Visual Chinese feast premieres, The high cost of low prices

If one still picture is worth a thousand words, imagine the worth of a thousand moving pictures (without commentary), harmonized with natural sounds and traditional music. Images of China is such a feast for the eye and ear.

Starting in Beijing's Forbidden City and ending in pulsating Hong Kong, and in between an infamous Shanghai, Xian, the terracotta warriors, the Great Wall, Guilin, Chonquing and the awe-inspiring Yangtze and Li Rivers, the camera lens pokes, intrudes, observes, captures and records this ancient land's texture, color, smell, flavors and unbelievable landscape.

Images of China is the most recent production from award-winning Canadian author/filmmaker Jack Kuper, who, with his working partner/wife Terrye Lee, is currently in San Miguel de Allende on his annual March visit.

Images of China screening
Tuesday, March 21, 3pm
Teatro Santa Ana, Insurgentes 25
50 pesos, no discount cards

The high cost of low prices

Which single private company has driven scores of small stores out of business and turned main streets into ghost towns? Which employer encouraged its employees to go on public assistance for their health care? What single store so sapped the tax base of a whole town that it can no longer provide essential services? When has a single company added so much to an entire nation's foreign indebtedness by importing cheap goods from abroad? The answer is: Wal-Mart.

And here are more questions. When has a single documentary movie so effectively exposed such a company that scores of state legislatures are discussing new laws to make it more socially responsible? When has a film caused such a public stir that the largest company in the world spends millions and millions of dollars in publicity to patch up its image? When has a film moved people from coast to coast (and even here in Mexico) to mount picket lines protesting the building of a new store in their community? When has a film done so much to change the world? The answer is: when it's Robert Greenwald's documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price.

Although we might know the story of Sam Walton's small business that grew into the number-one retailer on the globe, we may not know how much it violated the basic American values that he professed. This film lays it all out for us through the personal stories of Wal-Mart employees-"Associates"-who face retaliation for speaking out, stories of businessmen driven into bankruptcy, former Wal-Mart managers who reveal company practices, local leaders struggling to grapple with the impact of Wal-Mart on their community. It will make you wonder what would happen if a Wal-Mart, or a Wal-Mart clone, were to come to San Miguel de Allende.

Director/producer Robert Greenwald has a number of other hard-hitting documentaries to his credit:

Outfoxed: Rupert Murdock's War on Journalism (2004)

Unconstitutional (2004) Uncovered: The Iraq War (2003)

Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election (2002)

Where there is an important social issue, Greenwald will have his cameras there. Most recently, he has done two series: "The ACLU Freedom Files" and "The Sierra Club Chronicles." Greenwald is an activist filmmaker of the first order. Don't miss his 2005 hit Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. A discussion follows the film.

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
Sponsored by the Center for Global Justice
Thursday, March 23, 3 pm
Teatro Santa Ana, Insurgentes 25
50 pesos