[Corp. Watch] 5th Annual Anti-Corporate Film Festival Opens May 20

[Corporation Watch]

Anti-Corporate Film Festival Awash with Movies on Drinks (and Food, Sex, and Oil)

 5th annual event focuses on corporate manipulation of
 human necessities such as food, energy, and pleasure

(San Francisco, May 1) -- The 5th Annual Anti-Corporate Film Festival opens on Thursday, May 20, at the Victoria Theatre in San Francisco with a film on how small, local, and independent beer brewers must fight for their survival against three giant corporations that together control more than 90% of the market.

	It's just the first of three drink-related films in a line-up that includes movies about the bottled water industry (which may soon rival the beer industry in sales and influence), and the grand-daddy of all beverage companies, and an international symbol of American culture and commerce: Coca-Cola.

	Also in the mix is a film about the pharmaceutical industry's effort to sell women drugs and medical treatments that don't work for a disease that doesn't exist (so-called "female sexual dysfunction"), a look at the birth and growth of the organic/sustainable food movement as part of the Berkeley counter-cultural politics of 1960s, and a closing night examination of past, current, and future U.S. energy policy as told with a distinct drawl by the Texas oilmen who feed the nation's petroleum habit.

	The Festival kicks off with BEER WARS, a behind-the-scenes look at the daily skirmishes and all-out battles that determine what kind of beer Americans get to drink, as small, regional, and independent "craft" brewers challenge the corporate behemoths that produce millions of gallons of watery, flavor-less, industrial swill. The screening will be followed by a micro-brew mixer at the SF Media Archive.

	The opening night film TAPPED is a disturbing look of the bottled water industry, which goes the beer giants one better by pumping millions of gallons of public water -- even during a drought -- out of taxpayer-funded municipal systems, and then selling it back to the same people for six times the price.

	The Festival opens its second day on Friday, May 21 with ORGASM, INC, an expose on how the pharmaceutical industry continues to define our notions of what "healthy" is, in its efforts to replicate the success (and profits) of Viagra by developing a similar drug for women. But first it must convince them that the norms of female sexuality constitute an illness that can be fixed by taking a drug.

	The centerpiece film this year is THE COCA-COLA CASE, a taut legal thriller about a court battle by two crusading labor lawyers trying to bring the world's largest beverage company to account for its role in the murders of union organizers in violence-torn Colombia. The film will be followed by a Q&A featuring Ray Rogers of the Stop Killer Coke! campaign, and other experts on the situation in Colombia.

	The final day of the Festival begins at 7:30 with FOOD FIGHT, a look at birth and development of the local/organic/sustainable food movement in the San Francisco Bay Area, as an outgrowth of the political upheaval of the 1960s. The film will be followed by a Q&A with local chef and SF Chronicle food writer Eric Gower.

	The Festival concludes with HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM, which looks at the current state of our energy addiction through the eyes (and mouths) of the Texas oilmen who ride the boom and bust cycle like a bucking bronco. Like dealers of any drug, they don't see it as their job to help us kick our oil habit -- but they can also see the day coming when we won't need their product any more.

	For more information -- including the full Festival schedule, trailers, and tickets -- visit www.countercorp.org.