A filmmaker says he hopes his new documentary will start a "rational" conversation about Vancouver's housing crisis.

House prices in the West Coast city have rapidly swung upwards, says director Charles Wilkinson, leaving many of its residents unable to find stable and affordable housing in one of the world's so-called "most liveable" cities.

In his new film Vancouver: No Fixed Address, Wilkinson solicits the opinions of prominent Vancouverites like David Suzuki and Bob Rennie, as well as profiling First Nations people, new immigrants, Millennials and homeless people for their perspectives on finding space in the city.

The film makes its theatrical debut in Vancouver as part of the DOXA Documentary Film Festival on Saturday, May 6 — although the premiere is sold out. The film plays later this month at the VanCity Theatre starting on May 19.

Host Rick Cluff spoke with Wilkinson on CBC's The Early Edition.

What was your intention for making this movie?

We'd been making a string of environmental films about the North and how our Northern communities are being threatened by commercial over-exploitation of the resources, and I woke up one morning and realized that my immediate environment is Vancouver and our immediate environment is being threatened by commercial over exploitation.

It seemed kind of like a natural sequel to the work that I'd been doing.

How do you think we got where we are?

That's a very long story. Realistically, we've been chasing economic prosperity for a long time. That economic prosperity has come at a real cost.

This is a place that's really worth fighting for. - Filmmaker Charles Wilkinson

As it says in the film, we've pretty much depleted the long-hanging fruit. All of our timber, our minerals and our fish. Those used to be the dominant wealth generators in our province. Now, the dominant wealth generators are real estate, finance, construction. That's simply because we don't have that much left to sell.

What were some of the challenges you found while filming?

I think the biggest challenge is that people won't stick to the subject ... Nobody stays on target and just debates that one thing.

Our goal was to take each one of these very divisive issues, look at them, talk to some people who actually know what they're talking about and see if we could come up with some ideas as to what's really going on.

It's starting a rational conversation amongst the people who see it.

The film had its world premiere in Toronto this week — what are some of the similarities between the two cities?

The story in Toronto is exactly the same as Vancouver with one really key difference.

In Vancouver, the thing that most people cite as what gives them such a love for the city — the mountains, the natural world, the trees, the beaches — in Toronto, they don't really have that so much.

What they do have are these wonderful communities that have evolved over a couple of centuries. When those communities are hollowed out with empty houses, knock-downs and towers put up, that community is gone and it won't come back.

So what message would you like to leave your audience with?

We need to stop focusing on economic prosperity. We need to focus on other issues. What are we leaving to our children and our grandchildren?

This is a place that's really worth fighting for.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity. Listen to the full interview with Charles Wilkinson below.