Rebecca Chaiklin

Another World

Fisher Stevens, Rebecca Chaiklin

What would drive someone to drop everything and move into a city park in lower Manhattan? In the fall of 2011 hundreds of people did just that as a public protest against corporate greed and with the hope of creating an alternative society. Occupy Wall Street started as an under attended protest that quickly caught fire and capturing international headlines, the imaginations and hearts of people across the globe. Almost overnight the movement transformed the national dialog about economic inequality and corporate corruption. The slogan 'We are the 99 percent' instantly became part of the national lexicon. This documentary is an intimate portrait of several key players who helped create the movement and their wild ride through the rise and fall of Occupy Wall Street.

Last Party 2000

Donovan Leitch, Rebecca Chaiklin

Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ben Harper

Filmed over the last six months of the 2000 Presidential election, Phillip Seymour Hoffman starts documenting the campaign at the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, but spends more time outside, in the street protests and police actions than in the orchestrated conventions. Hoffman shows an obvious distaste for money politics and the conservative right. He looks seedier and more disillusioned the campaign progresses. Eventually Hoffman seems most energized by the Ralph Nader campaign as an alternative to the nearly indistinguishable major parties. The high point of the film are the comments by Barney Frank who says that marches and demonstrations are largely a waste of time, and that the really effective political players such as the NRA and the AARP never bother with walk ins, sit-ins, shoot-ins or shuffles. In the interview with Jesse Jackson, Hoffman is too flustered to ask all of his questions.