Nine years after the events it portrays, Stuart Townsend's "Battle in Seattle" has suddenly acquired a grim new relevance. The film is a docudramatic rendering of five days in November 1999 when thousands took to the streets to protest the World Trade Organization's first ministerial meeting on U.S. soil.

"Visualize corporate collapse" reads one of the protestors' signs in the crowd.

No need to visualize now. It's here for the viewing. And the resulting $700 billion bailout proposal?

"It's a Financial Patriot Act," said Townsend, who was here to promote the film, which opened Friday at SouthSide Works Cinema. Pittsburgh was one of 10 cities selected for early release because of the key involvement of United Steelworkers members and other labor activists from this region -- some 1,400 of them -- in the Seattle events.

"The Steelworkers were one of the unions on the front lines," said the soft-spoken Irish actor-turned-director at USW headquarters last week. "They had the foresight to see this was a chance to shine a spotlight on the problem -- a way to bring it to a new audience. They got behind it."

Then and now, Townsend argues, the issue is not so much anti-globalization as anti-corporatization: Organizations such as the WTO and the International Monetary Fund make rules affecting world commerce, the environment, food supplies and health without government oversight or democratic participation. The people who most benefit from those policies in good times are the same people who benefit from the crises and bailouts: short-term speculators.

"I think the people in Seattle in 1999 had a lot of foresight," he says. Indeed, it was the biggest mass-mobilization since the Democratic Convention turmoil of 1968. On day one, protesters peacefully shut down Seattle's main intersections, trapping WTO delegates in their hotel rooms and forcing cancellation of opening ceremonies. But then anarchist extremists began to vandalize stores, hijacking the protest from its organizers. Police and the National Guard were ordered to move in, tear gas and beatings abounded, and the demonstration evolved into full-scale riots.

Townsend, now 35, was home in Dublin watching it all on TV. An up-and-coming stage and film actor, he'd just had his first good part in the zany comedy "Shooting Fish" and was about to get an even better one -- the title role in "About Adam" (2000), a morally incorrect morality tale about a charismatic guy who is irresistibly seductive to all three sisters of a close-knit family -- plus their mother and brother.

For "Battle in Seattle," Townsend's directorial debut, he was inspired by Haskell Wexler's "Medium Cool" (1969), deciding to integrate archival news footage with a fictional narrative -- and to cast well-known actors: Andre Benjamin turns in a particularly fine performance as a veteran organizer who works hard to keep the protests peaceful. Ray Liotta as the Seattle mayor tries equally hard, but fails, to keep peace. Caught in the middle are riot cop Woody Harrelson and his pregnant wife, Charlize Theron, who is blithely shopping at an upscale baby boutique when it is suddenly, violently attacked -- the film's first big shocking moment.

"She's in that nice baby store when that window shatters," says Townsend. "I wanted her and the audience to feel that chaos." Outside, desperately trying to get home, she runs into tear gas and, in the confusion, gets hit in her stomach, with tragic results.

(Inside Dope No. 1: There was a woman who had a miscarriage and later won some money in a class-action suit, but she wasn't a cop's wife. Inside Dope No. 2: Theron is Townsend's real-life romantic partner.)

"The cops were unprepared, hadn't had proper sleep, overhyped by their superiors -- they weren't the villains," Townsend says. "It's the 'untouchables' -- the faceless CEO bunch. Where is the outrage? The shock buries the outrage."

On the positive side, the Seattle events helped forge a new green-blue alliance, freshly aware of the connection between jobs and environment. Governments learned something, too: thenceforth, to cordon off huge areas and keep protesters far away in oxymoronic "free-speech zones" -- so they wouldn't be seen, let alone heard.

"The film is about people standing together and actually shutting down this organization there," Townsend concludes. "The media and the whole world were watching. It's about speaking truth to power."

Any reaction to the film from Seattle's two big bananas -- Bill Gates and his counterpart at Starbucks?

"None so far," says Townsend, Irish eyes smiling. "It probably won't be high on their Netflix lists."

A limited number of free tickets are available for a Wednesday night showing of "Battle" at SouthSide Works Cinema. E-mail Steffi Domike, United Steelworkers, at sdomike@usw.org.