Toronto film festival reflects on 1999 WTO riots in Seattle

0 Comments | AFP, September, 2007

TORONTO (AFP) — In a nod to activists, the Toronto film festival premiered on Sunday "Battle in Seattle," director Stuart Townsend's first film about rioting outside the 1999 World Trade Organization talks in the United States.

"The mainstream media covered it in a way that people didn't really get the content of the whole protest movement, which got marginalized," Townsend told reporters.

The violent clash between anti-globalization demonstrators and police quickly overshadowed what was to be the launch of a new millennial round of trade negotiations "really struck me visually" and "set my imagination on fire," he said, explaining what inspired him to write his first script.

Indeed, the scale of the street protests outside the hotels and the Seattle...