Land of Destiny (2010)
78min, documentary
Directed by Brett Story

A hard-working petrochemical town is rocked by revelations that its workers suffer an epidemic of cancers. But even more terrifying is the looming spectre of deindustrialization and joblessness. In the rich fabric of the city’s landscape – rows of boarded storefronts, the bright sprawl of petrochemical plants and the swollen rooms of hospital wards and crowded bars – one finds a microcosm of the 21st century.

Tattooed men serving fries, basement musicians, boilermakers and volunteer firemen, heartbroken widows and an optimistic mayor – the lives of a diverse medley of characters intersect to reveal the dramas and contradictions of an industrial town out of sync with a post-industrial world. As the dystopian architecture of the petrochemical plants, squatted like crushed space stations just meters away from homes and schoolyards, give way to the spaces that make this city a community, we begin to see what it is that everyone seems so afraid to lose. A portrait of a working-class city in paralysis and a mediation on work and place in the modern economy, Land of Destiny offers a poignant and universal story about work, community, and struggle in an era of globalization.

Filmmaker, Brett Story, will be present for a Q & A following the screening.

2011   –   Best Documentary   –   Canadian Environmental Media Award (EMA)
2010   –   Honourable Mention   –   Planet in Focus – Torornto
2010   –   Official Selection   –   Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal (RIDM)

A Labor Studies Film Event organized by PARCC – Program for the Advancement of Research on Collaboration & Conflict. Cosponsored by the departments of Geography, History, Political Science, Public Administration and Sociology, Syracuse University.

Free to the Public.