Erik D’Haene died of a drug overdose in 2020. At the time, he was living in Vancouver - but - that event wasn’t his whole life and his surviving siblings, including his brother, Donald D’Haene are telling his story to the World by way of a documentary film called, Interpreting Erik. Erik was an artist and he left a lifetime of artifacts - writings, sketches and artwork that Donald incorporated into the film. Erik’s Story has travelled to film festivals around the world and it will be showcased here in London at the Forest City Film Festival this Sunday. Donald hopes that Erik’s Story will change the way society sees, and judges, homelessness and displaced citizens. He wants us to understand that displaced people have lived full lives and Erik’s tragic end, as well as the countless other people who experienced homelessness and addiction before and after him who suffer similar fates, should not define them. Donald wants us to appreciate that it’s no the displaced person’s fault and he hopes that, after viewing the film, a person will leave the theatre considering the possibility that any one of us could find ourselves caught up in a crisis or life altering experience well beyond our control and that we are only 6 degrees or less from meeting the same sad ending as Erik - alone, addicted and found on the street. We wouldn’t want our life to be defined by that last chapter - and neither did Erik. And, This is the show today - we’re going to talk with Donald D’Haene - about Erik’s Story, some of his other works, the upcoming Forest City Film Festival - and we’ll get to know a bit more about his as a real life person too.
