TVO’s October 2011 programming line up will engage you in the political process and make you think with its documentaries. Highlights include:

• Mississauga is the final stop in The Agenda on the Road: Your Vote 2011 tour
• Complete election results on a special edition of The Agenda with Steve Paikin
• TVOKids and Pillars of Freedom elections for kids
• TVO’s Doc Studio forum for filmmakers launches with an Alan Zweig retrospective
• The World Premiere of Raw Opium: Pain, Pleasure, Profits

YOUR VOTE 2011

As the campaign for the Ontario election heads into the final stretch, TVO’s Your Vote 2011 suite of multi-platform media resources on TV, online, in public and on your mobile continues to engage citizens in the political process, digging deep into issues that matter to them.

And TVOKids wants to make voting matter for kids with the animated program Pillars of Freedom and a special election of their own.

The Agenda on the Road: Your Vote 2011 Mississauga
Sunday, October 2 from 10 am to 4 pm – AgendaCamp at the Living Arts Centre
Monday, October 3 at 8 pm – Live On-Location broadcast at Mississauga City Hall

Since February, TVO’s Agenda on the Road: Your Vote 2011 tour has been traveling across Ontario, including stops in Ottawa, Hamilton, Niagara and Sudbury, to hear from Ontarians what issues matter to them in the Ontario election. On October 2 and 3, only days before the election, the tour will make its final stop in Mississauga. The two-day event features a daylong, participant-led workshop called AgendaCamp on the Sunday at the Living Arts Centre and a live, on-location broadcast of The Agenda with Steve Paikin at Mississauga City Hall on the Monday at 8 pm.

To participate in or propose a discussion topic for AgendaCamp on October 2, or for free tickets to be part of the live broadcast audience on October 3, please register at yourvote2011.ca.

Ontario Election coverage on The Agenda with Steve Paikin
October 6 beginning at 8 pm ET

After travelling across the province with the On the Road tour, and election-issue discussions and debates every night since the start of its sixth season on September 6th, TVO’s flagship current affairs program caps its Ontario election coverage with a special edition of The Agenda with Steve Paikin on Election Night with complete coverage of the election returns from 8 pm until after the premier-elect’s speech.

Steve Paikin’s guests for the evening include retiring MPPs Monique Smith (Liberal, Nipissing), Norm Sterling (PC, Carleton-Mississippi Mills), Howard Hampton, (NDP, Kenora-Rainy River), along with Victoria Serda, former deputy leader of the Green Party of Ontario, and political commentator Jim Coyle of The Toronto Star.

During the first hour of the program before the polls close, Steve and his guests will debate and discuss the "Citizen's Agenda" that emerged from the Agenda on the Road: Your Vote 2011 tour across Ontario. Then, stay with The Agenda from 9 pm on for complete election results and go to yourvote2011.ca for an online chat to have your say about the results.

And never miss an episode of The Agenda with Steve Paikin, now available on your mobile with the new The Agenda with Steve Paikin app.

YourVote2011.ca

Still undecided about how to vote in the Ontario election and want to look a little closer at your choices? When looking for resources to get at the heart of election issues, make yourvote2011.ca your first stop. TVO has compiled a vast collection of online resources to help Ontarians learn about and get engaged in the political process at yourvote2011.ca including:

• platform summaries of all the major parties
• exclusive videos including leader profiles
• blog posts featuring experts analyzing party statements and policy announcements, and issue-based blogs with special guest bloggers
• an election toolkit explaining everything you need to know about voting in Ontario
• Web chats allowing you to engage with other citizens around hot election topics

TVOKids and Pillars of Freedom

TVOKids wants to teach kids the basics of civics by holding a mock election with animated characters from the multi-platform series Pillars of Freedom.

During the run-up to the election, hosts Kara, Drew and Dalmar from TVOKids’ afternoon block, The Space, will act as campaign managers for each of the animated characters. The campaign kicks off September 27 and early polls open September 30. Kids can vote online at tvokids.com.

On October 6, the results of the vote will be announced in the animated finale episode of season 1 of Pillars of Freedom. Kara, Drew and Dalmar will help children understand the voting results using pie charts made of real pies, along with graphs.

Season 2 of Pillars of Freedom premieres October 10, 2011 at 5:55 pm ET on TVO’s The Space and airs every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Doc Studio Alan Zweig Film Festival
(docstudio.tvo.org)

TVO is a proud supporter of established and emerging documentary filmmakers. On October 19, TVO launches Doc Studio, an online initiative that will serve as a platform to showcase documentary filmmakers and their work, as well as act as a learning community that supports POV (point-of-view) filmmaking.

Doc Studio will launch with an on-air and online festival celebrating the films of Alan Zweig, Doc Studio’s first filmmaker-in-residence.

Vinyl – Wednesday October 19, 2011 at 9 pm ET
In his first film for TVO and the first of three films that are as much about himself as his subjects, filmmaker and passionate record collector Alan Zweig talks to other LP-obsessed aficionados about music and how collecting records has impacted their lives.

I, Curmudgeon - Thursday October 20, 2011 at 9 pm ET
In the second of a trilogy of self-confessional films, director Alan Zweig talks to self-declared curmudgeons about what makes them such contrarians, including Harvey Pekar, Fran Lebowitz, Andy Rooney, Bruce La Bruce and Scott Thompson.

Lovable - Wednesday October 26, 2011 at 9 pm ET
Alan Zweig concludes his trilogy of introspective films by talking to a diverse group of single women who reveal the challenges of finding and keeping love.

A Hard Name – Thursday October 27, 2011 at 9 pm ET
In Allan Zweig's Genie Award-winning Best Feature-Length documentary eight middle-aged convicts who are trying to stay out of jail open up about their past and the choices they made that led them to where they are now.

October 19 also marks the launch of the Doc Studio Contest running to February 27, 2012. Ontario filmmakers 18 years old and over are invited to submit a five-minute documentary. A panel of experts will choose the top five submissions and the public will determine the overall winner whose film will air on TVO in March.

DOCUMENTARIES

Raw Opium: Pain, Pleasure, Profits – World Broadcast Premiere 
Wednesday October 5 and 12, 2011 at 9pm ET 
2 /50 minutes
Produced by Kensington Communications in association with TVO

This two-part series takes us around the world to reveal the tremendous impact of the opium poppy, a commodity that has the power to both ease pain and destroy lives. In Part One, we encounter an opium master in southeast Asia, a UN drug enforcement officer on the border of Afghanistan hunting down the smugglers of central Asia, a former Indian government drug czar who encounters the opium farmers of northern India, and a Vancouver user struggling to kick the habit. In Part Two, we continue to follow a user who enters treatment, a former enforcement officer who meets Portuguese street workers who confront the realities of drug use, and a doctor determined to change how we treat and care for those suffering from addiction.

Raw Opium will also be available at tvo.org in a live stream where viewers can also participate in an online chat during and after each episode featuring expert guests discussing and debating issues that arise in the documentary.

Raw Opium: Pain, Pleasure, Profits has been selected out of a thousand entries to be one of the first twelve independent world issues documentaries featured by The Economist Film Project, an initiative to share the work of independent, international documentary filmmakers with global audiences interested in learning more about our world and its untold stories.

Blown Apart: Windfarm Wars – North American Premiere
Begins Sunday October 9, 2011 at 8 pm ET
4 / 50 minutes
Directed by Jeremy Gibson; produced by Sevenstones Media for BBC

The quest to develop clean, renewable energy is one of the great scientific endeavors of our time and wind power is becoming increasingly popular around the world as an option. But sometimes science runs into politics. Opponents cite the noise produced by turbines, the impact to bird populations, reduction of property values and destruction of scenery as concerns.

This timely four-part documentary series examines what happens when a wind farm of nine 120-metre high turbines is planned to be built on a sensitive English landscape. Filmed over four turbulent years, the series reveals a deeply divided community and explores in candid and intimate detail a story that goes to the very heart of the question of renewable energy, our attitudes towards it and the future for on-shore wind power.

Ancient Worlds – North American Premiere
Begins Monday October 10, 2011 at 10 pm ET
6 / 50 minutes
Produced by BBC

Ancient Worlds is a fascinating voyage of discovery from the birth of the first cities through the development of trade, warfare, writing, religion and kingship, to the mighty empires that struggled for supremacy in the first clash of civilization. With extensive filming in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, North Africa, Egypt, Pakistan and Europe and interviews with eminent historians, experts and archaeologists, the series uncovers the stories of the empire-builders, preachers, poets and kings who defined the entire course of future human experience.

From the cities of Mesopotamia to the rise and fall of Bronze Age civilization, the Persian wars, Alexander the Great and Rome, Ancient Worlds brings the kings, warriors, merchants and philosophers back to life. Stunning photography of ancient wonders and lost worlds combines with rare footage of art and artifacts to reveal what the Ancients were fighting for then, and what they have left us fighting for now.

Hayley, The 96 Year Old School Girl–North American Premiere
Tuesday October 11 at 9pm
50 minutes
Directed by James Routh; Produced by Rabbit Films

Hayley Okines is the most recognized face in the world of rare medical conditions, for she has the accelerated aging disease, Progeria. Director James Routh has followed her story for nearly ten years, and audiences across the world have followed as the delightfully cheerful Hayley has grown up and grown in awareness of her condition. During that time, huge progress has been made in the study of the condition, leading to hope that an effective treatment is imminent.  With unique, intimate access this film follows Hayley during one of the most important periods of her life in which she starts secondary school, something her parents thought would never happen. 

The film also follows the exciting developments in medical research. With encouraging results from a drug trial in the USA, Hayley may finish school after all.  But there is an even greater significance that may affect the whole of humanity - could this medical research spell the beginning of the end of aging.

Mother of Rock: Lillian Roxon – Ontario premiere
Thursday October 13, 2011 at 9pm ET
55 minutes
Produced by Lowlands Media

Mother of Rock: Lillian Roxon shines a light into the decadent world of Max’s Kansas City, a tiny underground club in New York, and Lillian Roxon’s place in documenting the emerging rock revolution as it rolled over the US in the 1960s and early 1970s.

In New York City in 1968, a revolution was under way in a tiny club called Max’s Kansas City. When Andy Warhol’s Factory superstars collided with the underground music scene at Max’s, punk rock was born. It would be the new sound of the world, far more influential than The Beatles. It was defined by the Velvet Underground, the New York Dolls and Iggy Pop, whose attitudes and sounds still influence us today. The reigning queen of Max’s was Australian journalist Lillian Roxon. She was a music visionary who understood before anyone else how important music would be in shaping popular culture. Lillian became known as “the mother of rock” and celebrated the world of popular music in her book, The Rock Encyclopedia, first published in 1969. Lillian was a funny, passionate woman 30 years ahead of her time.