Bullshit
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Concordia University (Montreal)
Monday November 9, 2009
Screening begins 19h30
Venue: Room H-110, 1455 de Maisonneuve West, Concordia
BULLSHIT will be preceded by the shorts RECYCLE and THE BICYCLE. We will be giving away box sets of the recently released NFB documentary project, Filmmaker in Residence, courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).
First Film:Bullshit
A doc about Vandana Shiva, food freedom, and you guessed it, poop.
PeÅ Holmquist and Suzanne Khardalian / Sweden / 2005 / 75 min
Her opponents call her “The Green Killer”. They gave her “The Bullshit Award” for sustaining poverty. TIME says she is a hero of our times, an icon for youngsters all over the world.
The film is about Vandana Shiva, Indian environmental activist and nuclear physicist, who was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 1993. It’s a film on globalisation and patenting, on genetic engineering, bio-piracy, indigenous knowledge.
In this documentary, the filmmakers follow Vandana Shiva over a two-year period, from her organic farm at the foot of the Himalayas to institutions of power all over the world. Here Vandana Shiva does battle with one of her toughest opponents, Monsanto, a huge American biotech company, when they try to patent an ancient Indian strain of wheat. Together with Dalits she tries to close down a Coca-Cola plant in Kerala, in a conflict involving groundwater pollution. In this film Vandana Shiva also tackles the question of farmers’ suicide, a backlash of the globalisation.
The filmmakers describe Monsanto from the inside and arrange what proves a shaking meeting between Vandana Shiva and Barun Mitra, liberal think-tank, lobbyist and fierce critic of Vandana Shiva – and the man who gave her the “Bullshit Prize”.
PeÅ Holmquist and Suzanne Khardalian are Swedish independent filmmakers who have directed more than 50 documentaries, among them several award-winning films, like Gaza Ghetto, Back to Ararat, Unsafe Ground, Her Armenian Prince, From Opium to Chrysanthemums, My Dad the Inspector and I Hate Dogs – the last survivor.
Trailer
Credits
Directors: PeÅ Holmquist, Suzanne Khardalian
Film site & Reviews
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Second Film: The Bicycle
Chronicling Pax Chingawale's journeys in Malawi, as he battles AIDS at the grassroots.
Katerina Cizek / Canada / 2006 / 16 min 31 sec
Pax Chingawale pedals his bicycle over 20 km a day, visiting his neighbours from house to house. His travels take him to twenty villages, in Zomba District, southern Malawi, Africa. The Bicycle chronicles Pax's journeys as he battles AIDS at the grassroots.
Pax works with traditional healers who are influential at the local level yet often contribute unwittingly to the spread of the disease. He bikes around in search of the abandoned and the ill while monitoring the progress of those whose lives are being saved by ARVs (Anti Retro-Virals), a life-extending drug treatment.
Pax is not a doctor or nurse. He's a retired government auditor who volunteers with Canada's Dignitas International, helping to create a model for making ARV drugs accessible to the world's most vulnerable: those who live far from hospitals and any formal medical care. Dignitas is headed up by Dr. James Orbinski, who accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for Médecins Sans Frontières.
The Bicycle is an intimate look at AIDS through Pax's eyes. It is the sobering yet inspirational story of how local communities can join up with global medical expertise to battle the world's deadliest pandemic - and win.
Credits
* Directed by Katerina Cizek
* Produced by Gerry Flahive
* Production Agency: National Film Board of Canada
Film site & Reviews
(For venue information and directions, see the local page.)
