Seattle in late November 1999, when the World Trade Organization's ministerial conference draws tens of thousands of protesters and shuts down the city center. The footage comes from roughly 100 volunteer camera operators, part of the Independent Media Center formed for the occasion, who fan out through the streets with camcorders rather than press credentials. The film cuts together their raw material: marchers linking arms to block intersections, police in riot gear firing tear gas and rubber bullets, delegates trying to reach the convention center, and impromptu debates among protesters about tactics and goals. Labor unions, environmentalists, anarchists, and church groups all appear on camera, often disagreeing with each other as much as with the WTO. There is no outside narrator explaining what any of it means; the edited footage itself is the argument, assembled by the people who shot it rather than a broadcast crew. It stands as one of the earliest examples of citizen-made video used to document a mass protest as it happened.