chemical poisoning

Like most of the people in her town, Karen Silkwood works at the local nuclear plant producing highly radioactive plutonium. Exposed one day to a lethal dose of radiation, Karen faces the blank walls of corporate indifference and denial. As her illness increases, her protest grows louder and she becomes an obvious danger to the powers that be.

Follows the man who survived an assassination attempt by poisoning with a lethal nerve agent in August 2020. During his months-long recovery, he makes shocking discoveries about the attempt on his life and decides to return home.

This documentary chronicles ocean disposal of surplus World War II chemical weapons by Canada, Germany, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States. Through a well edited combination of interview footage and still photographs this film outlines the serious problem that awaits us now that hundreds of thousands of tons of chemical weapons have been disposed of off our coastlines. The exact location of dumps was not always recorded on navigation charts. Sixty years later, containers that were designed to last for fifty years have started to disintegrate, posing substantial danger to both marine life and coastal communities.

This homegrown Erin Brockovich story follows former Whakatāne sawmill worker Joe Harawira and his long battle to reveal the impact that workplace toxins have had on his community. In the '80s after being afflicted by health issues, Harawira noticed co-workers getting sick. In 1988 he helped found SWAP (Sawmill Workers Against Poisons) and began investigating the effects of exposure to dioxins, a byproduct of timber treatment.