Dear all,
I proudly present you with the political film programme for the next six months screened in the Forest Cafe.
During the build-up to the anti G8 protests, we will focus once again on independently produced documentaries forcing the issues of globalisation, poverty, environmental destruction, protests and activities against the capitalist system, state repression, DIY, alternative media and similar topics on the plates of the Forest Cafe.
I am especially happy to be able to present you with “See you in the next War”, a social documentary made by Autonomi TV about the radiostation B92 in Belgrade during the Kosovo war, presented by professional film makers Doug Aubrey and Marie Olesen themselves on Tuesday, 3rd of May.
Cathy McCormack will also visit the Forest Cafe on the 17th of June and present the video “At the Sharp End of the Knife” about the discovery journey that poverty – and thereby the class system – is present everywhere, not just in Glasgow Easterhouse or in South Africa, and that people resist everywhere in the same way, in community struggles and activist groups they gather to improve their situation.
“Crowd bites wolf”, “Genova citte aperta” and “Trading Freedom” have already been screened in the Forest in the past, but have been requested over and over again by activists, and screenings of these videos have been very successfull in the past, The Forest was incredibly crowded with up to 170 people, so here is another chance in case you have missed these videos about 2-3 years ago.
A special treat – if it can be managed to get hold of this film, will be Terrorists: The Kids They Sentenced, currently touring through several international film festivals, winning awards-the topics are the Gothenburg protests, riots and state repression, one of the only few films made about the EU summit protests in Gothenburg June 2001.
Well done, now sod off? – the documentary about Chumbawamba will also be premiered in Edinburgh.
Political film programme 2005
5th April “The NoM11 campaign” speaker from Bilston Woods No M74 campaign if possible
19th April 5pm “One woman against the US”
5pm banner making workshop
8pm “DIY or DIE”
3rd May Media: ?Globalisation and the Media? (Undercurrents) ?Bedroom Radio? (Autonomi TV) ?See you in the Next War? (Autonomi TV) ?Radio Insurgente ? Voice of the Voiceless? (Chiapas Media Project) ?Indymedia? (Indymedia Argentina) and possible other clips Speakers: Indymedia Radio Project, hopefully someone from Autonomi TV and someone from University lecturing journalism
17th May “At the Sharp End of the Knife”, Speaker: Cathy McCormack
31st May “Crowd bites wolf”
“This is what democracy looks like”
7th June “Terrorists: The Kids They Sentenced”
14th June “Well done, now sod off” documentary about Chumbawamba
21st June “Trading Freedom” , Speaker: film maker Dave ?
28th June “Genoa Citte Aperta”, Speaker: film maker Nina ?
12th July “The Miami Modell” & “Fallujah”, Speaker: Imc NYC & SF ?
See You in the Next WarA chemical generation war story.
A film that’s more Plane-spotting than Train spotting:
A rockumentary portrait of the lives of a generation who have grown up, fought, resisted and simply survived a decade of war in the Balkans.
A generation who fully embraced the punk and DIY ethos and who refused to be bullied either by an oppressive regime, or by the bombs of NATO.
Humans against killing sounds like junkies against dope: See You in the Next War is an-all digital documentary feature that tells a story about the war in Yugoslavia from the perspective of the staff, friends and listeners of the rebel radio station, Belgrade radio B92.
Fuck them and their law: Filmed both outside and inside Serbia over 18 months, See You In the Next War is both a shocking and at times shockingly absurd portrayal of life both during and in between war-time.
With a musical sound-track that includes contributions from Serbia’s top bands and DJ’s, See You in the Next War is genuinely independent, guerrilla film making at its most daring, provocative and passionate.
A must-see for anyone who believes that there always is another side to any war, other than the one portrayed by the mainstream global media or by state propaganda.
Accept NO Borders!:
See You in the Next War is a film that not only talks-the-talks, but also walks-the-walk in its search for the truth.
It is a celebration of dissent and reaffirmation of the kind of free-spirit that believes that there is a need in times of crisis to accept no borders in search of the truth.
The revolution will be televised and stage-managed: Filming inside Serbia was undertaken both covertly by Director/Producer Doug Aubrey with a small digital camcorder and also with the co-operation of the staff of the B92 TV dept and includes extracts from Zoran Kesic’s remarkable street-level footage of the October 5th uprising. Adopting a stylish and innovative format, that fully embraces the creative potential of digital film making;
See You in the Next War reaches its spectacular (and contradictory) climax with the popular up-rising against the Milosevic regime and the return of some of the staff to the original B92 station in central Belgrade, for the first time since the NATO bombing and the station’s take-over.
See You in the Next War: The film’s concluding moments are both a sobering warning to anyone in the west who believes that the war in the Balkans is over and also a timely reminder of the need for a genuinely independent media voice to continue to be heard not just in Serbia, but world- wide.
For further information please contact:
Marie Olesen
Autonomi ltd
104 min,
2 parts
http://www.autonomi.tv
http://www.b92.net
Bedroom Radio
42 min
Filmed over a period of 18 months, Bedroom Radio is a story of Pirate radio broadcasting, Love, Life, and Death on a different frequency.
Gary (DJ Allusion) and Yvonne (DJ Miss-Chief) are a young couple who live on a tough Paisley housing estate. Most nights they broadcast from their one bedroom flat on Gary’s pirate radio station: Allusion FM.
In a world where the drug dealer and moneylender rule, and where alcoholism and violence are an everyday reality, it is ironic that the only positive thing that this young couple can do for themselves is illegal.
“When you run a pirate radio station you’re not just up against the law — you’re dealing with the government.”Pirate radio broadcasting is a criminal offence in the UK and although being a radio pirate carries with it the risk of either a hefty fine or prison sentence, the buzz of being a pirate has attracted a whole new generation of what Gary calls `Bedroom DJs’ to the airwaves. Giving voice to the disenfranchised, these pirates are perhaps the real sound of Scotland’s housing schemes. Bedroom Radio not only introduces the viewer to the DTI-dodging world of the pirate radio DJ, but more importantly opens the door onto a world, where (in Yvonne’s words): “You are definitely written off before you start.”
genova città aperta – open city?
Tortuga films,
http://www.tortugafilms.tk/ ,impressions and expressions of the events that surrounded the Genoa Social Forum and the G8 meeting in July, 2001.
‘città aperta’ contains well the emotions and images that swept through our bodies.
it was a quite dramatic and traumatic experience for many.
this documentary, which is just one of the many stories that could have been told, when more than 200.000 people come together, seeks to illuminate the joyous events, actions and imaginative theatres that painted the streets of genova with a positive colour and gave good reason to be optimistic about the future.
it features many interviews and happy images, pays sufficient attention to state repression,
but fails to deliver arguments for the use of violence.
Well done, now sod off!
(UK, 2001)
90 mins
dir. ChumbawambaChumbawamba talk about politics, hit singles, backlash, and life after “Tubthumping.” If you’ve ever wondered how Britain’s best-known anarchist band managed to get a No. 2 record on the charts that’s since turned into a ringtone and a stadium soundtrack, you’ll enjoy this one.
DIY OR DIE: How To Survive as an Independent Artist
A FILM BY, FOR AND ABOUT INDEPENDENT ARTISTS http://www.diyordie.org/This film is a celebration of the underdog!
This documentary by Michael W. Dean isn’t a manual on how to publish a fanzine or start a band. Rather, it’s a look into the very souls of a group of talented and dedicated individuals who have chosen to live as artists, on their own terms and outside the mainstream.With the exception of one short passage on Napster, the material hasn’t become dated at all; in fact, you’ll find the wisdom and insight served up here to be timeless.
Whether the person speaking into the camera writes, paints, sings, draws comics, or plays guitar, the message is the same: Be yourself, be true to your art, and do it because you love it (because there probably ain’t any money in it.)
FEATURING interviews with: Lydia Lunch, Ian MacKaye (Fugazi), J Mascis (Dinosaur jr.), Jim Rose (Jim Rose Sideshow), J.G.Thirlwell (Foetus), Mike Watt (Minutemen), Richard Kern (Filmmaker), Ron Asheton (Stooges), Madigan Shive (Bonfire Madigan), Dave Brockie (Gwar) and more.
GLOBALISATION AND THE MEDIA (Undercurrents 10 ¾) http://www.undercurrents.org/The United States has spent the last 50 years constructing the present New World Order. Aided by its powerful military resources, alongside the IMF, World Bank and the World Trade Organisation, the rules of global trade have been largely imposed to serve its own interests. This documentary explores the role of the media in this corporate led take over of the Planets natural resources. We explore how the media is involved in shaping public opinion during the ?War on Terrorism?. Undercurrents offers a wide range of viewpoints from broadcasters, journalists, computer hackers, media activists, and news editors. We investigate the bias of Television news during the protest blockades of the IMF and the G8 summits. Travelling from Nigeria to Britain we report on the violent suppression of alternative media. Discover how new technology, such as the internet and camcorders, is challenging the role of the traditional news gatherer. Includes Interviews with Chris Cramer- President CNN International news George Monbiot- Investigative reporter Katharine Ainger- Editor New Internationalist Mark Covell- Indymedia.org Sonali Fernadez- Media Workers against the War Danny Schecter- Director Mediachannel.org Emmanuel Goldstein ? Editor of 2600 The Hackers Quarterly Amy Goodman- Producer Democracy Now in Exile
RADIO INSURGENTE: VOICE OF THE VOICELESS
Voice of the Voiceless
(Chiapas, Mexico)
(12 mins)About Radio Insurgente of the Zapatista movement in Chiapas and the music recording studio people have built. Also expressing the short coming of mainstream media’s concept of reality in the Lacandonian Jungle.More about Radio Insurgente: http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1793/
LIFE IN THE FAST LANE – THE NO M11 CAMPAIGN (Film/Video, Neil Goodwin, April 1995)
http://www.cultureshop.org/details.php?code=M11
This feature length documentary presents the inside story of the No M11 Campaign, recounting 15 months of direct action against one of the most controversial schemes in the history of British road-building.
“Excellent…”
JOHN PILGER
“Brilliant. It both inspired me and gave me a much needed boost in energy and commitment.”
STEVE PLATT, New Statesman
Featuring the music of The Levellers, Zion Train and The Clash, this film is a celebration of dignity in the face of oppression, providing a lasting testament to the strength of people-power and the resilience of community spirit.
Drawing on personal testimony and nearly 200 hours of front-line footage, LIFE IN THE FAST LANE features the battle for Wanstead’s George Green, and the subsequent eviction of its 250 year- old Sweet Chestnut tree. It re-lives the days of the Independent Free Area of Wanstonia, and highlights the celebrated rooftop protests at Westminster and the home of the then Transport Secretary, John MacGreggor. Against a backdrop of growing resistance to the Criminal Justice Act it charts the emergence of CLAREMONT ROAD as an extraordinary symbol of cultural defience, and for the first time tells the story of what became the most expensive eviction in British history.
TRADING FREEDOM “Trading Freedom: the secret life of the FTAA” offers an explanation of the Free Trade Area of Americas, a proposed economic zone that will regulate the economic activity of one-sixth of humanity, overriding local democracy in favour of “rights” for multinational corporations throughout the Americas. This film is the story of those who resist – indigenous struggles, working-class organizations, women in rebellion, media activists, and a huge network of NGOs.
“Footage from Chiapas, Quebec City, Sao Paulo, Akwesasne and Tijuana, plus the combined efforts of over 100 videographers, photographers, free radio outlaws, writers, editors, techs, and rabble-rousers make this the perfect evening out.”
— Luther Blisset
CROWD BITES WOLF
Guerillavision
23 min.The bank and fund scuttle of to Prague, but an international army of insurrection is waiting. Caught in the middle one man finds his anticipated fortnight on the piss shelved by a chance encounter.
‘Crowd Bites Wolf‘, a commemoration of September 2000 protests in Prague, produced by a collective called Guerillavision, celebrates attacks on police lines….This is a fetishisation of violence, a sadistic pornography of pain. Judge for yourselves what got George Monbbie quite so upset.
THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKEhttp://www.bignoisefilms.com
Running Time: 56 min,
Year: 2000
At the WTO protests in Seattle, we had a collective vision. We saw beyond the borders that divide us. We saw people come together across every kind of political and cultural difference and stand up in a way that we have not seen in this country for decades.
We saw peaceful protests shut down one of the most powerful institutions in the world and we saw a system dazed and frightened by the sound of our voices. People left Seattle energized, believing that they had taken part in the birth of a new movement.
TERRORISTS – THE KIDS THEY SENTENCED Director: Lukas Moodysson and Stefan Jarl
2003 Sweden,
85 mins
A film by Stephan Jarl and award-winning Swedish filmmaker Lukas Moodysson which looks at anti-globalization protesters in Gothenburg, Sweden during the summer of 2001. In the melee that followed, property was damaged, businesses were looted, and the aggressive police force brought in to control the crowd wounded two young demonstrators, one critically. Not two years after the event, Lukas Moodysson teamed up with photojournalist Stefan Jarl to revisit the protestors’ side of the skirmish and their interviews make up the body of the documentary. Exploring their subjects’ political beliefs, family upbringings, and recollections of the fateful day, the film provides an unabashedly biased portrait of young men and women who were forced to serve long, some say unnecessarily long sentences in Swedish prison.
THE MIAMI MODEL
Indymedia 2004,
http://ftaaimc.org/miamimodelIn November, 2003, trade ministers from 34 countries met in Miami, Florida, to negotiate the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
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.
FALLUJAH
Indymedia – more information required, such like exact title, film maker and so on
AT THE SHARP END OF THE KNIFE http://www.iofilm.co.uk/fm/a/at_the_sharp_end_of_the_knife_1998.shtmlDirector Barbara Orton
Stars Cathy McCormack
Certificate NC
Country Scotland
Year 1998
FILMMAKER Barbara Orton’s emotional documentary follows Scottish activist Cathy McCormack’s journey into the impoverished townships of post-apartheid South Africa.
Along the way she draws interesting parallels between the conditions in the devastated regions of South Africa and her own experiences with poverty in the centralised ghetto of Easterhouse, one of Scotland’s most deprived estates.
While this theme may sound bleak, the film is ultimately a beautiful testimony to the hope and strength that exists in the hearts and minds of the South African people as they work to rebuild. This amazing spirit is documented through the interactions McCormack has with the people she meets as she travels.
Whether it be sitting at a bar discussing the challenges of building liveable conditions with a local activist or travelling to a rural village to share in the cultural celebration of the villagers. Each experience sheds light on the forgotten voice of the underprivileged.
A must see.