Opening Night Gala

Tues May 22 | 7:30 pm | G7

Sat May 26 | 12 pm | VIFC Second Screening Added!

Sun May 27 | 12 pm | VIFC Third Screening Added!

Advance tickets for Saturday's screening are sold out at Tickets Tonight but are still available from Bibliophile Books and Videomatica.

Buy Tickets Online for the Sunday Screening

Directors: Jeff & Sue Turner, Canada/United Kingdom, 2006, 89 minutes
This film has been classified for all ages; no membership required.

CANADIAN PREMIERE. Directors & Charlie Russell in attendance

The grizzly bear is considered by many to be the most dangerous animal in the world. But Canadian grizzly bear expert Charlie Russell thinks differently. He believes that grizzlies are misunderstood animals and that our fear of them is not only unnecessary, but driving them to extinction. After a life of exploring the relationship between humans and grizzlies in Canada, Russell’s beliefs have taken him to Russia where he has been raising orphaned grizzly bear cubs in the wilderness of the Southern Kamchatka peninsula. For more than 10 years, sixty-five year old Russell has been rescuing orphaned cubs from squalid Russian zoos and releasing them into the last remaining grizzly bear sanctuary in the world. Becoming their surrogate mother, he struggles to teach them everything they need to survive a life in the wild.

The film follows Russell as he rescues two orphaned cubs from a zoo where they are soon to be killed and takes them to his cabin in the remote sanctuary. Over the course of one season he has to introduce the cubs to their new home, teaching them everything he can about a life in the wild. They have to learn the lay of the land, what plants to eat, how to catch fish and how to escape from predatory male bears. The film shows extraordinary scenes of Russell encountering adult grizzlies and holding his ground while protecting his charges.

Raising orphaned grizzly bear cubs, Charlie has been given a rare insight into the world of bears. He has learned that grizzly bears are not the fearsome aggressive killers that so many believe them to be, but rather are gentle, peaceful creatures and that it is possible for humans and bears to live together peacefully and safely, sharing this earth.

With breathtaking footage of grizzlies in a stunning geography, The Edge of Eden brings us closer than most of us will ever be to thesemagnificent animals.

Directors’ Biography

Jeff and Sue Turner are a Canadian husband and wife wildlife filmmaking team that have been making films professionally for the past 20 years for BBC, CBC, PBS, Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel. They have written, directed, produced and photographed more than twenty films in that time and have won numerous awards for their work including a British Academy Award Nomination. Their films have been seen around the world in over 40 countries from Singapore to South Africa and from Portugal to Peru. They work with wild animals in wilderness settings and some of their film projects have included the white Ghost Bears of coastal BC; the grizzly bear in Canada, Alaska and the lower 48 states; wolves and buffalo in Wood Buffalo National Park; wolves and caribou in the high Arctic and in the barrenlands; as well as ravens, black bears, cougars and many others. Jeff and Sue have a strong connection to bears, producing six different films on bears since 1991.

Preceded by:

If a Tree Falls

Music Video; Artist: Bruce Cockburn, Canada, 1988, 5 minutes
– See curator's essay Rockumentaries

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