Calendar

If you are not able to join us for the viewing, you can watch it on the library's Hoopla Channel (you will need an Ashland library card to access the film from home). Then, you can join us for the conversation after (we hope!). 

1:00 -2:15pm: Film Screening
2:15-2:30pm: Coffee/Tea break
2:30- 3:30pm:  Discussion

About the film:

"RiverBlue" documents the profound impact of textile factories serving the fashion industry in Western countries on the rivers in Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, UK, and the USA. The film connects the consumer appetite for cheap and trendy garments with a rapid increase in the profitable but unsustainable production of disposable clothing. The film visits communities that rely on their waterways for food, livestock, and sustenance, and it chronicles the devastating effects of untreated wastewater from the factories. The polluted water harms the local aquatic life, contaminates crops, and eventually reaches the ocean to spread around the globe. A trip down the Zambezi river shows the beauty and diversity of wildlife that thrives in a well-protected river.

Overall, the film educates the viewer on the issues of environmental degradation, global trade agreements, workers’ rights, and hazardous working conditions. As a teaching tool, the film is more than a critique of the fashion industry; it also explores alternative and responsible manufacturing processes that can help resolve this global problem.

About Rajashree:

Rajashree Ghosh is an Affiliated Scholar at the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, USA. Her current project titled, “Home and hearth: women and citizenship in urban informal settlements in India” has policy and academic layers. Combining experiential and desk research, she is motivated to present the broader connections between women’s struggles and urban living. Rajashree has worked for the United Nations World Food Programme  in India and has utilized a consultative approach to create synergy between Government, non-profit and multilateral agencies. She has also consulted for the Italian International Land Coalition and collaborated with the Canadian Global Environment Justice Documentaries project to bring films about social and climate justice, land tenure and environmental sustainability into the classroom. She has translated her expertise into advising policy, documentation and action research in remote corners of India and beyond. Using an interdisciplinary approach and her expertise in international social development, Rajashree creates and disseminates knowledge related to community, theory and practice at grassroots levels. She has written for UN Habitat's Urban Resilience Hub, Globaldev,  Oxfam's From Poverty to Power and InterAction. 

"The film connects the consumer appetite for cheap and trendy garments with a rapid increase in the profitable but unsustainable production of disposable clothing.” --Rajashree Ghosh

Coffee/Tea/Cookies will be provided. It's a long program, we'll need sustenance! Please register so we know how many cookies to have on hand. 

Refreshments and this program are sponsored by the Friends of the Ashland Public Library. We are pleased to be partnering with Ashland Is United to bring this event to the Ashland community.  

RiverBlue is one of 48 films in the Global Environmental Justice documentaries project, a curated collection prize-winning documentaries and teacher's guides designed for use in undergraduate studies.

Sign Up for the Library's Newsletter!