Local Director Ready For The Premiere Of New Docuseries 'We're All Gonna Die (Even Jay Baruchel)’
/Director Victoria Lean, who was born in Peterborough and spent much of her childhood in Apsley, is gearing up for the world premiere of ‘We’re All Gonne Die (Even Jay Baruchel)’, a docuseries about the end of the world, on Friday.
Photo by Jess Hayes.
Lean, who’s family has lived in Apsley for over a century, grew up in Ottawa but came back to Apsley nearly every summer and throughout the year - so often she considers it home.
Growing up, her parents ran a field station for the National Water Research Institute on Jack Lake, which she says may have played a role in her interest in environmentalism.
“I grew up around a lot of scientists that were studying really complicated and important things affecting the planet,” she said. “I wanted to be a documentary film-maker because I felt that there was a really critical gap in what the general public knows about these issues and what experts were studying.”
Her new docuseries, We’re All Gonne Die (Even Jay Baruchel), takes a look at potential ‘world-ending’ catastrophes, and what effect they may have on the world.
Hosted by Canadian actor, director, and author Jay Baruchel, this series presents six episodes, with six different scenarios like alien invasion, volcanic cataclysm, a climate apocalypse and nuclear disaster.
While not every episode has a ‘solution’ Lean says there is something to learn from each of them.
“In creating this series we were mulling with the idea that every time you go to therapy you imagine the worst case scenario and that sometimes helps ease any fears you have.”
She says the idea is if the worst case scenario is imagined, maybe humans can move into a space where they’re able to do something rather than be paralyzed by fear.
Lean jokes that whenever her dad talks about the state of the planet, he brings up their family farm and how that may save them.
“There’s a narrative in my family that if things get really tough we can always go back to the farm,” she said. “I love Apsley, and I see myself going back there regardless of an apocalypse, but I am grateful that my family has some land if the worst case scenario ever happened.”
We’re All Gonna Die (Even Jay Baruchel) premieres at Hot Docs on Friday, and will be released on Crave on Saturday.
