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Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Thursday, August 2nd, 2018

LIVE from New Orleans: A synopsis of films and filmmakers at Netroots Nation 2018

Greet­ings again from the Pel­i­can State, where the thir­teenth annu­al Net­roots Nation is tak­ing place in the city of New Orleans. In addi­tion to the many train­ings and pan­el dis­cus­sions at this year’s con­ven­tion, there is also a screen­ing series of short and fea­ture length films. Before the screen­ing series kicked off, there was a cau­cus for film­mak­ers, pro­duc­ers, and fans of film to make connections.

Each per­son talked about the projects they are cur­rent­ly work­ing on and if there were things they could use help, as well as men­tion­ing any­thing they might be able to offer to oth­ers. I told every­one about my work review­ing doc­u­men­taries for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, which many thought was an inter­est­ing and unique beat for a pro­gres­sive pub­li­ca­tion like the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate to have.

Shi­rah Ded­man, direc­tor of short film You a Nomad, about gen­tri­fi­ca­tion in Oak­land, Cal­i­for­nia, talked about the project and her desire to even­tu­al­ly make it into a fea­ture length film. The film is avail­able online as a five-part dig­i­tal series, which I’m plan­ning to watch and review after we return from New Orleans.

John Atlas, author of “Seeds of Change”, a book about the rise and fall of ACORN, dis­cussed the doc­u­men­tary film that was inspired by his book. “ACORN and the Fire Storm” debuted at Tribeca last year and was recent­ly fea­tured on PBS. It’s anoth­er film I’ll def­i­nite­ly be adding to my list of films to watch.

Oth­er films being screened at Net­roots include:

  • Heal­ing Jus­tice, about the caus­es and con­se­quences of our bro­ken crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, which is cost­ly and immoral;
  • Under­cov­er in the Alt-Right, about a man who (brave­ly) lived with­in a white suprema­cist group for a year;
  • No Choice, a series of short video por­traits about the chal­lenges faced by women seek­ing abor­tions in times and places where access to legal abor­tion is lim­it­ed or impossible;
  • … and a film about com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­ing and the con­tro­ver­sial founder of ACORN, Wade Rathke, titled The Orga­niz­er.

I won’t be able to watch any of these doc­u­men­tary films while at Net­roots Nation, as there are so many pan­els, train­ings, and cau­cus­es to go to, but I will keep these films in mind for future screen­ing and review.

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One Comment

  1. Thanks for the leads on what to watch! 

    # by Dee Corte :: August 3rd, 2018 at 12:14 PM
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