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Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2000 11:02:55 -0700
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [StopWTORound] [media] ''Trade Off'' recounts
Seattle's WTO protests (fwd)
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Dear Subscribers,
Here's an interesting review of a new film making the rounds. This might be
one to look out for if you didn't get to experience the Seattle N30 Summit
first hand. Of particular interest is the reviewer's speculation that the
film will become "a media textbook on how to raise a ruckus."
Regards, Tom Childs
The Douglas College Library
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>From mail Thu Jul 6 23:15 PDT 2000
To: [log in to unmask]
From: Benny Rizzo <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [media] ''Trade Off'' recounts Seattle's WTO protests
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Tuesday July 4 9:17 PM ET
'Trade Off'' recounts Seattle's WTO riots
Trade Off (Documentary, color, no rating, 1:35)
By Ken Eisner
SEATTLE (Variety) - This important and potentially incendiary documentary
records the events leading up to last November's showdown at the World
Trade Organization confab in Seattle, when the forces of capitalism battled
an amazing array of opponents ready to put the brakes on relentless
globalization.
The very good-looking, vid-shot effort will probably get tossed around on
the hot-potato politico circuit, plus college and town hall meetings,
before getting limited urban playoff. After that, ``Trade Off'' will be on
to a healthy afterlife via cassette -- especially as a media textbook on
how to raise a ruckus.
The attending delegates and pols may have expected the Seattle meeting to
be just another rah-rah
rubber-stamp fest for the establishment gents (plus U.S. trade ambassador
Charlene Barshefsky). What they got were riots in the streets and bad press
(not to mention no real access to their own event).
Public perception was piqued by a few would-be anarchists breaking
Starbucks windows, but the protests were actually the result of months of
careful planning, as helmer Shaya Mercer details in highlights from public
meetings and warm-up exercises.
At the center of the fuss is freelance organizer Mike Dolan; he looks like
actor Peter Scolari but comes on like a Schwarzenegger of leftist
insurgency. Other subjects -- some speaking from the stage of the Seattle
Center sports arena in a pre-event conference -- include Tom Hayden,
Minnesota senator Paul Wellstone, super-articulate Indian delegate Vandana
Shiva (who mocks the ``wonderful ignorance'' of the WTOers), and veteran
doodoo-disturber Jerry Mander, who posits the coming protests as ``a
confrontation between civil society and corporate rule.''
Media prankster Michael Moore is also on hand, making great hay out of the
fact that he has the same name as the former New Zealand prime minister who
heads the WTO.
But most striking are the passion, knowledge and humor of the outdoor
participants, who range from incensed college students to Teamster boss Jim
Hoffa and reps from farmers' unions in France and farther abroad. The
foreigners are mostly concerned with the World Bank's mandate to put aside
national laws wherever they conflict with WTO agenda -- an issue
right-wingers are also getting heated up about.
When the riots arrive, disrupting carefully planned events, Mercer shies
away from the more extreme elements; she's less interested in rehashing
sensational news footage (although there's some) than in exploring the
quieter margins of things, in which citizens question protesters, and
nervous police try to stare down street-blocking activists.
Bill Clinton eventually shows up, mollifying all sides, but audiences are
left with sense of unfinished business, reinforced by a brief coda at the
smaller but no less volatile WTO protests the following April.
The well-edited pic sticks to atmospheric natural sounds, including music
found on the streets, or at fundraisers, with Spearhead frontman Michael
Franti also proving to be an eloquent speaker on the economic issues that
world leaders wrongly assumed no one cared about.
With: Mike Dolan, Michael Moore, Jello Biafra, Jerry Mander, Vandana Shiva,
Charlene Barshefsky, Bill Clinton, Tom Hayden, Michael Franti.
A Wright Angle Media (Seattle) production. Produced by Thomas Lee Wright.
Co-producers, Shaya Mercer, Tammy Strange.
Directed by Shaya Mercer. Camera (color, digital beta), Chris Towey;
additional camera, Mercer, Mark Brian Smith, Robert Bennett; (DC) editor,
Charlese Stobbs; music, Spearhead, Laura Love; sound, Gordon Glascock,
Myron Partman, Charlie Tomaras; associate producer, Gretchen Burger.
Reviewed at the Seattle Film Festival, June 8, 2000.
Reuters/Variety
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D.J. McKnight
Room 107
Department of Geography
Roxby Building
University of Liverpool
Liverpool
L69 3BX
(0151) 794 6422
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