March 10, 2019

Dear Lilly Rivlin:

This note is to tell you that your documentary – “Heather Booth” – is one of the most important films I have seen in years.

Here’s why:

Our culture has a way of teaching us that we really don’t count in terms of how our country is being run. Frankly, most us feel powerless, nothing more than pawns in the hands of forces that seem to be steamrolling on, more-or-less out of control.

The life of Heather Booth stands such sentiment on its head. The graphic, front-line film that you have so carefully and brilliantly put together demonstrates the triumph of practice over dead theories to the effect that the People don’t really count anymore — that cynical players hold all of the winning hands.

The story of Heather Booth smashes forever post-truth notions to the effect that the “little people” can ever join hands to bring about profound positive changes in the culture. You show how and why Ms. Booth’s life overcomes the current sickness that would have us believe that our best efforts amount to nothing more than “the worry of ants in the glare of a million-million suns” (Tennyson if I remember correctly).

It would be my hope that everyone — young and not-so-young – in both the United States and the rest of the world could see your film, because it demonstrates conclusively that collective action is not only practicable but more important than ever if we are to have a future.

In my mind, Heather Booth should be nominated for a Nobel Prize, and then win it. What she has to say to a broken world is life-saving.

Thank you for your genius in helping all of us come to know something of the saga of the self-effacing Ms. Booth. She is an authentic icon and heroine of the first magnitude.

Sincerely,

Randall Bassett