Search The Archive
“Indignant and subversive, Pink Ribbons, Inc. resoundingly pops the shiny pink balloon of the breast cancer movement/industry, debunking the ‘comfortable lies' and corporate double-talk that permeate the massive and thus-far-ineffectual campaign against [the] disease.” - Variety
Pink Ribbons, Inc. is director Léa Pool's investigation into the corporatisation of breast cancer charities.
Hijacked by some commercial interests as a fashionable cause, breast cancer attracts massive annual support in the form of pink ribbon fundraising drives. But what have these really achieved? With rates of the cancer nearly tripling in the past 60 years, Pool suggests it's not nearly as much as they could, or should, have. Alleging that corporate involvement in these campaigns has made our capacity to effectively respond to the disease more difficult, Pool takes the corporations leading this “pinkwashing” charge to task, demanding accountability for where the money is going and how it is being used.
Impassioned and incendiary, Pink Ribbons Inc. argues that the commercialisation of cancer fundraising complicates and ultimately disrupts its own ends.
“Lea Pool won't be making any friends with her full-frontal attack on the corporate co-option of the breast cancer cause… But there are plenty… who'll want to see it. And they'll be seeing red, not pink.” - Variety
D Léa Pool P Ravida Din S Patricia Kearns, Nancy Guérin, Léa Pool WS National Film Board of Canada TD 35mm/2011