Progressive Film Hour

Progressive Documentary Hour - Bag It - 06/30/14

Tonight’s show features the award-winning documentary called BAG IT.  It’s the untold story of the profound harm plastics to our environments, land fills and oceans, killing sea life and causing harm to the health of humans.  It’s an epidemic of enormous proportion, powerfully told in this film which has received critical acclaim at Sundance and beyond.  Mitchell Rabin will be discussing the film with filmmaker Suzan Beraza and one of the scientists in the film, scientist and Professor Frederick S. vom Saal, University of Missouri.

 

Progressive Documentary Hour - The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard - 06/23/14

A film that has had more than 10 million viewers in over 200 countries, this 21-minute animated film, narrated by Annie Leonard, tells a story about the linear version of the manufacturing process that will make your head spin. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever. 

To discuss the themes of the film with Mitchell is Albe Zakes, the 27 year -old Vice President of Media Relations at TerraCycle, Inc., the world’s leading ‘upcycling’ company, which converts waste materials into eco-friendly, affordable products available at big box retailers nationwide. Albe came to TerraCycle shortly after graduating from the University of Colorado, Boulder. While at University, Albe ran several grassroots groups and worked as a student volunteer supervisor for CoPIRG (Colorado Public Interest Research Group.) With PIRG he help to run the Environment Alert initiative for two years, hosting on-campus awareness events and running letter writing, petitioning and fundraising campaigns. 

Other student groups Albe ran included the Colorado chapter of Hip Hop Congress a grassroots movement that spreads political and social awareness and activism through music and poetry. Albe started at TerraCycle as an intern in the PR department, after being told he did not have enough experience for a full time position! After spending two months as an intern he was offered a full time position and never looked back. In the last three years, Albe has worked his way to the top of the PR department. 

With little PR experience he help TerraCycle battle Scotts Miracle-Gro, running the “Sued by Scotts” Campaign in 2007. Albe got coverage for TerraCycle on Oprah and Good Morning America on the same day: Earth Day! On tonight’s show, we will see a clip of the The Story of Stuff and then discuss the wasteful, toxic, subsidized character of the manufacturing process in this country and what more long-term, non-toxic, non-polluting and ultimately, much more profitable solutions are.

Progressive Documentary Hour - 06/16/14

Forward 13 – Waking up the American Dream

Filmmaker Patrick Lovell describes the 2008 housing bubble crash through the loss of his own home by a draconian series of sales and bundling of the mortgage on his and his family’s home which was, like many millions of Americans, foreclosed upon.  The film examines banking, energy, real estate and how government is acting on behalf of big business to the People’s serious disadvantage.  Along with Patrick Lovell, Mitchell interviews the Assistant Secretary of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) during the Bush Sr. Administration, Catherine Austin Fitts, who, from inside the corridors of government, saw the planning of the bubble at the highest levels and goes into detail about this—and the potential solution, regarding government expenditures and how this could be turned around to benefit the people government is here to serve.

 

Progressive Documentary Hour - 06/02/14

Tonight’s show will focus on the painful subject of rape of women in our society, and what few real mechanisms exist for justice to be realized for them.

This powerful and Academy award-nominated documentary film The Invisible War, will be the featured film this evening around which, joining Mitchell to discuss the topic, is president of the National Organization of Women (NOW) Terry O’Neill.

Terry was elected president of N.O.W. in June 2009 and oversees this landmark organization’s multi-issue agenda which includes: advancing reproductive freedom, ending racism, stopping violence against women, winning lesbian rights, ensuring economic justice, ending sex discrimination and achieving constitutional equality for women.

A former law professor, O’Neill taught at Tulane and the University of California at Davis, where her courses included feminist legal theory and international women’s rights law. She has testified before committees in the Maryland House of Delegates and has written federal amicus briefs on abortion rights for Louisiana NOW, Planned Parenthood and the ACLU.

This documentary provides the painful evidence of how much change is needed in the military.  The national conversation has thankfully engaged the importance of rape in all sectors of society, including on college campuses.

If you can see The Invisible War prior to the radio program, you will appreciate the depth of the film and the ensuing discussion.

Toward the end of the show, listeners are invited to call in and share their questions, comments or story.

Progressive Documentary Hour - 05/19/14

Continuing an emphasis on the importance of the environmental movement, Mitchell has invited director, producer, writer Mark Kitchell as his guest this evening to discuss his award-winning film, featured at the Sundance Festival, A Fierce Green Fire.

.

To date, Mark Producer/Writer is best known for his film Berkeley in the Sixties, which won the Sundance Audience Award in 1990, was nominated for an Academy Award and won other top honors.It has become a well-loved classic, one of the defining documentaries about the protest movements of the 1960s.

.

Kitchell went to NYU film school, where he made The Godfather Comes to Sixth St., a cinema verité look at his neighbors caught up in filming The Godfather II for which he received another (student) Academy Award nomination.

.

Mark’s latest film, A Fierce, Green Fire, was just aired on the PBS’ American Master’s Series and is receiving critical acclaim.

.

It is a detailed history of the environmental movement in the United States, with specific lens on The Sierra Club and Greenpeace among a few other leading environmental organizations which took the lead in the U.S. over the past 50 or so years.

Mitchell and Mark met a few years ago when the film was in its earlier stages.
These two will discuss the relevance of the environmental movement and socially-conscious films such as this in tonight’s program.

Progressive Documentary Hour - 05/12/14

Suzanne Bauman, Director, Producer, Writer, Editor, is Supervising Producer of“The Writing Code,” a television mini-series for PBS about the invention, history, art and craft of writing from ancient times to the internet. The project, with extensive outreach and website, was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation.

Her feature documentary “Shadow of Afghanistan” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, and is now distributed worldwide by Cinema Libre Studios, who also represent “Water Wars,” best documentary feature winner, 2014 Universe Multicultural Film Festival. “Jackie Behind the Myth,” a two-hour documentary special on Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, premiered on PBS and aired in more than 30 countries.

An Academy Award Nominee for “Against Wind and Tide: A Cuban Odyssey,” her films are distributed worldwide, including “Suleyman the Magnificent,” “Cuba in the Shadow of Doubt,” “La Belle Epoque,” “The Artist Was a Woman,” Light of the Gods,” “Merchants and Masterpieces,” “The Way of the Warrior,” “Spirit Catcher: the Art of Betye Saar,” and “The Women of Summer.”

Director Jim Burroughs: Jim has written, produced and directed over 150 films and TV shows of different genres.  He has worked on six continents, documenting and re-creating personal dramas, expeditions, wars, and historical events. His clients have included Paramount, ABC, CBS, PBS, A&E, Channel 4 UK, France 5, Discovery, and National Geographic International.  He is a cameraman and a composer, as well, with 200 songs and scores to his credit.  He has worked underwater for Mike Nichols, tracked rhinos in the wild with Jack Hanna, and filmed the real “Indiana Jones” excavating the ancient caves of Israel.