Past Events

E.g., Mar 28, 2024

Film Group October 7

The Film Group will take advantage of the Vancouver International Film Festival taking place this year from October 1 to 11. 

We are watching online and discussing three films showing as part of the online (VIFF Connect) version of the 2021 Vancouver International Film Festival (Oct 1-11).

The three films chosen to watch online and then discuss in a zoom meeting are:

Havel (Czech Republic, 2020)
Directed by Slavek Horak: a liberally constructed bio-pic of the Czech writer turned activist and politician. 
Zoom discussion on Monday, Oct 4 at 3:30pm

All My Puny Sorrows (Canada, 2021)
Directed by Michael McGowan: an adaptation of Miriam Toews’ novel about two lapsed Mennonite sisters – one a struggling writer grappling with divorce, the other a celebrated concert pianist who is suicidal. 
Zoom discussion on Thursday, Oct. 7 at 1:30pm

Yuni (Indonesia, 2021)
Directed by Kamila Andini: a naïve yet manipulative Indonesian teenage girl’s dreams of an independent, fulfilling life are compromised by marriage proposals. 
Zoom discussion on Tuesday Oct. 12 at 4pm.

To watch the films, go to the Vancouver International Film Festival  home page ( viff.org ) and create an account, if you don’t already have an account with VIFF.  Once you have an account, click on the Festival tab and then click on the VIFF Connect tab, listing the festival films showing online.  Our suggestion is to purchase a package of 4 online films: the three films to be discussed and one other film of your own choosing.
To purchase the four films, click on the Festival tab, the Tickets and Passes tab, and the 4 Ticket Pack Tab (Regular $48 / Senior $44).  
To purchase the three chosen films individually, simply click on the purchase tab under the description of the film. 
Our suggestion is to purchase the films as soon as you decide to participate, as there is the slight possibility that the film may sell out.

Watch the film any time before the Zoom discussion takes place.

To join the group, please email john.leblanc @ ubc.ca

Thursday, 7 October 2021 - 1:30pm
Zoom Link by request
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4
Canada

General Meeting October 6, 2021

A Tribute to Cornelia Hahn Oberlander CC OBC (20 June 1921 – 22 May 2021)

Susan Herrington, Professor in the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, will speak about Cornelia Oberlander's life and contributions to UBC.

Susan Herrington is professor in the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. She resides in British Columbia and is a landscape architect in Canada and a registered landscape architect in the United States. She is author of several books including Cornelia Hahn Oberlander: Making the Modern Landscape, which won a JB Jackson Book Prize from the Foundation for Landscape Studies in New York. Her research examines the intersections between design and critical thinking in landscape architecture, and ways landscape architects can contribute to children’s environments.

Time line
2:00pm Business Meeting
2:15pm Speaker Susan Herrington
3:15pm End of Meeting

Link to Zoom-registration

Wednesday, 6 October 2021 - 2:00pm to 3:15pm
Registration link for Zoom in text
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2
Canada

Film Group October 4

The Film Group will take advantage of the Vancouver International Film Festival taking place this year from October 1 to 11. 

We are watching online and discussing three films showing as part of the online (VIFF Connect) version of the 2021 Vancouver International Film Festival (Oct 1-11).

The three films chosen to watch online and then discuss in a zoom meeting are:

Havel (Czech Republic, 2020)
Directed by Slavek Horak: a liberally constructed bio-pic of the Czech writer turned activist and politician. 
Zoom discussion on Monday, Oct 4 at 3:30pm

All My Puny Sorrows (Canada, 2021)
Directed by Michael McGowan: an adaptation of Miriam Toews’ novel about two lapsed Mennonite sisters – one a struggling writer grappling with divorce, the other a celebrated concert pianist who is suicidal. 
Zoom discussion on Thursday, Oct. 7 at 1:30pm

Yuni (Indonesia, 2021)
Directed by Kamila Andini: a naïve yet manipulative Indonesian teenage girl’s dreams of an independent, fulfilling life are compromised by marriage proposals. 
Zoom discussion on Tuesday Oct. 12 at 4pm.

To watch the films, go to the Vancouver International Film Festival  home page ( viff.org ) and create an account, if you don’t already have an account with VIFF.  Once you have an account, click on the Festival tab and then click on the VIFF Connect tab, listing the festival films showing online.  Our suggestion is to purchase a package of 4 online films: the three films to be discussed and one other film of your own choosing.
To purchase the four films, click on the Festival tab, the Tickets and Passes tab, and the 4 Ticket Pack Tab (Regular $48 / Senior $44).  
To purchase the three chosen films individually, simply click on the purchase tab under the description of the film. 
Our suggestion is to purchase the films as soon as you decide to participate, as there is the slight possibility that the film may sell out.

Watch the film any time before the Zoom discussion takes place.

To join the group, please email john.leblanc @ ubc.ca

Monday, 4 October 2021 - 3:30pm
Zoom Link by request
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4
Canada

International Day of Older Persons: Healthy Ageing

Emeritus College and European partners share healthy ageing insights

Please click here for recording of this event

Keeping fit and feeling well into the post-retirement years is a hot topic these days. Nearly 10 percent of the world’s population is 65 or older, according to the United Nations, and that is projected to rise to 16 percent – or one in six people – by 2050. So as we are living longer, how do we stay vital and energetic? How do we continue to contribute meaningfully to the community? And how do we keep our minds sharp? Those are just some of the issues experts will address at the Oct. 1 global panel discussion entitled, “Healthy Ageing.”

Co-sponsored by UBC Emeritus College and the European Association of Professors Emeriti (EAPE), an Athens, Greece-based organization, the session spotlights the UN’s “Decade of Healthy Ageing” (2021-2030) and International Day of Older Persons on Oct. 1. It also marks the first international collaboration for Emeritus College, started in 2018 as a resource supporting UBC faculty and senior academic administrators in the transition to retirement through academic work, mentoring, research and publishing.

Two Emeritus Professor speakers each from UBC and EAPE will speak, followed by a panel discussion. Professor Luigi Campanella, a prominent chemist from Sapienza University of Rome and Associate Professor Emeritus and Vice-president-elect of the Emeritus College Anne Junker, an MD and rare diseases clinician in immune deficiency disorders, are moderating the panel, which features UBC’s Dr. Judith Hall and Dr. John Helliwell. 

Panelists

Canadian Medical Hall of Famer Dr. Judith Hall, OC, MD, DSC, FRSC and FCAHS, will draw from her research to explore the topic: Do emeriti have the opportunity for a new stage in their academic career?

UBC Emeritus Professor of Economics Dr. John Helliwell, OC, FRSC, and co-editor of the World Happiness Reports will speak about key supports for happy and healthy ageing. 

From EAPE, Hannover, Germany’s distinguished pediatrician Emeritus Professor Jochen Ehrich (link to PDF), MD, DCMT (London) will delve into "the needs and wants of children and elderly people concerning healthy ageing,” contending that preventative measures have to start early in life to allow for healthy ageing

EAPE President-elect and Emeritus Professor Sir Les Ebdon will explain the value of adult education as it relates to health. With titles including CBE, DL, DSc, DUniv, CChem and FRSC, Dr. Ebdon is an award-winning analytical chemistry researcher and senior educator. For his contribution to education and social mobility he was knighted by Her Majesty the Queen in 2018.  

"Healthy Ageing" global panel discussion
Friday, October 1, 2021
9-11am PST | 19:00-21:00 Athens | 18:00-20:00 Paris | 17:00-19:00 London

Registration for Zoom-webinar

Friday, 1 October 2021 - 9:00am to 11:00am
Online Zoom Meeting
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2
Canada

Film Group Sep 30, 2021

Series Thirteen – Systemic Racism

The films can be screened via the streaming sites listed with each film

Zoom discussions of each film will take place on: Thursdays: Sept 30, Oct 28 and Nov 25 at 4pm

Hosted by John LeBlanc

Series Thirteen: As a result of the US Civil Rights Movement of the 60s, the reality of racism in North America could no longer be ignored, but early attempts to come to terms with racism, such as in the 60s and 70s Sidney Poitier films, narrowly defined it as the product of deranged individuals.  The recent Black Lives Matter protests, locating racism within society’s structures and institutions, such as the police, have forced us to confront the racism in the very nature of our cultures and national identity.  These three films invite us to examine how the very founding of our nations and their ongoing development is grounded in racism, requiring a major self-confrontation and transformation in order to move beyond the paralysis that racism fosters.  I Am Not Your Negro has the victims of racism explain its nature.  Double Happiness and Beans provide a Canadian context (Asian-Canadian and Indigenous-Canadian, respectively) for the damaging impact of racism.     

Sep 30I Am Not Your Negro (2016) – directed by Raoul Peck takes us into the psyche of a victim of racism, here the African-American writer James Baldwin.  In developing the film, the director was given access to a previously unknown 30 pages of notes Baldwin had developed for an unrealized book on the intersecting lives of Martin Luther King Jr, Medgar Evers and Malcolm X.  May be streamed through the UBC Library Catalogue or the Vancouver Public Library Kanopy streaming sites.  Suggested additional viewing: Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask – directed by Isaac Julien and Mark Nash and Ninth Floor directed by Mina Shum.  Both can be streamed through the UBC Library Catalogue.

Oct 28Double Happiness (1993) – directed by Mina Shum, on the surface seems to be a simple family situation comedy but is, in fact, a sophisticated analysis of systemic forces that perpetuate racism against Asians in Canada.  Focusing on a Chinese-Canadian family living in Vancouver and, in particular, on an aspiring actress (played by Sandra Oh), the film reveals the bind in which Asian Canadians often find themselves: both too Asian and not Asian enough.  In particular, the film explores how the media perpetuates this bind while claiming to be Asian-positive.   May be streamed through the UBC Library Catalogue streaming siteSuggested additional viewing: The Joy Luck Club directed by Wayne Wang.  May be streamed through the UBC Library Catalogue.

Nov 25Beans (2021) – directed by Tracey Deer fictionalizes the director’s personal experience as a 12 year old during the 1990 Kanehsatake / Kahnawake crisis, a defining moment in Canada’s relationship with its Indigenous peoples.  This crisis, developing out of the ongoing appropriation of Indigenous land in the Montreal / St Lawrence River region and resulting blockade revealed the racist nature at the heart of the Canadian settler project and its governing institutions.  Deer’s return to this pivotal moment assists us in dealing with Canada’s past and moving forward into a more inclusive Canadian future.  This film is playing at VanCity Theatre Sept 10-16: info at viff.org.  Streaming options TBA.  Suggested additional viewing: Alanis Obomsawin’s four documentary films dealing with the crisis: 1)Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance, 2)Rocks at Whiskey Trench, 3)My Name is Kahentiiosta, and 4)Spudwrench: Kahnawake Man.  All four can be streamed through the UBC Library Catalogue.  

To join the group, please email john.leblanc @ ubc.ca

Thursday, 30 September 2021 - 4:00pm
2008 Lower Mall
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2
Canada

Council Meeting - September 29, 2021

The Council will meet online.

Wednesday, 29 September 2021 - 10:30am to 12:30pm
Zoom link available to Council members only
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2
Canada

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