Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

It’s the 1970s in Toronto, just a few years after the Centennial and Expo 67, and pride is running high. A huge new theme park, built on four islands made of reclaimed land on Lake Ontario, is opening to great fanfare. It offers an outdoor concert stadium, a geodesic Cinesphere, the first one ever built to show IMAX movies, and a kids’ park with playgrounds, music and automatons. It’s surrounded by tall trees, grassy areas and flowers everywhere. It’s called Ontario Place, and is packed with visitors.

Flash forward to the 2020s. Ontario Place is still attracting crowds but, after decades of neglect,  many of its pavilions have closed down permanently, and the park itself ain’t what it used to be. But it still has nature trails, forests and a pebble beach. And then Premier Doug Ford announces the park is closing down for renovations. They’re fencing it off to clear cut trees and tear up the park in order to build a gigantic, private, for-profit European health spa and water park on public land, following a big-money, backroom deal.  People across the province are shocked… and the protests begin. But no one knows exactly what will become of this beloved park in the days to come.

Your Tomorrow is the name of a new Canadian documentary about Ontario Place, its history and the people who love it in this crucial period of change in its future. It follows visitors, locals and park employees to get a cross section of views. Delving deeply into people, nature and politics, it silently observes  the skateboarders, polar bear swimmers, security guards and concert-goers who still flock to the park. It’s both low-key and heart breaking. The film is written, directed and produced by award winning filmmaker Ali Weinstein, who made the quirky Mermaids in 2016 and #Blessed in 2020. (My interview with Ali, Blessed, 2020)

Your Tomorrow had its world premiere at #TIFF24 and opens theatrically at Toronto’s Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema on Friday, December 6.

I spoke with Ali Weinstein in Toronto via ZOOM.