Progressive Film Hour

Money Talks - 12.23.14

Tuesday December 23, 3pm EST: Mitchell will be featuring the film, Money Talks: Profits Before Patient Safety, with guests Holly Mosher, Jeanne Lenzer and John Abramson, M.D.

This film is a straightforward look at the pharmaceutical industry and the way it has come to dominate medicine.

Money Talks exposes the deceptive tactics that big drug companies use to make record profits by playing with the safety of our family’s health care. Using misleading advertising, attractive “drug reps” who wine and dine doctors and other unethical practices, the drug industry makes billions of dollars every year selling us unsafe, unnecessary and overpriced drugs. If you want to protect the people you love from their dangerous practices that compromise the safety and quality of our health care, Money Talks is a must-see film. It includes interviews with investigative journalists, medical professionals, former pharmaceutical sales representatives, and others. It is directed and edited by John Ennis and produced by Holly Mosher. Among the cast are John Abramson, M.D. and Jeanne Lenzer.

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Watch the trailer:

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Holly Mosher grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In high school she developed a passion for both photography and philosophy that led her to pursue filmmaking. In her college entrance paper, she cited George Orwell’s idea that all art should be political, and today, uses that concept to guide her work. For more on Holly, see earlier A Better World Newsletters.

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Jeanne Lenzer is a medical investigative journalist and a stringer for the British Medical Journal. She has also written for Slate, The Scientist, Mother Jones, USA Today, Newsweek-Japan and The London Independent, among others. Her key area of interest is how scientific data and conclusions are often distorted by financial conflicts of interest.

She has investigated such influences related to tPA for stroke, GP IIb/IIIa inhibitors, COX-2 inhibitors and selective and non-selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

Her most recent work involves hidden industry ties with academia and the suppression of raw and summary data by the FDA, CDC, and NIH.I

John Abramson, M.D., has worked as a family doctor in Appalachia with the National Health Service Corps and for 20 years in Hamilton, Massachusetts. He was a Robert Wood Johnson fellow and is currently on the clinical faculty at Harvard Medical School, where he teaches primary care. He served for 7 years as chairman of the department of family practice at Lahey Clinic. He was twice voted “best doctor” in his area by readers of the local newspapers and three times selected by his peers as one of a handful of best family practitioners in Massachusetts.

Dr. Abramson is the author of Overdo$ed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine, published by Harper Collins in September, 2004.

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He has been published in the New York and LA Times and made more than 50 appearances on national TV, including two appearances onThe Today Show.

Dr. Abramson is serving as an expert consultant to plaintiff’s attorneys in several cases involving the drug industry.

Progressive Film Hour - Boots on the Ground and We Are Rhino - 12.16.14

Tuesday December 16, 3pm EST: Mitchell will be featuring two films, Boots on the Groundand We Are Rhino, with guests Matthew Bracken, filmmaker and actor (in We are Rhino) andChristopher J. Gervais, environmental scientist, Founder and CEO of Wildlife Conservation Film Festival.

 

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Boots on the Ground

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We Are Rhino

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Four years ago, Matthew Bracken took a sabbatical from his career in the African photographic safari industry and became the first American to graduate from the Protrack Anti-Poaching Ranger Training program in Hoedspruit, South Africa. Today, the Minnesota native is dedicating his life to ending rhino poaching in Africa. Bracken is currently featured in Spencer Austin’s documentary “We Are Rhino”.

Rhinos are being slaughtered in South Africa for their horns at a rate of three per day. Two years ago Matt Bracken became the first American to graduate from Protrack Anti Poaching Ranger Training in South Africa and has since dedicated his life to saving rhinos from extinction in the wild. Boots on the Ground is the story of the anti poaching rangers in the bush risking their lives every day and night protecting the rhinos. Experience the blood, sweat, and tears of four anti-poaching rangers through their training and patrol in the South African bush as they sacrifice the comforts of home to save the worlds last rhinos.

Christopher Gervais is an environmental and marine scientist and has graduate studies in vertebrate paleontology. He worked as a field researcher, laboratory scientist and teacher at multiple natural history museums to put himself through his college years.

Christopher was a biology teacher and later an administrator, at the time the youngest Principal for a public school in the state of Florida.While a graduate student, Christopher conducted fieldwork and research to study the Pleistocene Mega fauna fossils that were deposited over 10,000 years ago.

His study of these extinct species informs his concerns for preserving biodiversity and was a significant factor in the founding of the WCFF. Christopher was one of the first scientists to conduct underwater vertebrate paleontology research. He is a professional, advanced scuba diver with over 2,500 logged dives.

Christopher founded the WCFF in 2010. He is a philanthropic supporter of conservation organizations and is President of the International Exploration Society (IES), Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society, member of the Ocean Geographic Society, friend of American Philosophical Society and a Board Member of the Pet Philanthropy Circle. He is a willdlife photographer and documentary filmmaker.

Current films projects involve cetacean rights and the Sumatran Rhino. He also leads wildlife photography and film expeditions each year that allow people to get up close and personal with species that few people have the opportunity to ever see in person.

Vanishing of the Bees Roundtable: Maryam Henein, Rob McFarland & Paul Towers - 12.09.14

Bees, with guests Maryam Henein, Rob McFarland and Paul Towers.

The documentary film, Vanishing of the Bees, narrated by actress Ellen Page, takes a piercing investigative look at the economic, political and ecological implications of the worldwide disappearance of the honeybee.

Directors George Langworthy and Maryam Henein present not just a story about the mysterious phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder, but a platform of solutions, encouraging audiences to be the change they want to see in the world.

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The Round Table discussion will consist of 3 guests: Maryam Henein, is a filmmaker, eco-entrepreneur and all-around raconteur. Maryam is the director of Vanishing of the Bees and author of the upcoming memoir Of Bees & Men.

Maryam Henein, Founder, CEO & Editor-In-Chief, HoneyColony. Through HoneyColony, Maryam has fused her reporting skills with her love of nutrition and social media in a cooperative model that closely resembles the workings of a real hive. Maryam is dedicated to empowering folks to be their own best health advocate.

In 2010, Maryam Henein’s 15-year career as an investigative journalist, entrepeneur, producer, and director hit a milestone with the release of her award-winning documentary Vanishing of the Bees, narrated by Ellen Page. It also marked her directorial debut.

Maryam’s other credits include programs for the BBC, Discovery, Robert Greenwald, and Morgan Spurlock—plus, she co-wrote and hosted a program for TLC about the Ark of the Covenant. Her articles have appeared in several publications including the Los Angeles Times, Maxim, Science & Spirit Magazine, and Penthouse. The native Montrealer gained notoriety by breaking a story about Dodi Fayed’s imposter, a man who duped hundreds across North America, including Duran Duran and Jodie Foster. The trial set a precedent in Canadian legal history.

Maryam’s immersion in nutrition science and alternative healing started about 10 years ago, on the heels of a near death experience. Maryam’s brush with death also raised her awareness of the environment, which inspired her to work on a piece on the Exxon Valdez Oil spill for Robert Greenwald and The Sierra Club. Shortly thereafter, the bees flew into Maryam’s life.

Rob McFarland is President and Co-Founder of HoneyLove.org, a 501(c)3 non-profit with a mission to inspire and educate urban beekeepers. Drawing from his background in media and technology, Rob leverages his passion and skills to advocate for honeybee conservation and urban agriculture.

Rob is a creative director / social media strategist, and organic gardener.

Husband and wife team Rob, along with his wife, Chelsea, started HoneyLove with a mission to protect the honeybees and inspire and educate new urban beekeepers.

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Paul Towers, joining us during the last half hour of the show is organizing and media director for Pesticide Action Network, which works to replace the use of hazardous pesticides with ecologically sound and socially just alternatives. Paul joined PAN in summer 2011 bringing more than eight years experience in community organizing, fundraising and organizational development with environmental, health and social justice organizations. PAN is doing great work around raising awareness about neonicotinoids and petitioning to get them banned. They work trying to get this through advocacy work in DC.

Before coming to PAN, he directed Pesticide Watch and Pesticide Watch Education Fund, sister California organizations dedicated to reducing pesticide use and promoting healthy farming. Previously, Paul was a community organizer with New England-based Toxics Action Center, and he is a graduate of Green Corps, the field school for environmental organizing. Paul’s media background comes from serving as Public Affairs and General Manager of KDVS-FM and as a co-founder of Common Frequency, a media justice nonprofit. At PAN, Paul provides support to partner organizations and communities, coordinates the Organizing Hub, and acts as primary contact for print media, television and radio. Paul earned a B.S. in Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning, at University of California, Davis

Carbon Nation – Peter Byck, Ted Genoways - 12.02.14

Tuesday December 2, 3pm EST: Mitchell is featuring the progressive documentary this week called Carbon Nation. It takes a good, long and hard look at what the exploitation of fossil fuels have done to our to our air, water, health and overall environment and society. It then moves into solutions, real alternatives to the use of fossil fuels for powering our society as well as ways of building community around farms, food and deeper, more respectful relationship to our environment and Earth.

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Click below to watch the trailer:

Joining Mitchell on the Round Table to discuss the themes of the film are its director and producer, Peter Byck and writer, journalist Ted Genoways.

Peter Byck has over 20 years experience as a director and editor. His first documentary “Garbage” won the South by Southwest Film Festival. (It screened in scores of festivals in the U.S. and Europe and played at the Museum of Modern Art and Lincoln Center).

In addition, he has edited documentaries for Peter Jackson’s last two films, “Lord of the Rings” and “King Kong.” Peter has also worked as an editor or director for documentaries and promotional shorts for Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox, MTV, Vh1, BBC, Disney and MGM, for shows and movies including “The West Wing,” “The Matrix,” “Scrubs,” “er” and many more.

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In 1986, Peter received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from California Institute of the Arts.

Byck has also just joined the faculty at Arizona State University, in both the School of Sustainability and the Cronkite School
of Journalism. During the filming and editing of carbon nation, Byck has met and collaborated with the leading minds from the world of climate, clean energy, military applications and land use. Byck’s contacts span the globe – keeping him up-to-date on the fast moving frontier of the clean energy revolution. Byck is currently in production for carbon nation 2.0 – an on-going series of short films promoting a low carbon economy, produced in affiliation with ASU.

Peter has presented Carbon Nation for Boeing, Nike, Google, Microsoft, Walmart.com, SC Johnson, Stonyfield, Carbon War Room, Shell, White House CEQ, CarbonTrade Ex, NetImpact, Social Venture Network. AREDAY, Metcalf Institute @ U of R.I., PEW-BICEP, Prince Charles’ B.E.P. program @ Cambridge University, R.I.S.D., Art Center (Pasadena),Yale University, Conservation International, Louisville Fund for the Arts & many other universities, companies and high schools across the country and internationally.

Ted Genoways is a contributing writer at Mother Jones, an editor-at-large at OnEarth (the magazine of theNatural Resources Defense Council), and the author of The Chain: Farm, Factory, and the Fate of Our Food.His most recent article was published in Outside Magazine about the tar sands and Keystone XL Pipeline.

Ted Genoways is an award-winning poet, journalist, and editor. In addition to The Chain, he is the author of two books of poems and the nonfiction book Walt Whitman and the Civil War: America’s Poet During the Lost Years of 1860–1862, named a Best Academic Title of 2010 by the American Library Association.

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Genoways is also a contributing editor at Mother Jones and his essays and poetry have appeared in The Atlantic, Bloomberg Businessweek, Harper’s, The New Republic, Outside, and the Washington Post Book World.

He is a winner of a National Press Club Award and the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, and he has received fellowships from the NEA and the Guggenheim Foundation. He served as the editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review from 2003 to 2012, during which time the magazine won six National Magazine Awards.

Pay 2 Play - 11/25/14

This week’s featured film is called PAY 2 PLAY: Democracy’s High Stakes directed by John Wellington Ennis.

This film takes a close look at the role of money in politics and how it has come to control the outcomes of elections and the legislation Congress considers and passes into law. It follows a few election cycles in Ohio as an example of what happens everywhere in the country. It goes into Alec, Koch Brothers and the Occupy Movement. It even gives a history of the game of Monopoly and fraud that occurred even in respect to America’s most popular board game of all time.

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John Wellington Ennis, Director / Producer, is a filmmaker, activist, and father. His previous films are FREE FOR ALL!: One Dude’s Quest to Save Democracy and the Upright Citizens Brigade‘s Wild Girls Gone, starring Amy Poehler. Ennis has written for The Huffington Post, The Onion, and Melrose & Fairfax. He is a co-founder of Video the Vote, a citizen journalism project covering election problems, and is on the board of Public Interest Pictures. He attended the film schools at New York University and University of Southern California and has taught documentary filmmaking at UCLA Extension.

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Holly Mosher, Executive Producer, is an award-winning filmmaker who brings socially conscious films to the public. After graduating with honors from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Holly produced a number of commercials and feature films. In 2004 she made her directorial debut with her award-winning documentary, Hummingbird, about two nonprofits in Brazil that work with street kids and women suffering domestic violence. Afterwards, she produced two films on the pharmaceutical industry: Side Effects, starring Katherine Heigl, and Money Talks: Profits Before Patient Safety. She co-produced Maybe Baby, and executive produced Vanishing of the Bees, FREE FOR ALL!, and Pay 2 Play: Democracy’s High Stakes. The second film she directed, Bonsai People – The Vision of Muhammad Yunus, is currently airing on American Public Television. The Hollywood Reporter named her one of the top up-and-coming independent film producers.

The Film, Origins - 11.18.14

Tuesday November 18, 3pm EST:Today’s show features a beautiful and informative film called Origins, which was just released for free viewing last week for 10 days. The link is here to view t for free: Click here to watch the trailer and/or to sign up to watch the movie for free.

 

 

 

 

Produced by Dr. Pedram Shoja, O.MD., this film goes back to what we believe is the origin of our species in the depths of South Africa and traces our eating habits from then until now, as well as customs, patterns of relating to the Earth and life itself.

Pedram Shojai ran a large medical practice. But he got tired of treating the same symptoms over and over. He wanted to understand the root causes of sickness and health. That drove Dr. Shojai to spend the last 4 years and nearly $1 million researching and producing Origins.

This documentary is a riveting indictment of a status quo that is sickening millions and robbing so many people of health, vitality and joy. But it’s also filled with solutions and hope.

It’s a film that comes to some controversial conclusions. Whether you agree with them all or not, I’m sure you’ll find it inspiring, provocative, and uplifting. Following clips from the film will be a Round Table discussion about the salient themes raised in the film.

Pedram Shojai and other experts in the film will be joining Mitchell in the Round Table about the film’s themes of health,wellness and what we’re doing with our food supply and planet interspersed with clips from the film.

Citizen Autistic film discussed with Clarissa Kripke, MD, FAAFP - 11/11/14

Tuesday November 11, 3pm EST: Today’s featured film is Citizen Autistic, directed and produced by William Davenport, Director/producer of this film which goes into dept about the ways autistic children are thought of in our society and horrifically treated institutionally.

To discuss the film with Mitchell and the issues around autism in our society is Clarissa Kripke, MD, FAAFP,

Clarissa is Clinical Professor of Family and Community Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. She directs the Office of Developmental Primary Care http://odpc.ucsf.edu which is dedicated to improving health care services for adults with developmental disabilities.

Dr. Kripke teaches health professionals how to apply neurodiversity concepts to the practice of medicine. She helps medically fragile adults thrive in the community by providing primary care in the home. She partners with self-advocacy, disability and medical organizations to improve health policy for adults with developmental disabilities.

Also, she recently authored: “Primary care for Adults on the Autism Spectrum” and “Primary Care for Adolescents with Developmental Disabilities.” Dr. Kripke serves as an academic member of the AASPIRE Community Participatory Research collaborative which has recently developed a tool kit for self-advocates and professionals: http://autismandhealth.org

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William Davenport’s film Citizen Autistic brings us an inside look at the front lines of the autistic civil rights movement, showcasing autistic activists and self-advocates on the front lines of this struggle for inclusion, and freedom from persecution.

The movie provides insights into the growing autism rights movement, where the goal is to move away from awareness of the disorder and shift the national dialogue towards more acceptance and channeling research and monetary support towards developing technologies and opportunities for autistic adults and families.

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Progressive Film Hour - The Film, Field Biologist, and guests Jared Flesher & Tyler Christensen - 11/04/14

Tuesday November 4, 3pm EST: The film being featured this week is Field Biologist,about a teenager in NJ who seemed to have little aptitude or interest in the academics of high school, but when given the opportunity to fly on his own, had come to virtually master the colorful and in-depth world of birding. One of the several points of the film is that when people are allowed to do just what they feel drawn to do they can become competent, even masterful, and in this case, doing much to preserve several bird species.

click here to check out the trailer

To discuss the film will be Tyler Christensen. Field Biologist is the story of this 22-year-old a remarkably talented but somewhat rudderless high school graduate from New Jersey still trying to figure out what to do with his life. Tyler’s great love is being outside, chasing birds and studying wildlife. One day he decides—brushing aside his lack of a college degree or scientific credentials—to drop everything and travel to Costa Rica to start doing his own conservation-oriented research on birds in the tropics.

Tyler’s adventure takes him from the cloud forests of Monteverde to the mangrove swamps of the Nicoya Peninsula, culminating in a plan to try to help save the highly endangered mangrove hummingbird. The film presents the major challenges facing biodiversity on Earth—climate change and habitat destruction chief among them—while also raising some fundamental questions: What makes someone a scientist? How important is a formal education? What risks are worth taking? What should you do with your life?

Also to discuss the film will be filmmaker Jared Flesher. In the gentlest of ways, the viewer is apprised of the seriousness of the global warming issue before us and how love of Nature itself can motivate many to seek to preserve her.

Jared is an award-winning reporter, photojournalist, and documentary filmmaker. He is also the editor of Edible Jersey magazine. He has directed three documentary films that have screened at film festivals around the world: The Farmer and the Horse, Sourlands, and Field Biologist. Jared’s articles have been published by The New York Times Online, The Wall Street Journal Online, The Christian Science Monitor, Grist.com, and many others. For fun, he enjoys growing food in his home garden, jogging with his dog, and exploring forests.

Progressive Film Hour - Helena Norberg-Hodge, Filmmaker, Author - 10/28/14

Tuesday October 28, 3pm EDT: This week’s featured film is The Economics of Happiness.Mitchell’s guest this afternoon to discuss the film is filmmaker, author Helena Norberg-Hodge.

Helena is an analyst of the impact of the global economy on cultures and agriculture worldwide, a pioneer of the localisation movement, and the articulator of the core ideas of Counter-development.

She is producer and co-director of the award-winning documentary, The Economics of Happiness,

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Helena is the founder and director of Local Futures/International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC).

Based in the US and UK, with subsidiaries in Sweden, Germany, Australia, and Ladakh, Local Futures’ mission is to examine the root causes of our social and environmental crises, while promoting more sustainable and equitable patterns of living in both North and South. Its activities include The Economics of Happiness, The Ladakh Project,[1] and Global to Local Outreach.

Helena was educated in Sweden, Germany, Austria, England and the United States. She specialised in linguistics, including studies at the doctoral level at the University of London and at MIT, with Noam Chomsky. Fluent in seven languages, she has lived in and studied numerous cultures at varying degrees of industrialisation, giving her a unique international perspective.

She is the author of the bestselling Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh, based on her first-hand experience of the effects of conventional development in Ladakh.

Purchase Helena’s Books 

She is a pioneer of the worldwide localisation movement and a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award and the 2012 Goi Peace Award.www.localfutures.org.

Helena will be one of the speakers at Voices for Hope in a Time of Crises Event, November 8, 2014, 10am to 6pm, this coming November 8th.

Join in for a day of thought-provoking and constructive talks on our multiple crises and how we can solve them, including the launch of the International Alliance for Localization (IAL). It will be held at The Great Hall, The Cooper Union, NYC. To register: Click here for more information

Progressive Film Hour - Taking Root - 10/21/14

This week's film is Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai.

Taking Root tells the dramatic story of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai whose simple act of planting trees grew into a nationwide movement to safeguard the environment, protect human rights, and defend democracy—a movement for which this charismatic woman became an iconic inspiration.

 

To discuss the film, the life of Nobel Prize Laureate Wangari Matthai and the exemplary environmental and community-building work she did in Africa are the filmmakers, Lisa Merton and Alan Dater. More on Wangari Matthai's life, go to: http://www.biography.com/people/wangari-maathai-13704918#early-life-and-education.

Alan Dater graduated from Goddard College in 1965 with a B.A. in Philosophy. He began his film career in New York City shortly thereafter working on documentaries as a freelance soundman and later as a director/cameraman. Many of these productions were broadcast on the major U.S. networks and include: span, an Emmy Award-winning medical documentary series for NBC;The Body Human, an Emmy Award-winning medical series for CBS; andNational Geographic Specials. He has gained extensive experience in film and video from working on many productions on the arts, social issues, and education as well as for the corporate world. These productions include the feature film Hi Mom directed by Brian De Palma starring Robert De Niro; and a documentary about the country singer Johnny Cash entitled Johnny Cash: The Man, His World, His Music. After moving to Vermont he continued his freelance career and began producing independent films. Often these films focused on the arts. They include: The Stuff of Dreams, the story of a community theater group’s creation of an elaborate, original production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, shown at INPUT in Milan; and Blanche, a portrait of the conductor, Blanche Honegger Moyse, one of the founders of the Marlboro (Vermont) Music Festival.

Lisa Merton started out her career as a weaver. She studied textile design and weaving in Scandinavia and, after returning to the U.S., worked professionally as a weaver for ten years. While studying in Norway she was inspired by a series of tapestries that depicted the occupation of Norway by the Nazis. Her intent was to weave tapestry and use it as an art form for social change but instead she ended up as a production weaver. It was not until she started making films in 1989 that she fulfilled her intent to weave images that could inspire social change. She has a Masters in Teaching English and has taught English as a second language in multi-cultural classrooms. She brings her interest in education, cultural diversity, and social change, as well as her skill as a craftsman, to the filmmaking process.

Green Belt Movement

Maathai sought to end the devastation of Kenya's forests and lands caused by development and remedy the negative impact that this development had on the country's environment. In 1977, she launched the Green Belt Movement to reforest her beloved country while helping the nation's women. "Women needed income and they needed resources because theirs were being depleted," Maathai explained to People magazine. "So we decided to solve both problems together."

This film is the most comprehensive, in-depth film about Wangari Maathai available. It was made in close collaboration with her during the last decade of her life.

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