Despite decades of clearcut logging, British Columbia is still home to some magnificent ancient forests, whose rich, intricate webs of life have evolved, untouched, since the last ice age. Safe Haven takes audiences on a journey back in time, deep into the Rainbow-Jordan Wilderness, with the people working to preserve its rare ecosystems and 2,000 year-old trees.
Damien Gillis is a BC-based storyteller and multi-media producer. He co-directed and produced the feature doc Fractured Land with CBC’s Documentary Channel, which broadcast around the world and won Best BC Film and the Canadian Audience Award at the 2015 Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF). He has directed and produced numerous short films — relating to water, salmon, forests, energy issues, and social justice — which have screened at festivals in Canada and globally, including Farmed Salmon Exposed (2009), Primeval: Enter the Incomappleux (2016), and Mi’ma’omakw: People of the Salmon (2022). His narrative short Shadow Trap premiered at VIFF in 2019 and streamed on Crave in Canada. In recent years, he has expanded his work to include immersive and VR storytelling, co-creating the Wild Empathy exhibit at Science World and Sanctuary, an immersive dome projection experience about ancient forests, which has appeared at VIFF, the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, UBC’s Museum of Anthropology, and other museums and galleries. His writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Tyee, and The Narwhal.