Director Alex Megaro joins Hyperreal for this screening of his 2025 documentary of the 1999 WTO protests, which foreshadowed much of modern American politics. In turn-of-the-millennium Seattle, around 40,000 anti-globalization protesters overshadowed the World Trade Organization’s Ministerial Conference over four days, causing the resignation of the Seattle police chief and influencing the strategy of leftist social movements to come. Megaro assembles more than 1,000 hours of footage into a prescient document of where our current era’s plagues began – the all-powerful billionaire class and multinational corporations, the emergence of a militarized police force – while also spotlighting the strategic power of organizing. Much to be learned from the past. – Lina Fisher
