Eating Popcorn like a Lawyer: Featuring Prof. Daniel Weinstock

In person and on Zoom

Organized in collaboration with the Sciences Po Law School, ‘Eating Popcorn like a Lawyer’ is a seminar series that seeks to establish a continuous dialogue between the fields of law and film. For each session we invite a prominent scholar to select, discuss and analyze a thought-provoking film. 

For our March session we have invited Prof. Daniel Weinstock. Together we explore Atom Egoyan’s modern classic The Sweet Hereafter (1997). Inspired by Russell Banks’ 1989 novel of the same name, the films take us to a small town in British Columbia that is reeling from a tragic school bus accident in which many of its children were killed. Spurred on by an out-of-town lawyer, those affected file a class-action lawsuit in search of truth and damages. The film upends settled convictions, that we may hold, about the relationships between truth and lie on the one hand, and community on the other. It suggests that the latter is rarely built upon clear-eyed, unflinching depictions of the former. Just as a lie is sometimes necessary to preserve community, the truths that justice seeks to unearth can be corrosive.  

The seminar is open to all who wish to join us in exploring these themes. The film is to be watched beforehand. It is freely available for streaming here on CBC Gem. 

Feel free to bring your lunch! See you soon! 

The Law and Film team: 

Edward van Daalen (McGill Faculty of Law) 

Mathilde Baril-Jannard (McGill Faculty of Law) 

Vittoria Becci (Sciences Po Law School) 

Alexia Katsiginis (Sciences Po Law School) 

eatingpopcornlikealawyer [at] gmail.com