FILM SCREENING +
PANEL DISCUSSION
WEDNESDAY, NOV. 29, 7-9:30 P.M.
REGISTRY THEATRE, 122 FREDERICK ST., KITCHENER
TICKETS: $20 (All proceeds to charities on the panel)

A sweeping new documentary, Anna Kaljas: The Untold Story, leaves audiences with an unsettling question: Where do we go from here in housing those being left behind? 

At a time when housing challenges have multiplied and splintered, the question is more urgent than ever, as evidenced by the Waterloo Region Community Foundation’s 2023 Vital Signs Report.

A Nov. 29^th fundraising event supported by the Community Foundation will screen Anna Kaljas: The Untold Story to set the stage for a far-reaching panel discussion featuring organizations at the forefront of the local housing crisis. 

THE BACKSTORY: 

Anna Kaljas, who died in 2010, was a quirky, uncompromising housing advocate whose tireless mission to help the homeless and disenfranchised earned her the Order of Canada. Over several decades, Kaljas, who moved to Canada after four terrifying years as an Estonian refugee, sheltered up to 60 people in her Kitchener houses, feeding them, befriending them, guiding them – and offering them hope.

In Anna Kaljas: The Untold Story, Kitchener filmmaker Dwight Storring weaves together videos of Kaljas, dramatic readings from her 2006 memoir, historic perspective from the Second World War, and compelling interviews with her family and friends, including a former student in Estonia. 

But the documentary, which played to sold-out audiences at the Princess Cinema in Waterloo in September, also delves into the legacy she leaves behind. In today’s spiralling housing crisis, the Nov. 29^th event asks the question: What Would Anna Kaljas Say?

COMMUNITY CONVERSATION: 

It seems fitting that the Nov. 29^th event will be at the Registry Theatre, just a few short blocks from Anna Kaljas’ former shelters on Frederick Street. A screening of Anna Kaljas: The Untold Story will be followed by a panel discussion featuring representatives from:

House of Friendship • The Working Centre • K-W Urban Native Wigwam Project • YW Kitchener-Waterloo • Union  Sustainable Development Co-operative

Tickets are $20. All proceeds will be divided among the non-profit organizations on the panel. 

WHAT WOULD ANNA KALJAS SAY?

Film screening and community conversation

• Wednesday, Nov. 29, 7 to 9:30 p.m., Registry Theatre, 122 Frederick St., Kitchener
• Tickets $20: 

Supported by:

About Making the Film

As an artist, I document the lives of ordinary people as a way of illustrating and building the greater community narrative that unfolds as we live our lives day-to-day. I intentionally seek out stories in the place where I live, telling them in the hope they’ll be heard above the drone of our media-cluttered life.

First as a journalist and then as a filmmaker with an emphasis on the social service sector, I have long observed and admired the work of social justice advocate Anna Kaljas – the subject of this film.

During the research and filming, I developed a strong relationship with many people whose lives she impacted. 

Not only her family and friends, but also those she cared for at her shelter. People such as Eric Brown, now a resident of Peterborough. Eric spent 28 years living at the shelter Anna Kaljas created. The shelter closed in 2021, and his niece Sue Sauve (Eric’s longtime advocate and support person) then moved him to Peterborough where she lives and works.

I interviewed many longtime friends and colleagues of Anna. I spent time at the shelter documenting the Kaljas family’s work and their challenges maintaining the shelter in the context of the current housing and drug crisis.
Through the process, I came to realize that Anna’s legacy has reach well beyond her death in 2010. Interviews with other social justice advocates and journalists inspired by Anna underlined the ways she set the tone for how we must care for each other.