OWEN'S GOODBYE A GIFT FOR ADDICTION FILM

Retirement Turned into Fund Raiser for Fix

There will be no retirement dinner with lengthy and mushy tributes for
outgoing Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen.

There will be no fund raiser where he hands over a pile of money to
the new NPA mayoral candidate.

Instead, the mayor who has become a champion for the city's drug
addicts has decided that he wants his goodbye to the city to be used
to raise money to support a powerful about-to-be-released documentary
film that portrays the tragedy and conflict in the Downtown Eastside
and Owen's own difficult political battles to find a solution.

So, starting next week, letters will be going out across the city, inviting
people who are Owen's fans and supporters to attend an unusual tribute: A
special screening of Fix: The Story of an Addicted City, Oct. 16 at $100 a
seat.

Owen hopes to raise at least $100,000 to help with promotion and
distribution costs.

"I would like it to be shown in every school across the country. This
is the most incredibly realistic and graphic film. It's a very clear
message to children about the personal and family destruction of
drugs," says Owen.

Ultimately, he hopes the film can produce enough momentum to establish
a national drug strategy.

To achieve that end, one of the most unlikely alliances in the city
has been formed.

At the core are the mayor, his stockbroker son Chris Owen, and
Vancouver film-maker Nettie Wild, who until now has been best known
for making documentary films about popular revolutionary movements in
the Philippines and Mexico.

The idea of using the traditional mayor's farewell as a fund raiser
was Chris Owen's, who has organized, along with his friend Jamie
Brown, his father's annual dinners, which were used to raise money for
the Non-Partisan Association party that Owen represented for the last
nine years.

"Had it been different, our going away would be used as seed money for
his heir," said Chris. "Obviously, that won't be happening."

As most people who follow civic politics know, it was different. The
NPA, some of whose most influential members include Gastown property
owners, became increasingly uncomfortable with Owen's championing of a
drug strategy for the Downtown Eastside that included better medical
services and even safe-injection sites for drug addicts. In February,
they pushed him out.

So, Mayor Owen will not be handing over any money to the woman who
took his place with a more equivocal attitude to his drug strategy,
Councillor Jennifer Clarke.

Instead, Chris and Philip Owen have gone to work, using all the
mechanisms normally in place for their political machine to organize
the fund-raising event for Wild's film, while Wild pulls in support
from groups like the B.C. Nurses Union and the University of B.C.
outreach program.

The mayor has found one anonymous donor to contribute $35,000 to pay
half of the bill for converting the film from video to 35 millimetre,
which is necessary for it to be shown in mainstream theatres.

Chris Owen, whom his father used to refer to with anxious pride in
past fund raisers as a master of strong-arm tactics, persuaded Blaine
Culling, the king of Granville Street nightclubs, to turn over the
Vogue Theatre for a night for free. He's talked various friends into
buying blocks of tickets each night that will be reserved for people
from the Downtown Eastside and into covering various expenses. He's on
the phone every day, trying to arrange a Vancouver theatre where it
can be shown for four weeks after the Oct. 16 tribute to his father.

And Chris Owen, a 41-year-old version of his perpetually cheerful,
can-do father, will be stuffing invitations into envelopes this
weekend to send out to everyone who's ever come to his father's
dinners, along with the entire membership of the NPA.

"They might not have done the same for us, but that's not the way we
are," said Chris.

Friday, he brought in some of his friends from the real estate,
restaurant and finance businesses to a special screening of the film
to recruit them as a sales crew.

Among them was Mark James, the restaurant and clothing-store owner,
who described himself during the pre-film audience introductions as
someone who owns businesses in the Downtown Eastside and "has also
been touched personally by drug addiction in the family."

After the film, which reduced people to stunned and tearful silence,
as has happened every time it's been shown to select people over the
past several weeks, Chris Owen circulated among the team.

"So I need you to open up your Rolodex and send this out," he said to
James.

"Oh, how many seats do we have to fill?"

Eleven hundred.

"Okay, no problem."

Chris Owen said he's doing it because it's what his father wants
most.

"This was something to embrace for my father. I'm telling all the
people who called last spring that, if they want to pay tribute to
him, they should come see this movie."

He hasn't seen any of Wild's other films and has only a vague idea of
what they're about, but he finds this one emotionally overwhelming.
However, his more practical side saw something else.

"Clearly they made this movie on a bootstrap. After we saw it the
first time, with [former federal health minister] Allan Rock and my
cousin Stephen, I saw it needed help."

For Wild, who lives on about $24,000 a year and gets around the city
on a bicycle with a milk carton on the back of it since her 1980
Toyota passed away at Christmas, the Owen machine has been a surreal
experience. While she is an acclaimed film-maker to a certain set
around North America, she's never been able to pull the kinds of
levers now being pulled on her behalf.

"We have never had this kind of boost at the beginning that we are
getting now."

She'd had to learn to drop her assumptions about drug addicts in the
Downtown Eastside during the two years she worked on the film. Now she
had to learn to drop her assumptions about the city's power set.

Wild, who has found herself cycling to the Bentall Tower where Chris
works on the 34th floor to talk strategy, said: "This has shown me my
city like I've never seen it before."

People interested in buying tickets to the Mayor Owen Tribute showing of
Fix: The Story of an Addicted City can contact Portfolio Event Management at
604-685-4888.