Oil and Water

One of the miraculous characteristics of the corporate structure is its built-in ability to endlessly deflect responsibility from the top executives to the shareholders to the board of directors to the employees to the customers. The buck stops in everyone's pocket, while the consequences are passed further down the line. The annual Anti-Corporate Film Festival lays bare the profit motive's collateral damage through six uncompromising documentaries, starting with Sweet Crude, which recounts Shell Oil's environmental and militaristic abuses in Nigeria and the citizens' legal fight for justice. The oily-bastards theme continues with Black Wave, a blood-boiling look at the two-decade court battle Alaskan residents are still waging to force Exxon Mobil to pick up the tab for the Valdez disaster. Other villains hoisted on petards this weekend include industrial agriculture (Killer At Large), U.S. economic "aid" (Apology of an Economic Hitman), and fresh-water privatizers (Blue Gold: World Water Wars.) Standing out among all the Gordon Gekkos is mash-up maestro Girl Talk, who challenges archaic copyright rules and is the locus of RIP: A Remix Manifesto. Even in the depths of a recession, people have the power.

Killer At Large starts at 7 p.m.
May 28-30, 2009