by Joe Buffaloe
Daily Lobo
Sometimes a film can be entertaining and enlightening.
It's even better when it's free.
The Guild will host the first annual Albuquerque Social Justice Film Festival on Friday and Saturday. The festival was organized by the student-run UNM Sustainability Forum, Fair Trade Initiative, and the Expose Coalition - an anti-smoking group - and will be free of charge. Dubbed "Witnessing Labor," the festival will focus on films dealing with the issues of labor rights and injustices around the world.
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The first night is dedicated to tobacco awareness and the impact of multinational tobacco corporations on global economics.
"Tobacco companies are basically exploiting poor sharecroppers to make their products," said Rebekah McCann of the Fair Trade Initiative.
The documentaries "Thangata," "Up in Smoke" and "Tobacco Blues" will be screened. Following the films, there will be a discussion with audience members, and Denis Doyon from the New Mexico Media Literacy Project will speak about the Smoke-Free Movie Campaign.
The second day of the festival will feature documentaries from around the world highlighting a variety of labor issues. Films will include "Mardi Gras: Made in China;" "Stolen Childhood," about the 246 million child laborers worldwide; "Broken Limbs," which deals with struggles of small fruit growers in a global economy; and "Occupation," which tells the story of the campaign for fair wages at the world's richest university, Harvard.
The film "Trade Secrets," which deals with the dangers of North American Free Trade Agreement expansion; and "The Yes Men," which follows a group of prankster activists as they impersonate the World Trade Organization at business conferences around the world, will also be screened.
"We want people to be educated about big corporations and globalism, and the impact they're having on the world," McCann said.
There will also be a panel discussion Saturday night. Panelists will include representatives from the New Mexico Living Wage Campaign, the Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice, the New Mexico Central Labor Council, the UNM Fair Trade Organization, and the UNM Sustainability Forum.
Organizers of the festival also hope to raise awareness of a hot political issue in New Mexico: the proposed increase in the minimum wage.
"New Mexicans work very hard for their money, and I believe that they deserve to be able to feed their families and live a comfortable life as a result of their hard work," said Marica Martinic, President of the UNM Expose Coalition.
"This Film Festival is a great way for Albuquerque residents to hear the truth about what it means to live on $5.15 per hour and to have the opportunity to witness films that show global labor injustices, including the injustices of transnational tobacco companies like Philip Morris," she said.
