Emmy nominated American film director, writer, producer and advocate, Marta Cunningham, visited Vancouver two weeks ago as part of a speaking / film screening tour to Canada. Her first feature, the documentary Valentine Road, was acquired by HBO documentaries and premiered to great acclaim at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. She has screened Valentine Road and spoken at over 25 American universities and several high schools.
In the Lower Mainland, Marta sat down for a discussion with Social Justice 12 class at Dr. Charles Best Secondary in Coquitlam. With around 20 students in attendance, Marta and the students had a fruitful conversation about poverty, racism, immigration, and how to think critically about these issues and promote a new status quo of tolerance and acceptance among their fellow students.
The U.S. Consulate General hosted two free general admission screenings of Valentine Road at The SFU Goldcorp Centre, and The Vancouver Public Library – Central Branch. Both screenings included a question and answer period with Marta. Many of these questions tackled social justice issues such as the incarceration of children as adults, transphobia, homophobia, and racism.
While in Vancouver, Marta participated in “Conversations that Matter,” a radio program which airs throughout British Columbia on CHEK TV and on the Vancouver Sun website. She also met with non-profit and municipal stakeholders to talk about efforts on combatting transphobia and homophobia. During her meeting with representatives of The Justice Education Society and the B.C. Teachers Federation, Marta learned about joint partnerships being carried out locally to bring awareness of social justice issues in the Vancouver school system.
