Bhopal Survivors Tour & “The Yes Men Fix The World”
Bhopal Survivors Tour & “The Yes Men Fix The World”
Screening @ No-Space, May 10, 6-8 pm
With The Yes Men
This Sunday survivors and activists from Bhopal will join us for a special preview screening of The Yes Men Fix The World (dir. Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno, Kurt Engfehr, 2009), a new film in which they appear.
The Yes Men Fix The World follows a couple of gonzo political activists as they infiltrate the world of big business and pull off outrageous pranks that highlight the ways that corporate greed is destroying the planet. The film begins with the Yes Men’s famous 2004 impersonation of a Dow Chemical spokesperson on BBC World News. In a broadcast that reached 300 million people, they took responsibility for the world’ largest industrial accident, causing Dow’s market value to drop $2 billion in less than a half hour.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal Disaster. More than 23,000 have died as a result of the catastrophic gas leak and ongoing water contamination. To this day, residents and allies around the world continue fighting to force the company responsible to make amends. Key organizers from Bhopal will lead a Q&A about the campaign after the screening. This will be their first occasion to watch the film in which they are featured.
ABOUT THE FILM
The Yes Men impersonate captains of industry, agree their way into the fortified compounds of commerce, and then smuggle out stories that provide a hilarious glimpse at the behind-the-scenes world of big business. They were the subject of a feature film (The Yes Men, 2004) and have recently pulled off some of their most ambitious and audacious acts, which are the subject of their current feature, The Yes Men Fix the World.
The Yes Men Fix The World (dir. Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno, Kurt Engfehr, 2009, 90min) is a screwball true story that follows a couple of gonzo political activists as they infiltrate the world of big business and pull off outrageous pranks that highlight the ways that corporate greed is destroying the planet. From Dow Chemical’s failure to properly deal with a 25-year old tragic plant explosion in Bhopal, to impersonating a director of H.U.D. to help solve the housing crisis of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, to a “Special Edition” of The New York Times dated July 4, 2009 that featured articles about things that should be happening in the world, along the way the duo discover the culprits behind the cult of greed, and in a wildly uplifting ending, they find a way for everyone to defeat the cult and save civilization from its own worst excesses.
The Yes Men impersonate captains of industry, agree their way into the fortified compounds of commerce, and then smuggle out stories that provide a hilarious glimpse at the behind-the-scenes world of big business. They were the subject of a feature film (The Yes Men, 2004) and have recently pulled off some of their most ambitious and audacious acts, which are the subject of their current feature, The Yes Men Fix the World.
The Yes Men Fix The World (dir. Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno, Kurt Engfehr, 2009, 90min) is a screwball true story that follows a couple of gonzo political activists as they infiltrate the world of big business and pull off outrageous pranks that highlight the ways that corporate greed is destroying the planet. From Dow Chemical’s failure to properly deal with a 25-year old tragic plant explosion in Bhopal, to impersonating a director of H.U.D. to help solve the housing crisis of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, to a “Special Edition” of The New York Times dated July 4, 2009 that featured articles about things that should be happening in the world, along the way the duo discover the culprits behind the cult of greed, and in a wildly uplifting ending, they find a way for everyone to defeat the cult and save civilization from its own worst excesses.
The film recently premiered at the 2009 Sundance Festival, and it won the Audience Award at the Berlin Film Festival in February.
ABOUT THE BHOPAL SURVIVORS TOUR
Rachna Dhingra was just six years old and living in Delhi when the world’s worst industrial disaster struck Bhopal. After moving to the U.S. and becoming active in the Association for India’s Development (AID), she eventually moved to Bhopal to work with the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal.
Safreen Khan‘s mother was exposed to the gas from the Bhopal disaster in 1984. Having nowhere else to go Safreen and her family continue to live in the area and consume poisoned water daily.
Sarita Malviya is a resident of one of the many water-contaminated communities living around the Union Carbide factory. She is one of the founding members of Children Against Dow Carbide, a group that meets weekly with about 60 members ages 6 to 18.
Satinath “Sathyu” Sarangi is a metallurgical engineer turned activist who arrived in Bhopal a day after the disaster and stayed on to become a key figure in the struggle for justice. He is a founding trustee of the Sambhavna Clinic, a nonprofit dedicated to the holistic treatment of gas-affected persons.
ABOUT THE BHOPAL CAMPAIGN
Twenty-five years after the Bhopal tragedy Dow Chemical, the current owner of Union Carbide, still has not been held accountable. Hundreds of tons of toxic waste were abandoned in 1984, when Union Carbide fled the city after a gas leak at the plant killed 8,000 people and injured half a million. The chemical company has refused to accept responsibility for the waste and refuses to clean up the site. For 25 years, chemicals have leaked into the soil and groundwater around the factory site, poisoning residents of the city. The death toll stands at 23,000 and continues to rise. Children born to survivors suffer health problems, while 150,000 people are in urgent need of medical attention. More than 10,000 people are still forced to drink water laced with alarmingly high levels of mercury, carbon tetrachloride and other persistent organic pollutants and heavy metals.
The International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal is calling on Dow to accept its pending liabilities in Bhopal, to clean up the site, provide people with clean drinking water, long-term medical care and full compensation. It is also calling for international legislation to be put in place to make sure companies, such as Dow, are held responsible for pollution or accidents their operations cause, wherever they occur.
Date
May 10, 2009
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