Films and Screenings

Our films, made with the input of experts from a number of disciplines, are widely used as community resources in labour and health professional outreach, awareness and educational programs and for national television broadcasts.WHEN hosts participatory workshops using film screenings as a springboard for lively discussion on how to take action for prevention in your own community. If you know of a group or organization that would like a WHEN workshop, contact us.

Toxic Trespass

A Film about Children’s Health and the Environment

In Toxic Trespass, intrepid filmmaker Barri Cohen launches an investigation into the effects of the chemical soup around us. She starts with her 10-year-old daughter, whose blood carries carcinogens like benzene and the long-banned DDT. Then Cohen heads out to Windsor and Sarnia, Canadian toxic hotspots with startling clusters of deadly diseases. The filmmaker journeys into toxic nightmares all too common in industrialized countries. She meets passionate activists working for positive change, along with doctors and scientists who see evidence of links between environmental pollution and health problems. And she learns how quickly barriers can go up sometimes, when authorities are questioned about the connection between toxins and serious health problems. This film is essential viewing for anyone concerned about the effects of pollutants on our – and our children’s – very DNA.

Toxic Trespass is accompanied by the comprehensive 66-page resource guide "Taking Action on Children’s Health and the Environment". This booklet provides guidance for educators, health professionals, parents, activists and concerned citizens who want to promote action for prevention.

Buy the DVD and Resource Guide

  • Canadian Screenwriting Award for Best Documentary, Writers Guild of Canada, 2008

  • Honourable Mention, Science and Technology category, Columbus Film and Video Festival, 2008

  • Best Health and Safety Documentary, Canadian Labour International Film Festival, 2009

  • Nominated for Golden Sheaf Award, Best Documentary, Yorkton Film Festival, 2009

Writer and Director: Barri Cohen, Producers: Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg, Mehernaz Lentin, Anita Lee, Executive Producers: Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg, Silvia Basmajian, Cinematography: Mark Caswell, Christian Bielz, Stephen Adamcryk, Editors: Paul Winestock, Charlotte Disher, Original Score: Richard Pell

 To mail or fax your order click here to print the order form. (To view and print the Toxic Trespass order form, you will need Adobe Reader) NOTE: For orders outside Canada, please contact customerservice@nfb.ca

For more information on the film and resource guide, visit www.toxictrespass.com

Exposure: Environmental links to breast cancer

Watch the documentary here.

  • Winner, Best Health Documentary - New York International Independent Film Festival, 2001

  • Broadcast on CBC Newsworld, TVO, Women's Television Network and several international broadcast outlets.

Director: Francine Zuckerman, Producers: Martha Butterfield & Francine Zuckerman, Associate Producer, Principal Research Consultant: Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg

This video was conceived in response to the growing public debate about the implications of our contaminated world on the health of women. Today one in three people will get cancer. One in four will die from it. In the 1950s, women in industrialised countries were at a one in twenty risk of developing breast cancer over their lifetime. Today that risk has skyrocketed to one in eight. Cancer can have many causes. Seventy to eighty percent of women with breast cancer have none of the "official" risk factors: family history (5-10%), hormonal and reproductive factors and a high fat diet. However, breast cancer rates are increasing all over the world and may be but the tip of the iceberg of other environmentally linked diseases. Timely, responsive and urgently needed, Exposure: Environmental Links To Breast Cancer can play a major role in raising awareness around the little understood, long-term connections between environment, health and disease prevention. It introduces issues and raises questions, awareness and opportunities. It offers strategies for dealing with current unacceptable environmental health conditions and for generating the social and political changes needed for a cleaner, safer world.

Feminist Collections: A Quarterly of Women's Studies Resources (v.28, no.1, Fall 2006, pp.19-23) has reviewed Exposure and its accompanying resource guide, Taking Action for a Healthy Future. To read the review click here.

Languages: DVD available in English, French and Spanish. Note: VHS versions in English, French and Spanish are available for FREE (shipping not included). Contact us!

To order this film online, click here.

To fax or mail your order click here and print the order form. (To print the Exposure order form, you will need Adobe Reader). Prices include the DVD and a 60-page Resource Guide (2009 edition) full of practical information related to the film. (Thanks to the Saunders-Matthey Foundation for the funding to update this resource guide).

Facilitator's Guide

Since 1997, WHEN has been training participants to become "environmental health multipliers". They learn to facilitate discussions, speak at conferences and organize screenings to educate their own communities. Do it yourself! Use WHEN's Facilitator's Guide with a copy of one of our films, Exposure or Toxic Trespass, and get a discussion going in your community! Contact us to become a Facilitator!