To the People Over There2003

A student travelling 14 hours from Kent University, and I stood together directly before the speakers on stage at Central Park's first anti-war protest on Oct. 6, 2002. Combined with the footage he sent, I formed a 45-min. portrait of that day and that period (scenes of Nader, Patti Smith, Phil Donohue 'Fight Corporate Crime' at Wall Street, and people stumbling for meaning before the void called 'Ground Zero'). Speakers' voices from Iraq, Afghanistan, and native activists and celeb/activists warned that day in no ambiguous terms of what the Iraq war has quickly become. Broadcast News was further down Fifth Ave. for a Disney Parade and The New York Times ran protest coverage (participants grossly under-reported) on page B3. The documentary starts with a shot of that newspaper article and page number. Jon Gartenberg helped produce copies for broad distribution to student organizations and classrooms in the Arab Emirates and Australia, until, mainstream journalists took up their responsibility for reporting our protests.