Avi Lewis

Avi Lewis is the host of Al Jazeera English Television’s "Inside USA," a weekly half-hour show examining the real issues at stake in the US presidential election. He is also a filmmaker, director of The Take which follows Argentina’s new movement of worker-run businesses. An emotional story of hope and resistance in the global economy, The New York Times called it “a stirring, idealistic documentary.” In 2004, it was released theatrically in Canada, the U.S., and across Europe, premiering at the Venice Film Festival, and winning the International Jury prize at the American Film Institute festival in Los Angeles. His previous television shows – "On The Map with Avi Lewis," a daily half-hour of opinionated international news analysis and "The Big Picture with Avi Lewis," combining hard-hitting documentaries and town hall debates – aired on Canada’s public all-news network, CBC Newsworld, in 2006 and 2007. In the late 90s, as the host and producer of "counterSpin" on CBC Newsworld, Lewis presided over more than 500 nationally televised debates in three years. In the early 1990s, he hosted City TV’s landmark music journalism show "The New Music." At the same time, he was MuchMusic’s Political Specialist, pioneering political “uncoverage” for a youth audience.