Animal Mother Films is a full service film production company based in Vancouver BC, dedicated to making provocative and engaging films that aren't ashamed to have a social conscience. Working with some of the most creative minds this city has to offer, AMF strives to tell stories that resonate with audiences well past the last frame and compel them to make a difference.
January 1, 2012
Happy New Year everyone! We're in full scheming mode here at AMF right now, brainstorming ideas for this year's productions and beyond. Please keep tuned to this space for updates and announcements as the year rolls on.
December 1, 2011
While taking a break from production for a bit, AMF principal Jon Ornoy has joined the Board of Directors for the BC chapter of the Documentary Organization of Canada. DOC lobbies for the rights of filmmakers at the national level, while DOCBC works on serving the needs of the local membership through workshops, speaker and advocacy. The term is for one year and we're very excited about this opportunity to give back to the filmmaking community.
September 24th, 2011
Wow, to just look at the AMF site you'd think that nothing's been going on all this time, but we've actually been quite busy over at WghTheMovie.ca, the official site for With Glowing Hearts. Three years in the making, this look at the intersection between social media and social justice, has been an extremely rewarding experience to produce and we're very excited about sending it out into the world now. For our friends in Canada, you'll be able to find the movie on CBC's documentary channel, while for foreign broadcast sales we've signed a deal with FilmOption International. The film will also be accessible online through an exciting new doc-centric VOD service called JoiningTheDocs.tv. Thanks to everyone who supported the project along the way, please keep spreding the word!
April 23, 2010
- Jon Ornoy will be representing AMF at this year's HotDocs Festival and will be in Toronto April 27 to May 12. Anyone interested in booking a meeting should do so at jon@animalmotherfilms.com.
April 16, 2010
- We've entered the post-production phase of With Glowing Hearts and are beginning to work through the 60+ hours of material we've amassed in the past 13 months. Stay tuned to our Twitter feed (@wghthemovie) and Facebook page as we release clips throughout the summer.
- AMF's "Plastic Bottles" is playing Sunday April 25th on Bravo!(Canada) as part of their Earth Day programming. It'll be on BravoFact presents which airs at 730PM EST 430PM PST
February 17, 2010
Day 6 of the Games and at 3 in the afternoon the lineup to get on the Skytrain at City Center almost reached the street (well not quite, but it was close). I'm heading off to beautiful Powell River tomorrow thanks to the organizers of the Powell River Film Festival who are playing "Plastic Bottles" in this year's extravaganza. They've also invited me to participate as a facilitator in their youth film camp which runs concurrent to the festival and should be an education for everyone, myself included!
January 29, 2010
First posting of the new year! With the 2010 Winter Olympics a mere two weeks away (with no snow in sight) we've been working very hard to get ourselves ready to cover all the elements of WGH. Keep your eyes open for our second webisode - about the True North Media House - going online today and two more before the games begin. We're also proud to report that we'll be attending the Powell River Film Festival which has graciously selected Plastic Bottles as part of its 2010 program.
November 30, 2009
wghthemovie.ca is now online! This is the official home for all things to do with "With Glowing Hearts", so be sure to check in regularly to keep up with developments!
November 26, 2009
Tomorrow is Buy Nothing Day picked this year to coincide with Black Friday in the US, the day before the unofficial start of the Christmas shopping madness. This year, let's try and make it a little less maddening.
November 24, 2009
As usual, things are busy around here. Andrew and I attended The New Transperancy at SFU last week, a two day conference of surveillance experts and academics that had chosen to gather this year in Vancouver in light of the coming Games. The weeked closed with a walking tour of downtown to have a look at some of the over 2000(!) surveillance cameras in the downtown core.
We've begun shooting the Voluntary Simplicity workshop for Plastic Wrapped with a great group of people out in Coquitlam, and it's going to be really interesting to see the sorts of evolution people will go through.
The website for With Glowing Hearts, wghthemovie.ca, is just days away from being launched and we're very excited about the official launch party which is going down Wednesday December 2nd. If you're interested in coming drop us a line. Keep your eyes open for the first of our webisodes coming very soon too...
Also wanted to pass this along from Karen Skadsheim from Pebble in Pond, a great little enviro group based in Powell River:
"We've also entered the Aviva Community Fund competition to raise money for a regional cloth bag program that we are developing for Powell River. If you could vote for us and encourage others, that would be just swell! http://www.avivacommunityfund.org/ideas/acf3120"
Get rid of pastic bags? Consider yourselves encouraged!
October 18, 2009
Photographer Chris Jordan has just returned from a trip to Midway Atoll, the most remote piece of land on Earth, with powerful pictures showing the toxic spread of our consumer lifestyle. The island's native Albatross population each year falls victim to feeding on the endless amounts of plastic bits in the surrounding waters and consequently starve with the stomachs full of plastic.
October 14, 2009
So what's new? Well first of all we just got back from Berkeley and interviewing the fantastic Annie Leonard for Plastic Wrapped. It was a wide ranging conversation that covered a lot of interesting ground and it's going to be a great addition to the film.
The official site for With Glowing Hearts is just getting polished and will be launched imminently. Keep an eye here and at wghthemovie.ca for updates.
We're also excited to report that "Critical" ahs been added to the curriculum at the University of Alberta as part of an ethics class in the Masters of Nursing program. Very cool!
September 6, 2009
More exciting news afoot. First off, we've confirmed Douglas Rushkoff as a participant in Plastic Wrapped. He is a best-selling author, professor of media studies at New School University, and documentarian in his own right.
We've also finished post-production on our Bravo!FACT-supported short "Plastic Bottles" and will update airdates for that program when they become available.
If that wasn't enough, we're also getting ready to head out this week to the Toronto International Film Festival to try and drum up some sales and support for our projects. You'll be able to follow the action on Twitter @wghthemovie
August 4, 2009
We're very excited to confirm the addition of Annie Leonard as another participant in Plastic Wrapped. Annie's fantastic site, the Story of Stuff, has received over 6 million hits and was recently profiled on the front page of the New York Times. Based on a decade's worth of research, the site's 20 minute video presentation clearly and simply explains the structure which keeps prices artificially low in the West (to encourage our consumption) by outsourcing the true costs to the Third World. I'll be heading down to Berkeley in October to interview her, should be fascinating.
August 3, 2009
Clearly we've been a little delinquent around here lately with the updates, so here's some of the fun and delicious things that have been going on:
-We didn't win at Banff but it was still a great experience and we got a lot of great feedback. It was good to have WGH's coming out party and now we just have to get it out to the rest of the world!
-You can now find the trailer for WGH here
-Completed filming on the trailer for Plastic Wrapped and will be in post-production for the next two weeks. Things went really well, the rotoscope animation of Chris is looking great, and I'm looking forward to getting it done
June 6, 2009
It's been a very hectic few weeks since our last posting, mainly because Andrew and I have been working furiously to get ready to head to the Banff World TV festival bright and early tommorrow morning. We've been invited to present our film With Glowing Hearts at an NFB sponsored cross platform pitchfest, as one of only three competitors. Keep your fingers crossed for us Monday, June 8th between 3-4pm. Results will be posted here.
May 21, 2009
Just got back from the super-fantastic 10th edition of the Media that Matters conference on Cortes Island. It was a very inspiring four days brainstorming and connecting with media-makers from around North America who are using their tools to affect positive social change. Can't wait for next year!
March 3, 2009
We're very happy to announce that AMF's short film Plastic Bottles, 2007, on artist Chris Jordan, has received a grant from BravoFact! Pre-production starts now and we hope to have a finished product by the end of April. Check out the official announcement.
January 29, 2009
The Lunar Effect will be screening twice as part of CineRail Wednesday 25th, March at 11:00 am and on Sunday 29th, March at 11:00 am, at «Les 7 Parnassiens» cinema.
January 13, 2009
Good News for the New Year!
AMF is proud to report that The Lunar Effect has received its first festival invitation, and is an official selection at CineRail, a week long festival happening in the heart of Paris, March 25-31. The festival, which only programs films about trains is in its 17th year. For more info check out www.cinerail-fest.com.
Showtimes to follow.
October 2, 2008
Hello and welcome,
This is the new home of Animal Mother Films and things are busy around here. We've just recently completed the short documentary "The Lunar Effect" and are awaiting the results from a number of festivals. At the same time, development is in full swing on the feature documentary project "Plastic Wrapped" which we are very excited about. Thanks for stopping by, if you've got any questions or comments please check out the contact page.