Director Ian Bell joins us to recount the consequential history that took place from November 30th to December 3rd 1999, when tens of thousands of people occupied the streets of downtown Seattle to make known their concerns about the existence of the World Trade Organization and its impacts on the environment, human rights, and labor in the largest protests against economic globalization the US has ever seen. The protests brought together people from divergent sections of society— environmentalists, labor unions, consumer protection advocates, pro-democracy groups, anarchists and even religious organizations.WTO/99 reanimates the ideological conflicts that drew thousands to the streets of Seattle in hopes for a better future. The film is an immersive visual artifact of a week that brought 40,000 people together to warn of environmental collapse, the vanishing middle class, and what the full inclusion of China in the World Trade Organization would mean for our collective future. 

Ian Bell is the creator of VICE’s Source Material, a first of its kind found footage news series. His feature documentary directorial debut, WTO/99 (True/False Film Festival 2025) is “nothing short of a galvanizing historical document that tells us exactly how we arrived on the crumbling ground we’re presently standing on” (Robert Daniels of RogerEbert.com).