The film screenings at Elevate 2008:
Wednesday: The French documentary, called "The world according to Monsanto" and directed by independent filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin, paints a grim picture of a company with a long track record of environmental crimes and health scandals. It's the same company that sued a guest of the festival: Percy Schmeiser
Thursday: Good Copy Bad Copy - a documentary about the current state of copyright and culture, is a documentary about copyright and culture in the context of Internet, peer-to-peer file sharing and other technological advances. Directed by Andreas Johnsen, Ralf Christensen, and Henrik Moltke.
It features interviews with many people with various perspectives on copyright, including copyright lawyers, producers and artists.
Saturday: "The Big Sellout" (DE/2008) shows four examples of the drastic effects which privatization of formerly public goods and services had and has on the lives of real people: Electricity in South Africa, railway transport in England, water in Bolivia and health services on the Philippines. Interwoven you get to see statements of a World Bank representative, a computer-animated cartoon by the International Monetary Fund (because they are not available for comment in flesh and blood) and former World Bank Chief Economist and Economic Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, who today is very critical of the role theses institutions play in the globalised world.