Land of Destiny (2010)

Overview

A portrait of work, landscape and community in an era of globalization. In the rich fabric of Sarnia, Ontario's landscape— the bright sprawl of petrochemical plants, swollen hospital wards and crowded bars— one finds a microcosm of the 21st century. Tattooed men serving fries, basement musicians, boilermakers and volunteer firemen, heartbroken widows and an optimistic mayor - the lives of a diverse medley of characters intersect to reveal the dramas and contradictions of an industrial town out of sync with a post-industrial world. As the dystopian architecture of the petrochemical plants, squatted like crushed space stations just meters away from homes and schoolyards, give way to the spaces that make this city a community, we begin to see what it is that everyone seems so afraid to lose. Land of Destiny is a tender portrait of a working-class city in paralysis and a devastating investigation into when and for what people fight for.