Today's national conversation and political moment has inspired a powerful revolution of filmmakers applying their trade to the moment's most pressing issues. Environmentalism, corporate accountability, scientific creativity, legal injustice and online privacy are just some of the pressing issues raised in these buzzed-about docs. The fifth annual SFJFF Take Action Day takes place on Friday, July 27 at the Castro Theatre with post-film conversations hosted by award-winning filmmaker and former JFI Filmmaker in Residence Nicole Opper.
Parkersburg, West Virginia, has been ground zero for the impact of chemicals used in Dupont’s Teflon and other products—toxic chemicals now found in the blood of 99 percent of Americans. Workers at the plant have given birth to deformed children and local farmers have seen their herds disfigured and decimated. As victims and activists take on the powerful corporation, Dupont continues on its course with the deadly use of the chemical.
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“What would the world look like if we didn’t eat meat?” Answers touch on climate change, health, animal welfare, biodiversity and more, but it’s the wide scope and diverse characters that make this doc a must-see. From interviews with scientists creating meat in petri dishes, to lovers of seaweed that tastes like bacon, The End of Meat is not just for vegans and vegetarians, but also flexitarians—omnivores interested in simply eating less meat.
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Carrie Goldberg, an internet privacy attorney; Anita Sarkeesian, a media critic and activist; and Tina Reine, a financial trader whose career was derailed by a vicious campaign of cyber harassment, are the three extraordinary subjects profiled. Coinciding with the #MeToo movement, as the internet becomes the next frontier for civil rights, the arc of the online moral universe may also be long, but here too, Netizens shows it bending towards justice.
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Science Fair deftly weaves together the stories of nine high schoolers as they strive to earn the right to join 1,700 other students from around the world at the 2017 edition of Intel’s International Science Engineering Fair (ISEF). While not all of them are winners in the eyes of the judges, viewers cannot help but be impressed with the students as they tirelessly pursue their dreams.
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This emotionally powerful documentary about one family’s misfortune is also a compelling indictment of the injustice of mandatory minimum prison laws. Cindy Shank was a wife and mother of three young daughters when she was arrested on drug conspiracy charges, a result of her involvement with a drug-dealing former boyfriend. Director Rudy Valdez (Cindy’s brother) documents the devastating impact her 15-year sentence in a federal prison has on her and her family.
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