Film Screening and Q&A with Abigail Disney

The American dream has worked for the wealthy but is a nightmare for those born with less. This contrast is particularly stark for the Disneyland employees who work at ‘The Happiest Place On Earth’ and are unable to put food on the table. Using her family’s story, Abigail Disney explores how this systemic injustice took hold and imagines a way toward a more equitable future. Could she, a descendent, with no role in the multinational conglomerate, use her famous last name to help pressure Disney and other American corporations to treat low-wage workers more humanely?

What Abigail learns – about racism, corporate power and the American Dream, is eye-opening, unexpected, and inspiring in that it begins to imagine a path to a fairer future for everyone. Filmed over a two year period, The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales travels from amusement park, to boardroom, to union hall. It expertly weaves together Abigail’s family story and the stories of Disneyland workers with commentary from historians, authors, and academics.

Join us for this special screening of the film, followed by a conversation with Abigail, social innovator and author, Hilary Cottam, and Conduit co-founder and CEO, Paul van Zyl.

Event Schedule

6:00pm: Pre-event socialising and networking
A cash bar will be available for refreshments.

6:15pm: Film begins

7:30pm: Film ends followed by Q&A with Abigail Disney

8pm: Event ends

Speakers

Abigail E. Disney is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, philanthropist, and activist. Abigail’s films include “The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales,” the Emmy Award-winning “The Armor of Light,” both of which she co-directed with Kathleen Hughes, and “Pray the Devil Back to Hell.” As a philanthropist and social activist, she has worked with organisations supporting peacebuilding, gender justice, and systemic cultural change. She is the Chair and Co-Founder of Level Forward, an ecosystem of storytellers, entrepreneurs, and social change-makers dedicated to balancing artistic vision, social impact, and stakeholder return. She created the nonprofit Peace is Loud, which uses storytelling to advance social movements, and the Daphne Foundation, which supports organisations working for a more equitable, fair, and peaceful New York City.

Hilary Cottam is an internationally acclaimed social activist whose work in Britain and with communities around the world has focused on collaborative and affordable solutions to some of the greatest social challenges of our time. Her first book Radical Help was hailed as ‘mind-shifting’ by David Brooks in the New York Times and has been translated internationally. Awarded an OBE in 2019 for services to the welfare state, Hilary has been recognised by Fast Company in the US for her pioneering creativity and by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader. Hilary’s TED talk has had close to a million views. www.hilarycottam.com

Paul van Zyl is the co-founder and CEO of The Conduit. Paul is a winner of the prestigious Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship and was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He served as the Executive Secretary of South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission and co-founded the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), an international human rights organisation based in New York City.