Dr. Avi Lewis

Biography

Avi Lewis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of British Columbia with over 30 years of experience in documentary filmmaking, journalism, and storytelling on the frontlines of social movements. His career has highlighted the climate emergency as a defining crisis of our time, exacerbated by overlapping issues such as the pandemic, white supremacy, colonialism, and an unequal global economy. Lewis is deeply committed to engaging students in these intersecting crises and has co-authored the Leap Manifesto, which outlines fifteen political demands for addressing fossil fuel dependency in Canada while confronting racial and gender discrimination as well as economic inequality. He is actively involved in the Green New Deal movement, working with the Sunrise Movement to produce animated short films, including 'Message from the Future' featuring Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and 'Message from the Future II: Years of Repair' co-written with Opal Tometi, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter. Prior to joining UBC, he lectured at Rutgers University, where he developed a course that critically examines the impact of feature-length documentaries as a tool for social change. At UBC, his teaching focuses on the roles of social and political change through documentary filmmaking, emphasizing the importance of justice in the context of media and community action.

Research Interests

Experience