Ontario premiere of the feature-length version of SHIPBREAKERS
at Planet in Focus International Environmental Film and Video Festival
on October 2, 2005, 3:30pm at the Royal Cinema, 606 College St., Toronto

Directed by Michael Kot, Shipbreakers goes into the heart of Alang, a bustling Indian community of 40,000 mostly migrant workers that exists for the sole purpose of the demolition of ocean-going vessels. An international story of greed, survival, Third World labour, geopolitics and environmental danger on the shores of India, Shipbreakers shows the basic paradox of the global economy; for the shipbreakers, the job that might kill them is their only hope of survival. Alang is a place where ships come to die and men die with them.

Shipbreakers will be followed by a panel on "Global Garbage" moderated by Dr. David Suzuki. Panelists include Michael Kot, director of Shipbreakers, Binoy Thomas, editor of the Weekly Voice, Canada's leading Indo-Canadian weekly newspaper, Wayne Elliott, CEO of Raw Materials Company, a Canadian shipbreaking company and Andrew Male, Communications Coordinator for Greenpeace Canada and shipbreaking activist.

Shipbreakers is the winner of two Golden Sheaf Awards, Ecofilms' Golden Deer for best feature film and CIDA's Deborah Fletcher Award.

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What people are saying about Shipbreakers:

"A unique outing... a rare and shocking insight into an unsafe workplace"
Andrew Ryan - The Globe and Mail

"Storyline has certainly scored with this amazing visit inside the massive, corroded shells"
Jim Bawden - Starweek Magazine

"Michael Kot takes the time to view the issue from all sides… … the towering ships themselves prove an endlessly impressive photographic subject”
Tom Charity - The Vancouver Sun
“a striking Canadian documentary”
Bob Clark – Calgary Herald

"Never has a death trap looked so visually stunning"
Meg Hewings - Hour.ca

“an eye-opening journey… …Shipbreakers’ cinematography is truly sublime”
Vancouver International Film Festival

Director - Michael Kot, Producer - Ed Barreveld, Michael Kot, Peter Starr (NFB), Editor - Deborah Palloway, Director of Photography - Derek Rogers, Music Composer - Ken Myhr, Sound - John Martin, Daniel Pellerin, Geoff Raffan, Brian Shwartz, Steve Budd, James Mark Stewart, Dwayne Newman, Stephen Traub, Narration Writer - Shelley Saywell, Associate Producer & Narrator - Ted Biggs, Voice of “Mittu” - Santosh Mishra, Post Production – John Dowding/Imarion, Production Administration – Sarah Christie

Produced by Storyline Entertainment Inc. in co-production with The National Film Board of Canada in Association with Canadian Broadcasting Corporation – The Nature of Things, National Geographic Channel International, with the Support of the Government of Canada Through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and with the Participation of Canadian Television Fund - created by the Government of Canada and the Canadian Cable Industry – CTF: Licence Fee Program, Knowledge Network, National Geographic Channel (Canada) and Rogers Documentary Fund.

For more information about Shipbreakers visit: www.StorylineEntertainment.com
For more information about Planet in Focus visit: www.planetinfocus.org

Anne Mark
Planet in Focus
416 531 1769
www.planetinfocus.org