Produced by Indymedia - The documentary with an $8.5 million security budget.

In November, 2003, trade ministers from 34 countries met in Miami, Florida, to negotiate the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The FTAA threatens to devastate workers, the environment, and public services like health care, education, and water, and to destroy indigenous rights and cultural diversity across North, Central, and South America.

Thousands of union members, environmentalists, feminists, anarchists, students, farm workers, media activists, and human rights activists who gathered in Miami to struggle against the FTAA were brutally attacked with rubber bullets, pepper spray, electric guns and shock batons, embedded reporters and information warfare, all coordinated by the new United States Department of Homeland Security.

Against Capital's model of paramilitary oppression, information warfare, and corporate rule, we offered models of grassroots resistance, creative action and solidarity.

Breaking the Media Blackout

Collectively, Indymedia activists shot hundreds of hours of video footage documenting the FTAA protests in Miami. This footage has been edited by the FTAA Miami Video Working Group into a documentary that cuts through the mass media blackout to reveal the brutal repression and assault on civil liberties that took place, as well as the life-affirming and inspiring alternatives to capitalist globalization that were also in full effect in Miami.

The FTAA IMC video working group is proud to present The Miami Model.

Originally published by FTAA IMC video working group in 2004.