We had an amazing time at last Wednesday’s The Fight online Q&A hosted by Human Rights Watch’s Ifé Fatunase. He was joined by ACLU’s Voting Rights Project Director Dale Ho and film directors Elyse Steinberg and Eli Despres. Catch up on the full accessible recording below. The Fight is now available on demand in the UK & Ireland on all digital platforms.
This year is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the ACLU - The American Civil Liberties Union - a not-for-profit organisation created "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States”. Before President Trump came into power, few people outside the USA would have known the acronym or organisation. Just seven days after Trump’s inauguration in 2017, the ACLU filed the first of over 140 lawsuits against the administration to date, this story profiles four of these lawsuits and the tenacious team of lawyers and lobbyists working to uphold and protect basic civil liberties. From the team behind Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize winner and BAFTA nominated Weiner, The Fight is a gritty behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to sue the government of the United States. The four cases cover the breath and depth of the civil liberties that the Trump administration wish to erode: abortion rights, voting rights, family separation and transgender in the military. Spanning from early 2017 up to the end of Summer 2019, The Fight also covers all the aspects of working in an organisation that covers the rights of all citizens of America, including the far right, and the internal pressures and toll that takes.