Molly Manning, Managing Editor
Director and journalist Abby Martin is bringing a preview of her second feature film “Earth’s Greatest Enemy” to Richmond’s Byrd Theatre on March 10.
The documentary explores the United States military’s environmental impacts as the No. 1 polluter in the world and its exemption from international climate agreements.
The screening is from 7 to 10 p.m. and tickets are available for either general admission for $10 or solidarity admission for $15, giving viewers the option to support the screening tour. Martin will hold a virtual Q&A after the film.
Ben Cronly, executive director of the Byrd, noted the showing is a private rental of the theatre, and as such is only the rental venue for the screening — they do not endorse or oppose the content, he stated.
Abby Martin, who is also the creator and director of Empire Files, a 501(c)(3) media non-profit with a journalistic focus on U.S. foreign policy and militarism, said the film zooms out and tries to approach the topic in a historical and holistic way.
Martin said the film gives a myriad of examples of how the system perpetuates “collective insanity and collective suicide.” She said the topic felt like an obvious choice for her film as an anti-imperialist advocacy journalist.
Martin also shared that her husband is an anti-war Iraq war veteran who organizes soldiers to leave the U.S. military and find opportunities elsewhere.
“It just was really clear that this needed to be done and it needed to be done in a way that was with the accurate political lens of unapologetic anti-imperialism,” Martin said. “Because I’m sick of kowtowing to the status quo and I’m sick of corporate media journalists who are just appendages of the system apologizing and excusing this horrific imperialism around the world.”
Martin said reception to the film has been extraordinary, with viewers often sharing their own testimonies or saying “I get it now,” — it has become bigger than the film, the filmmaker and her team, it has become a movement, Martin said.
“It’s become a movement of people who are not only unpacking the trauma of what the parasitic billionaire class has done to this planet and to our lives, to rob us of of a habitable future, but just to have the space that we can talk about these things because of how stifled these conversations are and how difficult it is to get truth and good media like this film,” Martin said.
Richmond is the ninth stop on Martin’s “Director’s Tour,” which has so far taken the film to cities including Honolulu, New Orleans and Atlanta.
The strength of Richmond’s chapter of the Party for Socialism and Liberation was key in Martin’s decision to hold a screening in the city. She said one of the goals of the film is to intersect organizations like PSL and the Sierra Club to build momentum collectively.
“I’m completely blown away by the response. And I think it speaks volume to the moment that we’re in,” Martin said. “And how ready people are to be activated around something that is a collective force that we can really push power to account and hold them to account, especially with what we’re seeing the complete impunity around the world.”