Recent videos of interest

Economic Issues

• Big boys gone bananas
  First there was a film about banana workers saying the Dole Food Company had made them infertile. Then Dole attacked the filmmakers. Now it's time for a new film! The true story about a Swedish filmmaker and a banana corporation. Dirty tricks, lawsuits, manipulation, and the price of free speech.
• Blue gold: world water wars
  Wars of the future will be fought over water, as they are today over oil, as the source of all life enters the global marketplace and political arena. Corporate giants, private investors, and corrupt governments vie for control of our dwindling fresh water supply, prompting protests, lawsuits, and revolutions from citizens fighting for the right to survive.
• Bonsai people
  Filmed on location in Bangladesh, demonstrates the positive effects of micro-loans by the Grameen Bank on several rural Bangladeshi families including their ability to empower women to become leaders in their families and their communities. Demonstrates how Nobel Peace Price winner, Muhammad Yunus, in partnership with world businesses, uses the power of 'microcredit' and 'social business' to unleash human potential through purposely designed social/business ventures.
• Carts of Darkness
  In the community of North Vancouver, local bottle collectors have turned the act of binning into a thriving subculture of shopping cart racing. Murray Siple, a former snowboarder and sport film director injured in a serious car accident ten years ago, returns to filmmaking to capture their story.
• China heavyweight
  Profiles the ever-changing Chinese economic landscape through the view of the sport of boxing. Filmmaker Yung Chang follows boxing coach Qi Moxiang as he travels across China's Sichuan province recruiting young fighting talent from impoverished farms and villages. Selected boys and girls are taken to national training centers in hopes of becoming Olympic heroes, but can they leave their families behind to become boxing's finest?
• Crude Sacrifice: you can't reclaim humanity
  Looks at how the community of Fort Chipewyan in northern Alberta is affected by the exploitation of Canada's Tar Sands and how the federal and provicial governments are dealing with local concerns.
• Debt Trap
  The average Canadian is shouldering a personal debt load greater than their total yearly net income. This program examines why the average Canadian is sinking deeper in debt, by looking at the stories of several individuals and families who are struggling with: credit card debt, mortgage debt, and repayment of lines of credit, student loans, and payday loans. Looks beyond blaming individual consumers, to examine the roles of lending institutions, the corporate sector, and governments in understanding the current ...
• Diamond Road
  A documentary following the path of diamonds, both geographically and historically. Details the widespread and complex interrelationship of trade and effort involving the diamond industry, from impovershed day-laborers in Sierra Leone, to craftsmen in India, to dealers, jewelers and gemologists in New York City, all attended by the marketing and sales strategies that have made the diamond trade what it is today.
• END:CIV - Resist or Die
  Examines our culture's addiction to systematic violence and environmental exploitation, and probes the resulting epidemic of poisoned landscapes and shell-shocked nations. Based in part on Endgame, the best-selling book by Derrick Jensen, END:CIV asks: 'If your homeland was invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air, and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?'
• Flow
  “A look at the world's water crisis and how the causes of the depleting water supply are connected to pollution, human rights, and even politics.”
• L'affaire Coca-Cola = The Coca-Cola case
  Colombia is the trade union murder capital of the world. Since 2002, more than 470 workers' leaders have been brutally killed, usually by paramilitaries hired by private companies intent on crushing the unions. Among these unscrupulous corporate brands is the poster boy for American business: Coca-Cola. A searing indictment of a major corporate brand, The Coca-Cola Case takes us on a riveting legal game of cat and mouse via the U.S. federal court and the Stop Killer Coke! campaign.
• Malls r us
  Combining nostalgia, dazzling architecture, pop culture, economics and politics, 'Malls r us' examines North America's most popular and profitable suburban destination-- the enclosed shopping center-- and how for consumers they function as a communal, even ceremonial experience and, for retailers, sites where their idealism, passion, and greed merge.
• Meltdown: the secret history of the global financial collapse
  Episode 1. The men who crashed the world -- episode 2. A global tsunami -- episode 3. Paying the price -- episode 4. After the fall
• Seeking the Current | Chercher le courant
  A “road movie” on a river. Nicolas Boisclair and Alexis de Gheldere canoe the entire 500 km course of the pristine Romaine River before Hydro-Québec begins construction of four hydroelectric plants. In parallel, accompanied by actor Roy Dupuis, they explore various renewable green energies and their profitability by interviewing experts across Québec. French with English subtitles
• Strong Coffee
  The coffee co-operative Cafe Femenino, created by a group of Peruvian women to bring financial independence for themselves.
• Tales from the G20
  In June 2010, leaders from the twenty largest economies met in Toronto with representatives of corporate interests to discuss the policies that would shape the world for everyone else.This documentary traces the overt breakdown in civil liberties that occurred during the G20 Summit, from unmarked vans with snatch squads of plainclothes police to the pre-emptive arrest of activists now facing years in prison for organizing demonstrations. Directed by Open Media Initiative and uploaded to Vimeo for free viewing ...
• The Big Wait: A Film About The Doctor Shortage in Canada
  The doctor shortage is getting critical and one town is desperately trying to recruit physicians. At the same time, three internationally trained doctors are trying to get licensed to practice medicine in their new country.
• The light bulb conspiracy: the untold story of planned obsolescence
  Traces the untold story of Planned Obsolescence, the deliberate shortening of product life spans to guarantee consumer demand, from its beginnings in the 1920s.
• The Pruitt-Igoe myth
  Destroyed in a dramatic and highly publicized implosion, the Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex has become a widespread symbol of failure among architects, politicians and policy makers. The Pruitt-Igoe Myth explores the social, economic and legislative issues that led to the decline of conventional public housing in America, and the city centers in which the projects resided, while tracing personal and poignant narratives of those who lived in them.
• Unnatural causes: is inequality making us sick?
  DVD only. A seven-part documentary series arguing that health and longevity are correlated with socioeconomic status; people of color face an additional health burden, and our health and well-being are tied to policies that promote economic and social justice. Each of the half-hour program segments, set in different racial/ethnic communities, provides a deeper exploration of the ways in which social conditions affect population health and how some communities are extending their lives be improving them.
• Water on the table
  Water on the Table features Maude Barlow, considered 'an international water warrior' for her crusade to have water declared a human right... [The film] presents several dramatic opposing arguments. Barlow's critics are policy and economic experts who argue that water is no different than any other resource, and that the best way to protect freshwater is to privatize it.
• Where credit is due
  Against a backdrop of oppression and civil war in Guatemala, three women's groups of the Kaqchikel Presbytery are using micro-credit loans for businesses that include agricultural projects and textiles.... a good illustration of how beneficial micro-credit can be for sustainable human development.
• Wiebo's War
  Wiebo's War tells the story of a man's epic battle with the oil and gas industry and asks provocative questions about an individual's civil liberties.