The Toronto film festival premiere of the oil rig disaster movie Deepwater Horizon was picketed on Tuesday by activists protesting against the controversial Dakota Access pipeline.
According to CBC news, the festival was targeted by approximately 100 protesters, who staged a sit-down demonstration in Yonge-Dundas Square, not far from the screening in Roy Thomson Hall.
The protests were part of events around the world opposing the pipeline, a $3.8bn (£2.87bn) oil project in North Dakota that the Standing Rock Sioux tribe says will threaten their water supply and cultural heritage. Energy Transfer, the company behind the project, recently defeated a legal attempt by tribal leaders to halt work on it.
Hugs at Yonge and Dundas as the anti-pipeline demonstration #StandingRock comes to an end #cbcTO pic.twitter.com/Ub1NBxxT4g
— Chris Glover (@chrisgloverCBC) September 13, 2016
Deepwater Horizon tells the story of the 2010 explosion on the mobile rig in the Gulf of Mexico, which resulted in 11 deaths and an environmental catastrophe, would appear to be the ideal vehicle for such protest, but according to the CBC, organiser Janet Csontos said they weren’t specifically targeting the festival, but “they just wanted to be somewhere with a lot of people”.
The protest blocked a number of streets in Toronto, and the police said it passed off peacefully.
