health
Covering Covid 19
A discussion on the unprecedented challenges when it comes to covering the global pandemic in terms of accurately reporting a complex and fast-moving story. Covid 19 poses a unique set of challenges; to interpret the scientific data, tell the human stories, counter conspiracy theories and hold political leaders to account.
Superbugs: Reframing a Global Health Emergency
Antibiotic resistance, known officially as antimicrobial resistance (AMR), is killing 700,000 people a year and is predicted to cost 10 million lives annually by 2050. By any metric, this is an international health crisis, albeit one that is taking place in slow-motion. Times journalist David Aaronovitch – whose life was saved by antibiotics after a routine operation went catastrophically wrong – talks to leading journalists and scientists to find out how we can shift the narrative around AMR in order to affect real change, rather than just more words.
U.S. Under the Lens: TRAPPED + Q&A
At this very moment, a woman’s reproductive rights in the United States are not clear. Since 2010, state legislatures have passed more than 250 laws restricting abortion clinics and their doctors. From mandating the width of hallways to requiring physicians to have active admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, these measures are forcing clinics across the country to shut down in epidemic numbers. Lawyer-turned-acclaimed-filmmaker Dawn Porter picks up the plight of the doctors and clinic operators along with the countless women relying on these facilities to uphold their legal right to safe abortion.
Screening: The Divide + Q&A
Inspired by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett’s best-selling book The Spirit Level, Katharine Round’s accomplished debut feature illustrates a more personal account of how inequality shapes our societies. The film travels across the world and into individual lives to see how broad economic shifts have shaped not only our physical circumstances, but also the way we think and what we believe in.
Green Caravan Film Festival Screening: Babushkas of Chernobyl
Some 200 women defiantly cling to their ancestral homeland in Chernobyl’s radioactive “Exclusion Zone.” While most of their neighbours have long since fled and their husbands have gradually died off, this stubborn sisterhood is hanging on — even, oddly, thriving — while trying to cultivate an existence on toxic earth.