DOXA 2013: Occupy The Movie director Corey Ogilvie says protesters had significant effect

    1 of 1 2 of 1

      Vancouver filmmaker  Corey Ogilvie says he and producer Andrew Halliwell made a documentary about the Occupy movement because they were afraid no one else would do it.

      Occupy The Movie, which opens the DOXA Documentary Film Festival on Friday (May 3) at the Vancouver Playhouse (600 Hamilton Street), contextualizes the Occupy movement and features interviews with left-wing intellectuals Noam Chomsky and Cornel West, journalist Chris Hedges, and many others.

      In a phone interview with the Straight from Toronto, Ogilvie said that Hedges provided an intellectual foundation for the Occupy movement by successfully challenging President Barack Obama in court over legislation allowing for the indefinite detention of American citizens suspected of communicating with terrorists.

      “Occupiers were labelled as terrorists in the FBI documents,” Ogilvie pointed out. “It’s in plain sight now. It’s not a conspiracy theory.”

      He noted that some in the mainstream media portrayed protesters as not only terrorists, but also as fanatics, drug users, and Marxists. But Ogilvie insisted that Occupiers were not interested in a violent revolution.

      “They don’t want a socialist, Marxist, Communist state,” Ogilvie claimed. “They just want a fair playing field.”

      Most importantly, he said, the Occupy protests helped make the public aware of the unfairness in taxation and distribution of wealth.

      He was interested to learn that on the eve of a provincial election, both the B.C. Liberals and NDP have supported boosting corporate taxes and personal-income taxes on high-income earners.

      “Hopefully, politicians here took note,” Ogilvie said. “With the conservatives in the U.S., it’s ridiculous—no more taxes—it’s such a broken record. There’s no such thing as balance with them.”

      The film also screens on Tuesday (May 7) at Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour Street) and next Saturday (May 11) at the Cinematheque (1131 Howe Street). 

      Comments

      5 Comments

      PJ

      May 1, 2013 at 9:03pm

      There is another waste of tax money to support the poor movie industry.
      Yes lets make all the people that work hard and long hours to make a good living pay more,so the poor non working or lazy can have the same for little or no work.
      What incentive is there to make more money if you get TAXED more then the already high tax % .
      And if you do the MATH when the tax is 40% and you make 1000 you pay less than if you made 10000,GET THE IDEA.
      Breaking the law is never justified,and I hope that the people that had jobs are fired by their employers as the protest was against them and their money.

      Jiff

      May 2, 2013 at 11:11am

      PJ - do you ever get tired of the woe-is-me-working-man palaver?

      Asking for a level playing field doesn't make you a lazy hippy. You're just spouting Fox News cartoon talking points that were hilariously outdated five years ago without a wisp of critical thought.

      I guess the huge numbers of unemployed in Europe are all suddenly lazy spongers?

      cuz

      May 2, 2013 at 1:45pm

      The headline says that "protesters had significant effect". And that effect was....???? Yeah, we already knew there wasn't a level playing field. I suspect the filmmaker felt that way because he was so ingrained in the movement. Looking from the outside, I see absolutely no effect from Occupy. Sad really.

      Brad Fullerton

      May 2, 2013 at 8:43pm

      I can't opinion on other cities, but in Vancouver, the only effect occupiers had was negative, against themselves. At first the idea sounded fun, but swiftly, legitimate agencies and causes slinked away as the idiots started to take over. But a sympathetic public viewed the occupiers as mostly a minor nuisance, and relied on the City to sweep them up.

      Sean Solo

      May 3, 2013 at 12:34am

      @ PJ

      minimum wage is 7.25 an hour
      40 hour = 290
      A month= 1160
      A year =13, 920

      Do the math and try living off that.

      Crime, Debt, illegal drug sales of course none of that has to do with a shitty standard of living.

      People are just lazy?

      No, they're not lazy , they're just intelligent and tired of the disproportionate bullshit.