March 25: Global Banquet, Politics of Food - Ann Macksoud & John Ankele, 50 mins, 2001
Details how several large multi-national corporations have come to dominate the food production business, driving small family farmers both in the US and developing world out of existence, controlling markets, destroying the ability of developing nations to feed themselves and perpetuating the structures which promote poverty and hunger.
April 1: Banking on Life and Debt – Maryknoll Productions, 30 mins, 1995
Presents a highly informative analysis of the origins and development of the IMF and the World Bank and examines the ways in which these international financial institutions have usurped control of economic and political decision making in Ghana, Brazil, and the Philippines, and analyzes the disastrous effects of their structural adjustment policies.
Cancel the Debt, Now – Ann Macksoud and John Ankele, 24 mins, 1999
What is the origin of Third World debt? The video explores how aggressive lending policies in the 1970s helped create the Third World debt and how, beginning in the 1980s, heavy-handed and misguided World Bank and IMF structural adjustment policies exacerbated poverty and weakened national economies and undermined governments in developing nations.
April 8: Drumbeat for Mother Earth - Joseph Di Gangi, and Amon Giebel,. 54 mins, 2000
Explores how toxic chemicals contaminate the traditional food web, violate treaty rights, travel long distances, are passed from one generation to the next during pregnancy causing cancer, learning disabilities, and other serious health problems and are the greatest threat to the survival of indigenous people.
April 15: Bombies - Jack Silberman, 57 mins, 2002
Between 1964 and 1973 the United States conducted a secret air war, dropping 90 million cluster bombs on tiny Laos. Millions of these 'cluster bombs' did not explode when dropped, leaving the country massively contaminated andd as dangerous now as when they fell a quarter century ago, killing people every day, just as they did 30 years ago.
April 22: Who’s Counting - Terre Nash, 94 mins, 1996
Marilyn Waring is the foremost spokesperson for global feminist economics, offering new avenues of approach for political action. challenging the myths of economics, its elitist stance, and our tacit compliance with political agendas that masquerade as objective economic policy. This film has inspired many people to work on human-scale economic alternatives, local currency exchanges, and more humane ways of measuring the quality of life.
April 29: T-Shirt Travels – Shanta Bloemen, 57 mins, 2001
Focusing on Zambia, this journey investigates the second hand clothes business and seeks to understand the growing inequalities that exist between the first and third world and draws connections between the history of colonialism, slavery, depletion of Africa’s natural resources and the current huge debt and IMF/World Bank structural adjustment policies resulting in terrible suffering from malnutrition, poor healthcare, inadequate schools and a crumbling infra-structure.
May 6: New Rulers of the World - John Pilger, 53 mins, 2002
Who are the real beneficiaries of the globalized economy? Who really rules the world now? Governments or a handful of huge corporations? The film looks at the new rulers of the world – great multinationals and the governments and institutions that back them - the IMF and the World Bank. The reality behind much of modern shopping and the famous brands is the loss of millions of jobs, and a sweatshop economy duplicated in country after country.
May 13: Gaza Strip - James Longley, 74 mins, 2002, Arabic & French with English Subtitles
“Gaza Strip” pushes the viewer headlong into the tumult of the Israeli-occupied Gaza, examining the lives and views of ordinary Palestinians. The documentary often sees the world through the eyes of young people, the central character being a 13-year-old paperboy in Gaza City, one of the young “stone-throwers” who risk their lives throwing rocks at Israeli tanks.
May 20: Samsara – Ellen Bruno, 29 mins
Documents the struggle of the Cambodian people to rebuild a shattered society in a climate of war, bringing a humanistic perspective to a country in deep political turmoil. Ancient prophecy Buddhist teachings, and folklore provide a context for understanding the Cambodian tragedy, bringing a humanistic perspective to a country in deep political turmoil.
Satya, Prayer for the Enemy - Ellen Bruno, 28 mins
Focuses on the testimonies of Tibetan Buddhist nuns revealing continued religious oppression and human rights abuses in occupied Tibet and seeks to understand the basis and inspiration for the choice of nonviolence and the spiritual principles that influence them.
May 27: Profit and Nothing, But - Raoul Peck, 52 mins, 2001
Who said that the economy serves mankind? What is this world where the wealthiest two percent in rich countries, control everything? Raoul Peck contrasts the ‘triumphant capitalist’ system with the devastating reality in his native land, Haiti where its GNP for the next thirty years is roughly equivalent to Bill Gates fortune. The film's stark images of the lives of the damned on earth provide a striking backdrop for a pertinent, and impertinent, exploration of the profit motive and its consequences on our day to day lives, our history, and our outlook for the future.
This film series is supported by volunteers and co-sponsored by the following organizations:
Naropa University–Spiritual Cinema Concentration http://www.creationspritiuality.org
Center for Spiritual Ecology & the New Story http://www.spiritualecology.org
Foundation for Global Community http://globalcommunity.org
Friends of Creation Spirituality http://www.technocosmicmass.org
Earthlight Magazine http://www.earthlight.org/
First Unitarian Church of Oakland-Adult Education http://uuoakland.org/
Beamish Process Arts http://www.beamish.org/
Note: Special thanks goes to the Foundation for Global Community, for willingly sharing film descriptions listed here, and for other research and related resource sharing in this project
