverse act, one that ran contrary to all he had come to value.

A compelling hybrid of drama and documentary, Hadwin’s Judgement interweaves speculation, myth and reality to explore the possible motives for Hadwin’s unprecedented crime and the consequences of his actions.  He film charts his emotional crusade against the destruction of the world’s last great temperate rainforest, a crusade that ends tragically with a mystery – and a prophetic warning – that seal Hadwin’s fate as both madman an visionary.

Proceeds of this film screening go to the Ancient Forest Alliance in their work to protect British Columbia’s endangered old-growth forests and to ensure a sustainable, second-growth forest industry. www.AncientForestAlliance.org