Hope is a Word: STANDING UP TO BIG OIL – panel at IDFA

Poetry, protest, lawsuits and shareholder votes: how do we hold oil companies to account?

For more than sixty years, oil companies have drilled in the Niger Delta. Spills have poisoned the creeks, the fish and the farmland, and communities are still waiting for a full clean-up. Many of these companies have their headquarters in Europe. Shell started out as a Dutch company.

Hope is a Word follows poet and activist Nnimmo Bassey as he mentors young people to use poetry and rap to speak about what oil has done to their home, and about fighting back.

After the IDFA screening of the film, Nnimmo sits down with campaigners from the Netherlands and the US to talk about Shell in the Niger Delta, and about how people take on big oil and win – in court, at shareholder meetings, in board rooms and on the streets. What does it take for a movement to stand up to big oil, and what can people in the Netherlands do?

Moderator
Joseph Wilde-Ramsing – Director of Advocacy at SOMO, the Amsterdam-based Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations. He helps communities and workers document human rights and environmental harm and seek remedy from corporations. SOMO’s report Selling Out Nigeria argues that Shell should not sell its onshore Niger Delta business until clean-up and decommissioning are done.

Speakers

Nnimmo Bassey – protagonist of Hope is a Word. Poet, architect and environmental activist. Director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), former chair of Friends of the Earth International, and winner of the Right Livelihood Award.

Michael Greenberg – founder of Climate Defiance, the US movement that uses nonviolent direct action to confront oil executives and politicians. Stand-up comedian and protagonist of Just Look Up, also screening at IDFA.

Cindy Coltman – strategist and advocate at Hawkmoth, which works with Nigerian and international groups for justice in the Niger Delta. Co-publisher of Nigeria: Lifting the Lid, based on Shell’s own documents.

Rosa High – legal advisor at Follow This, which buys shares in oil companies and files climate resolutions at their AGMs.

Maaike Baan – researcher and campaigner at Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands). In 2021, Milieudefensie won its landmark climate case against Shell and has now taken it to the Supreme Court. It has also started a new case against Shell’s investments in new oil and gas fields.

Practical information

The panel is free. Registration lets us know how many people to expect.

The panel follows the screening of Hope is a Word at 19:00 at Pathé City, screen 1, with a Q&A with the director and the film’s protagonists. The screening needs a separate IDFA ticket: https://festival.idfa.nl/en/film/eae9ff76-b54c-4b68-b782-b2b639e6368b/hope-is-a-word/

Pathé City and De Balie are both on Leidseplein, a two-minute walk apart.

The panel is in English.