Toronto

TIL THE COWS COME HOME + PREEMPTING DISSENT - Toronto premiere with filmmakers

Cinema Politica at The Bloor

6:00pm
- 8:00pm
Tuesday June 2 2015

**Join us for the Toronto premiere of two docs on protest and social justice activism. TIL THE COWS COME HOME follows activists fighting against the closure of the Kingston prison farm, while PREEMPTING DISSENT interrogates the "Miami-Model" of protest policing used to preempt forms of mass protest. The directors of both films will be in attendance for a Q&A. This series is co-sponsored by Point of View Magazine & this screening is co-presented with 4strugglemag/Toronto ABC. Entry is Pay What You Can.**

TIL THE COWS COME HOME
Lenny Epstein / Canada / 2014 / 59' / English

When Canada's Government takes the decision to transform the correctional system to one that puts punishment first, Canada's rehabilitative prison farms are one of the first casualties. A strong opposition forms towards the farm closures and for two days in the late summer of 2010, hundreds of angry protesters stand in front of Frontenac Prison Farm in the heart of Kingston, Ontario, ready to block cattle trucks brought in to remove the hundred-year-old prize dairy herd. The dramatic standoff between protesters and police lasts two days, through pouring rain and hot sun. Black-clad police arrest 24 people, the youngest 14 years old, the oldest, 85.

PREEMPTING DISSENT
Greg Elmer & Andy Opel / Canada - France - USA / 2014 / 41' / English

The creative commons documentary PREEMPTING DISSENT builds upon the book of the same name written by Greg Elmer and Andy Opel. The film is a culmination of a collaborative process of soliciting, collecting and editing video, still images, and creative commons music files from people around the world. Preempting Dissent interrogates the expansion of the so-called “Miami-Model” of protest policing, a set of strategies developed in the wake of 9/11 to preempt forms of mass protest at major events in the US and worldwide. The film tracks the development of the Miami model after the WTO protests in Seattle 1999, through the post-9/11 years, FTAA & G8/20 summits, and most recently the Occupy Wall St movements. The film exposes the political, social, and economic roots of preemptive forms of protest policing and their manifestations in spatial tactics, the deployment of so-called ‘less-lethal’ weapons, and surveillance regimes. The film notes however that new social movements have themselves begun to adopt preemptive tactics so as not to fall into the trap set for them by police agencies worldwide.

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