America and Me is the latest film by local activist and twice Oscar-nominated filmmaker David Bradbury.
It will have its world premiere in Mullum at the Old Drill Hall November 8 from 7pm and former ABC journalist Kerry O’Brien will host the screening, which includes a Q&A afterwards.
Bradbury says America and Me’s premiere screening ‘is timed for the first anniversary of the election of the world’s most powerful monarch, King Donald.’
‘America and Me shows how 40 years of what is sometimes called globalisation, sometimes called neo-liberalism, has left the US morally and financially bankrupt.
‘But the film also shows hope because it highlights activists still fighting the good fight, standing up to power 40 years after Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher introduced the right-wing economic theories of Milton Freidman and his infamous Chicago Boys.
‘It’s a very personal film that gave me the chance to explore my relationship with the US and its reach,’ says Bradbury.
‘I’m very excited to be showing it first locally before I take it back to the US at the end of November for coast-to-coast screenings.
‘I’ll show it in the US to the anti-war activists, the Veterans for Peace, the homeless, the radical Christians I interviewed, the “Earth Protectors” at Standing Rock whom I made it with and about.
‘One year on, they need encouragement and emboldening to keep up the struggle in the face of Trump’s election,’ Bradbury says.
‘After facing an uncertain future here with the ABC and an SBS gutted by Canberra and running scared to show the sort of films I make, I went to the US last year hoping to find work with the new social media giants, Netflix, Amazon, Stan etc. When I could see that wasn’t going to happen, I decided to make a film instead, set against the backdrop of the race between Tweedledum Hillary and Tweedledee Donald,’ Bradbury says.
Bradbury says he was at Standing Rock for election day in the US.
‘Standing Rock was the big protest action of 2016 where native Americans and environmental activists from all over the country combined to oppose a fracked-oil pipeline bulldozed through the sacred sites of the Lakota tribe in North Dakota.
‘I was so inspired by young and older activists joining together with the First Peoples of America to oppose the dinosaur fossil-fuel pipeline.’
Bradbury says he is having two screenings the same night of November 8.
‘The Old Drill Hall screening will be a fundraiser so I can take the film back to the US late November.’
A free screening will be held at the Mullum Uniting Church hall from 7.30pm ‘for the homeless, those suffering from mental illness and anyone who cannot afford to see the film because they have no work or just can’t afford it. Free cuppa after.’