Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

Corporations were once thought of as benign entities that employed workers, produced goods, sold them in the market place and paid taxes on their profits. But certain things have changed. CEOs now earn salaries a thousand times higher than some full-time employees.

Lobbyists pour huge donations to politicians to change the laws in their favour. Environmental catastrophe is green-washed by fossil fuel corporations. Indigenous lands are seized by big agro, mining and oil companies. Pharmaceutical corporations promote opiates which now kill more people than illegal drugs. And they don’t even pay taxes anymore. Meanwhile their power and wealth grows exponentially, eclipsing national governments and international organizations, privatizing public housing, schools, prisons and hospitals. Is there anything we can do to stop the psychopathic behavior of some of these New Corporations?

The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel is a new Canadian documentary, a follow-up to the smash hit doc The Corporation from 2003. It combines shocking stats with cool animation, news footage and new interviews with activists and intellectuals, from AOC to Robert Reich and Diane Ravitch – and the corporate CEOs themselves. The film is co-directed by award-winning documentary filmmaker Jennifer Abbott and UBC law professor Joel Bakan who wrote the original book. (They both worked on the first film as well.)

I spoke with Jennifer and Joel via ZOOM.

The New Corporation is having its world premier at TIFF, the Toronto International Film Festival, on Sunday, September 13th at 9 pm.