The trailer for All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is here.
Directed by Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed follows photographer and activist Nan Goldin’s fight against the Sackler family – the billionaires behind Purdue Pharma, the pharmaceutical company which produces drugs such as OxyContin and profits from opioid addiction around the world.
The trailer for All the Beauty and the Bloodshed hones in on Goldin’s life as a photographer before exploring her work as an activist in the 2010s, when she campaigned for the art world to withdraw from the Sackler family’s money.
In the new documentary, Goldin’s story is told through slideshows, interviews, photography, and clips which document her fight to hold the Sackler family accountable for the opioid epidemic.
It includes rare footage of protests staged by Prescription Addiction Intervention Now (PAIN) – the advocacy group founded by Goldin in 2017, after her own addiction to OxyContin resulted in a near-fatal overdose – including their first 2018 protest at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Temple of Dendur wing, as well as similar demonstrations at the Louvre and the Guggenheim Museum.
In recent months, galleries including the Tate, the Serpentine Galleries, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York have all removed the Sackler family’s name from their galleries and buildings. In 2019, following a protest by PAIN, the Musée du Louvre removed all mentions of the Sackler name from its galleries.
In 2021 Purdue Pharma filed for bankruptcy.
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed recently won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, making it the first documentary since 2013’s Sacro GRA to win the award.
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is out this autumn.
