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The Baby Formula is a comedy about a lesbian couple who try to conceive a child using sperm created from their own stem cells.

The Baby Formula is a comedy about a lesbian couple who try to conceive a child using sperm created from their own stem cells.

Look up. Way up. What do you see? What do you think you see?

In the swamps of eastern Arkansas it might be a whole lot of nothing. Or so Ghost Bird a new film by director Scott Crocker suggests.

The Ivory-billed woodpecker has long been considered the Holy Grail by diehard birders who refused to believe it went extinct over sixty years ago. So when scientists announced that the bird had been found in the small town of Brinkley, Arkansas, it was celebrated around the world as the rediscovery of a lifetime. But the skeptics aren't convinced, and the evidence isn't conclusive.

What follows is a deep meditation on the politics of scientific discovery, the revival of a small town, and the hope for a species long considered a ghost from the past. Ghost Bird is not a film about birds, or environmental conservation. Rather it is a story of loss and belief, our difficult relationship with nature and our own tragic culpability. Ghost Bird is fundamentally a story about people.

Ghost Bird has it's world premiere at Hot Docs on May 6th at 9:45 PM at the Cumberland theater and May 8th at 1:30PM at the ROM.

Before I was a blogger for This, I worked briefly as a media trainer in Zambia. The experience was challenging at the best of times and devastating at the worst, but overall I think I emerged a better person, and certainly gained a stronger understanding of the complex nature of international aid work. Suffice to say, sending your dollars to Africa isn't enough. Reporter, now screening at Hot Docs, attempts to answer some of these questions through the experiences of Nicholas Kristof, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the New York Times.

Professor Norman Cornett, a new documentary by filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin, explores the wrongful dismissal of the professor Norman Cornett from McGill University in 2007. Cornett won the affection of many students with his unconventional teaching methods, which favored stream of conscious reflections over academic essays and standardized tests. He encouraged his students to explore diverse issues from a personal standpoint, and rejected the notion that academic pursuit much by an impersonal proposition. Unfortunately, McGill University did not share his views on unconventional teaching techniques and opted not extend his contract when it came up for renewal (Professor Cornett was not tenured faculty.)

Director Alanis Obomsawin, who is the subject of this years Hot Docs retrospective, explores the nature of what is means to learn through the story of Professor Cornett. Through the eyes of his excited and eager former students, Obosawin creates a touching and tender tribute to both the Professor and the virtues of an open minded and generous spirit. While this is a small film with a local perspective, it honors the spirit of the documentary medium, calling attention to a grave injustice, and building awareness on what it means to be truly educated.

Professor Norman Cornett will have its world premiere on May 8th at 9:30 PM at the Bader Theater in Toronto, Canada.

I just finished an internship, and I'm returning to the freelancer's constant search for work, so I've been looking back over my portfolio and wondering: when editors read through my clippings, do they see reviews, news pieces, and columns, or do they see reviews of gay books, gay news, and a column about queer politics? I didn't set out to be a professional lesbian. I haven't decided yet what sort of journalist I want to be when I grow up so I want to keep my options open, but I worry that the more queer-themed writing I do, the more the label starts to stick.

[Editor's note: Every month, Eco-Chamber profiles an eco-activist from Canada and abroad, called "Eco-Warriors." Eco-Warriors takes a look at both the activist and the environmental issue they fight for, using such approaches as direct action, legal crusading, documentary filmmaking, or green commerce.]

As a lover of whales, Alex Morton left eastern plains of Connecticut for the mountainous rainforest of British Columbia. Setting out to study Orca whales, her research soon became more like of a "study of absence," with the whales becoming increasingly rare. She knew the food source of the Orcas was what really needed needed protection: B.C.'s wild salmon. Since there were few people advocating for wild salmon, she became an activist and a scientist.

Short film by Twyla Roscovich

Still the thrill of the game stuck with me. And it turns out I'm not alone. I caught up with Canadian filmmaker Alan Black to talk about his new film Jackpot! Set against the backdrop of a local Toronto Bingo hall, Jackpot! explores what it means to really win in life.

Your film is about a Bingo hall in Toronto. Where did the idea come from? Do you play a lot of Bingo?

It came from playing Bingo with my grandmother as a kid. Every Christmas we would go down to Florida to visit her and pass the days playing Bingo. It was a great experience, exciting and a great feeling to win. To this day is stands out as a really Important childhood memory. Later on in life I went to play Bingo as an adult and it was so different, people were so serious, it wasn't fun at all. There was this strange sub culture that I don't remember existing when I played as a kid. Then I read an article about a shooting outside a Bingo hall at Jane and Finch over $1500 bucks. Four people beat another person to death. Can you imagine killing someone for $300? It made me realize, playing Bingo is not about the money. I started to wonder "what are these people really after?"

This years festival is the largest in the history of Hot Docs. It's also arguably the most important. The global economic down turn, combined with the restructuring of Canadian government funding for film and television has created unprecedented challenges for documentary filmmakers. Recently, the Conservative government elected to abolish both the Canadian Television Fund (CTF) and the Canadian New Media Fund (CNMF). While these funds have been replaced by the Canadian Media Fund (CMF), the CMF is controlled by the cable industry, with no commitment to educational or documentary programming. Moreover, private broadcasters will have access to the CMF to produce their in-house productions. The result? Less financing for independent Canadian producers, more of tax payers money in the hands of private broadcasters and cable companies, and less quality Canadian content on our airwaves.

Independent Canadian documentary production is a $170 million dollar industry in Canada. It represents some of the best in educational Canadian content. While Hot Docs is a time of celebration for an industry with international recognition, it's also a time to pause and reflect on what kind of content we as Canadians want to see on our airwaves. Like it or not, television matters. And in my mind, television without Canadian content in no television worth having at all.

Today, just call me Chuck Woolery.

It seems like everyone has a pipeline for finding love online. The jews have JDate,christian values are covered by places like Christian Mingle and even cheaters have place to go at the controversial and highly publicized Ashley Madison Agency.

Online is also an important venue where many disabled daters believe they can leave their various limitations behind and just be themselves. Some choose to secretly assume the guise of able-bodied avatars on the popular online MMORPG Second Life and play out their fantasies that way, while others peruse the chatlines and profiles on various dating sites just for them.

Today, I'm assuming the role of the famed talkshow host, by running down what's out there online for disabled daters of all stripes, hoping one of you will find your own Love Connection.

Thanks to Coach House Books for helping us out with this contest!

For more information about My Winnipeg, go to www.chbooks.com. The Toronto launch of the book is happening at 7:30pm on May 12th at Revival, 783 College St. It's $5 at the door, or free if you buy a copy of the book.

One day. That's all. That's all the time dedicated to the environment by 174 nations. That's all the time some one billion people globally will participate in environmental action. That's all, out 365 days a year, and two generations elapsed, since the modern environmental movement began. Earth Day — that is all.

Today's Earth Day is the 39th Earth Day since its inception on April 22, 1970, by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson. Earth Day began with the aim of raising awareness of the environment. Today, the Earth Day Network encourages year round participation in the environment. But, typically, people join together on this one day, April 22nd, to do their part by attending an Earth Day festival, planting a tree, or going to a teach-in. But at a time when the entire Arctic ice sheet could be history as early as 2013, is this really enough?

Beyond Earth Day, there is the exploding WWF campaign of Earth Hour, that saw participation of nearly one-sixth the earth's population in 2009 (compared to just a hundred million the previous year). There are many cities that extend Earth Day into Earth Week activities. Planet Green is calling for an Earth Month, where "taking the next step" includes environmental volunteerism and "greening your life." Some, like Greenpeace Canada, call for a green year by making every day Earth Day, and counsels such things as going vegetarian and cutting back on plastic bottles.

But we need more than an Earth Hour, an Earth Day, an Earth Week, an Earth Month or even an Earth Year. Simply flicking off lights for an hour, planting a tree one day of the year, attending "green" events, volunteering occasionally, or recycling and using fewer plastic bags is not enough. We need more than that. We need an Earth Movement.

Ever notice that when you combine the words domestic and toxicity, you get domesticity? Well, I'm chock full of 'domesticity'. I know first hand what happens when extreme heat is applied to a ceramic plate. You can literally hear it wane before it bursts into a million lethal shards and invades the tile island of your kitchenette. Now there is a blood river on my floor, thanks to that new deep gash on the bottom of my foot. Time to get a girlfriend, no? That, or at least an able-bodied roommate to bail me out.

That's by far the worst domestic disaster I've ever been at the centre of, so far. Much is written about inaccessibility in the disabled world, but I've never seen anything about how a disability affects your domestic aptitude.

Yesterday Ray Lam stepped down as the NDP candidate for Vancouver-False Creek because one of his opponents objected to photos appearing on Lam's Facebook account. In one, a person "believed to be Lam" has his hand on an unidentified woman's breast (the picture appears at right). It seems safe to assume neither of the people depicted in the photo is sober. In another of the offending photos, the person "believed to be Lam" has his underwear showing and people are tugging on it. Boy, what the youths of today get up to.

I'm not saying the provincial Liberal party in B.C. can't pounce on a political hot-potato and exploit it if it's there for the taking, but honestly, it's time to step back and rethink this type of politicking in the age of Facebook.

It's a cheap, prudish attack, and we know the script well by now. A candidate broadly pantomimes that they are shocked, simply shocked, to find that his or her opponent isn't a saintly asexual teetotaler, and finds him- or herself duty bound to express that shock to the nearest reactionary media outlet. Usually, the attacking party, or sometimes a bored reporter, casts around for some ancient photo or blog post or mp3 of their opponent saying something embarrassing or irrelevant or offensive; the attacker then publicizes this piece of (usually) digital detritus and declares themselves offended; the defendant usually resigns in order to avoid "being a distraction" to the campaign, which is code for "everyone knows this is bullshit but a handful of loudmouth cretins won't stop talking about it."

The Lam photos are embarrassing, sure — even, gosh, inappropriate. But we've got to get over this idea that once-upon-a-time impropriety automatically and forever disqualifies you from public service or political candidacy. It's simply not realistic, and it's getting less so. In 10 years time, what political candidate will not have a backlog of evidence of their vaguely indelicate youth waiting to surface? She's flashing her hip tattoo! He's ironically throwing a gang sign! Quick, call the radio station, the public has to know! It's been used by candidates on both the right and the left — there are officious busybodies of every political stripe. Enough.

I don't write this post to defend Lam; I write it to condemn this asinine, priggish brand of political campaigning. You're running an election for the Province of B.C., not class president on Gossip Girl. Grow up.