What’s The True Cost Of The Cheap Clothes We Wear? We’re Hosting A Panel Discussion To Find Out

Junkee is a proud presenting partner of the Environmental Film Festival. We’re presenting a panel event that’s all about ethical fashion; find out more here.

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The Environmental Film Festival kicks off for another year in Melbourne tomorrow and, as ever, we’re being happily urged to reflect on some pretty harsh truths.

This week, Barack Obama has publicly declared our Prime Minister — and others like him — is “not fit to lead” for his inaction on climate change; this year, our nation’s been thrust into a strange one-sided war with wind farms; and oh god, okay, NO, I don’t always separate my paper and plastic recycling.

Over the next eight days, the festival will be exploring these types of issues with unique stories from Australia and around the world. On the home front, you can see the world premiere of João Dujon Pereira’s Black Hole: a documentary exploring the fight to save the Leard State Forest from becoming a coal mine, which notably landed Wallabies star David Pocock in jail last year. And from afar, you have films like Black Ice: re-telling the journey of the Greenpeace activists who went up against the Russian government to protest oil drilling, and got thrown in prison for piracy. Pretty huge stuff.

But there are also explorations of smaller, more relatable issues, with equally as pressing effects. In Bikes v Cars, Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten asks why we still don’t have safe bike lanes. In Just Eat It, we’re presented with the vision of what John Oliver was trying to get across about food waste earlier this year, and The True Cost does the same with his message for the fashion industry.

Partnering with the festival, we’ve taken a special interest in the latter.

Who’s wearing the discounts of cheap clothing? And, more importantly, is it worth the cost? With interviews from designer Stella McCartney, activist Livia Firth, and scholar Vandana Shiva, combined with testimonies from manufacturers and workers all over the world, Andrew Morgan’s The True Cost tries to find some answers to these increasingly important questions.

If you’re keen to talk some of this out, we’ll also be presenting a panel after the film with writer and editor Anna Horan, CEO of Fairtrade Australia Molly Harriss Olsen, ECA media co-ordinator and editor of Intent Journal Siggi McCarthy, and Fabia Pryor from RMIT.

Dress code: something that hasn’t decimated a rainforest or started a factory fire.

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The True Cost Screening And Panel Discussion:

Panel discussion featuring:

Molly Harriss Olsen – CEO Fairtrade Australia / New Zealand
Fabia Pryor – RMIT / Kangan Institute
Siggi McCarthy – Ethical Clothing Australia
Panel facilitator: Anna Horan

Friday September 4 from 6pm, at Kino Cinemas on Collins Street, Melbourne

Tickets are $16-19 and available form here.

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The Environmental Film Festival runs in Melbourne from September 3-10, in Canberra from September 11-12, and in Hobart from September 18-21. Check out the full program here.