Toxic Trespass

Screening and discussion with producer

Date: Sunday October 23, 2011
Time: 1:00-3:00 pm
Location: Lower Social Room, Noor Cultural Centre
Admission: Free

In award-winning documentary Toxic Trespass, filmmaker Barri Cohen launches an investigation into the effects of the chemicals surrounding 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 where everyone seems to know children who have suffered respiratory illnesses, leukemia, brain tumours and other diseases. Perhaps most appalling among her discoveries are the roadblocks she encounters when she tries to get information from federal officials. This moving documentary is essential viewing for anyone concerned about the effects of pollutants on our – and our children’s – very DNA.

The film’s producer, Dr. Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg (PhD, MES), is an Environmental Health professor at University of Toronto, a film consultant, and a researcher, writer and speaker on environmental health, equality, social, economic and environmental justice, peace and energy issues. She is affiliated with various advocacy groups, including the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, and the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. She has won numerous awards for her work, including the UN Environmental Program Award for Environmental Stewardsip and the 2005 Woman of the Year Award from the American Biographical Institute.