First Run Features to Release PINK RIBBONS, INC.

The Susan G. Komen Foundation, a private organization, has raised over Two BILLION dollars for women’s cancer research over the past 26 years. A couple of weeks ago, they made the business choice of disassociating themselves from Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, leading to a full-dress onslaught by the Left, a huge spike in donations, and a boatload of publicity. Now there’s a new documentary expose of the organization on the horizon.

In the wake of the controversy surrounding Susan G. Komen for the Cure – and Planned Parenthood, First Run Features announces today that it will release recent Toronto Film Festival acquisition PINK RIBBONS, INC in U.S. theaters in Spring 2012. The exact opening date and initial cities will be announced soon.

Directed by veteran documentary filmmaker Lea Pool for the National Film Board of Canada, Pink Ribbons, Inc. examines how the ubiquitous pink ribbon campaign may boost corporate profits and brand awareness more than it benefits people with breast cancer.

Interest in the film has intensified since the controversy began last week, when Komen announced the suspension of grants for breast cancer screenings through Planned Parenthood. Last Friday, after a sustained outcry over the new policy, Komen reversed their decision, making Planned Parenthood once again eligible to apply for funding (although that funding is by no means assured).

Inspired by the book Pink Ribbons, Inc.: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy, Pink Ribbons, Inc. features interviews with experts, authors, activists, medical researchers and women with breast cancer, as well as the leading players in breast cancer fundraising and cause-related marketing. The film looks at how the breast cancer movement has moved from activism to consumerism and challenges viewers to rethink their assumptions about the meaning of breast cancer in our society. Who really benefits from the Pink Ribbon campaigns – the cause or the companies? Despite the millions of dollars raised each year for the cause, breast cancer rates are rising, prevention is vastly underfunded and, over the decades, we’ve seen only incremental improvements in chemotherapy and surgery treatments.

Director Lea Pool hopes the film will encourage people “to be more critical and more politically conscious about our actions and to stop thinking that by buying pink toilet paper we’re doing what needs to be done.”

“Pink Ribbons, Inc. asks important questions,” says producer Ravida Din. “Our film is about trying to find real change in women’s experience around breast cancer and asking whether this is the right way to get there.”

Pool adds that, as the filmmaker, she is not suggesting throwing the baby out with the bathwater. “I don’t want to say that we absolutely shouldn’t be raising money. We are just saying, ‘Think before you pink.’”

I’m so glad Ms Pool doesn’t think Komen “shouldn’t be raising money”.