This event is free and open to all! RSVP Here

Film Screening followed by Q&A with Dir. Jan Haaken and Hessann Farooqi (BCAN)

Facillitated by Prof. Catherine D’Ignazio

*Doors open at 5:30pm

The film is set along the rivers of Oregon and follows activists as they enlist the necessity defense in a jury trial after being arrested for a direct action at Zenith Energy in Portland. This story of climate resistance in the Pacific Northwest brings into view a historical landscape of tribal leaders, Indigenous activists and white allies as they resist oil trains and trucks carrying these highly inflammable products through treaty lands. In following the path of oil-by-rail and oil resistance along the Columbia, we revisit lessons of the New Deal era of building massive dams and what climate activists take from that era in thinking about a Green New Deal. Contact wgs@mit.edu for questions and accommodations.

Jan Haaken is professor emeritus of psychology at Portland State University, a clinical psychologist, and documentary filmmaker. From refugee camps, war zones, abortion clinics and pipeline protests to drag bars, dairy farms and hip-hop clubs, her documentary films focus on stressful work carried out in contested social spaces and in sites of political repression and resistance. Haaken has directed nine feature films, including Our Bodies Our Doctors (2018), the two-part Necessity series:  Oil, Water & Climate Resistance  and Climate Justice & the Thin Green Line (2023), Atomic Bamboozle: The False Promise of a Nuclear Renaissance (2023) and The Palestine Exception (2024). She is a member of Film Fatales, an organization of recognized female directors, and recipient of numerous awards, including the Lena Sharpe Persistence of Vision award at the 2019 Seattle International Film Festival. Her books include Pillar of Salt: Gender, Memory and the Perils of Looking Back (1998), Hard Knocks: Domestic Violence and the Psychology of Storytelling (2011), and Psychiatry, Politics and PTSD:  Breaking Down (2021). 

Hessann Farooqi is the Executive Director of the Boston Climate Action Network (BCAN). He is the youngest person and the first person of color appointed to lead BCAN in its more than two decade history.  Hessann studied economics at Boston University, worked in the United States Senate under Sen. Ed Markey, and served on various federal, state, and local political campaigns. Hessann was appointed by Boston Mayor Michelle Wu to oversee the implementation of Boston’s key climate law, BERDO, and serves on the Board of Directors of Built Environment Plus. Hessann also co-chairs the Boston Green New Deal Coalition and advises the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. Hessann previously served as an advisor to The White House and Department of Energy’s Opportunity Project."

Catherine D'Ignazio is an Associate Professor of Urban Science and Planning in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. She is also Director of the Data + Feminism Lab which uses data and computational methods to work towards gender and racial justice, particularly as they relate to space and place. D'Ignazio is a scholar, artist/designer and hacker mama who focuses on feminist technology, data literacy and civic engagement. She has run reproductive justice hackathons (like the Make the Breast Pump Not Suck Hackathon), designed global news recommendation systems, created talking and tweeting water quality sculptures, and led walking data visualizations to envision the future of sea level rise. More

Women Take The Reel is brought to you by the Consortium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women, & Sexuality at MIT; the MIT Program in Women’s and Gender Studies; the Boston College Women’s and Gender Studies Program; the MIT Program in Media Arts & Sciences; the Northeastern University Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program; the Tufts University Program in Film and Media Studies; and the Tufts University Program In Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies