The acclaimed filmmaker and author Astra Taylor discusses her new documentary film What is Democracy? (NFB, 2018), with Joseph Planta.

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

Astra Taylor joins me again. Her film What is Democracy? was critically acclaimed after being an official selection at the Toronto and Vancouver International Film Festivals. It is having a theatrical run here in Vancouver starting Friday, 07 December 2018, with additional screenings from Monday, 10th to Thursday, the 13th of December 2018. All screenings are at the Vancity Theatre. Visit www.viff.org for tickets and information. The film comes at a critical moment. It looks at democracy and the challenges to it today. Astra takes the viewer through modern-day Greece, and looks at its recent financial collapse and how the country has contended with the idea of democracy now and of course in the past considering it is the birthplace of our conception of democracy. She goes to Italy, as well as the United States, especially in the Trump era; it is fascinating. I’ll get Astra to tell us about this documentary, her process in capturing the time, as well as how she films the intellectual process of researching and evolution in thinking. Astra Taylor is a filmmaker, writer and political organiser. She has directed the philosophical documentaries Examined Life, and Zizek!. She was first on this program in 2014 when her critically acclaimed book The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age was published. An accompanying book to this film, Democracy May Not Exist, But We’ll Miss it When It’s Gone will be published in 2019. She joined me from New York City, earlier this week. This new film is a National Film Board of Canada production. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, Astra Taylor; Ms. Taylor, good morning.

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