Invisible Hand (2020)

Please note that Joshua B. Pribanic (Director/Editor/Producer/Writer) will address the audience via Zoom after the screening.

FILM SYNOPSIS

Produced by award-winning actor Mark Ruffalo, Invisible Hand takes you behind the curtain of the global economy where ‘Rights of Nature’ becomes “capitalism’s one true opponent.”

In the fall of 2014, for the first time in United States history, an ecosystem filed to defend itself in a lawsuit claiming its ‘right to exist’ in Grant Township, Pennsylvania. For attempting such a radical act, Grant’s rural community of 700 people were sued by a corporation, then by the state government, and are now locked in a battle to defend the watershed they call home through civil disobedience. The water they drink, the Rights to Nature laws they’ve passed are all on the line in this exclusive story.

In Toledo, Ohio an earth-shattering vote was passed to enact the Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR), granting personhood to international waters.

Half a continent away in Standing Rock, North Dakota, the same industry threatening Grant Twp. is using militarized force against indigenous tribes and allies fighting to protect Mother Earth.

Activists leaving Standing Rock are rejoined on the Pennsylvania and New York border where the Seneca Nation of Indians aligns with communities in the Triple Divide to stop radioactive fracking waste from entering Ohi:yo’ waters. Terry Pegula, owner of Buffalo Bills and Sabres, threatens to sue Invisible Hand filmmakers and whoever continues to speak out about his oil and gas company and their efforts.

The four, Grant Township, Lake Erie Bill of Rights, Defend Oh:yo’ and Standing Rock, are joined in an international fight to protect more than just water. They fight for their community, democracy, and for Nature as a living entity unto itself.

In the end, “Who will speak for Nature?”

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Joshua B. Pribanic is an American investigative journalist, photographer, artist and award-winning filmmaker who co-founded Public Herald (est. 2011), a nonprofit for investigative journalism, and co-directed the recently acclaimed documentary Triple Divide and Triple Divide [Redacted]. He currently operates as the Editor-in-Chief for Public Herald. For his production and directing of the documentary feature Triple Divide (released March 2013), Pribanic gained international attention for his reporting on fracking shale gas in the United States. The film showcased a number of exclusive stories and exposed abuses to the public interest leading to regulatory accountability on the local and state level. Triple Divide appeared in film festivals nationwide, and thus far has received an audience stretching over 30 countries, while continuing to remain relevant and screening in communities, colleges and festivals. Pribanic’s 2014 project Invisible Hand, a feature-length documentary, kicked off with an exclusive report that led to the production of the The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’s first-ever segment on fracking. The project is accompanied by an open source public records website, publicfiles.org or a.k.a. #fileroom.

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