People from the Edinburgh Chiapas Group pointed me to a debate between NarcoNews and COHA, the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, which published an odd text with academic appearance but full of distorted facts and opinionated against the Zapatistas. In return COHA received bags full of complaints and the writer had to then leave the organisation.
There has also been a gathering in Barcelona of European Zapatista support groups. Report by B.A.S.T.A. and translated into english here on Indymedia Scotland.
Indymedia Chiapas seems to be unreachable at the moment.
Was visting AK Press and to look for books for G8 prisoners, and also found some for myself, in particular “This is Serbia calling” and “Political Film: The Dialectic of Third Cinema”, a book which defines “Third Cinema” as opposed to First Cinema alias Hollywood or Second Cinema= arty films.
In the words of the author:
Third Cinema is a term used to describe cinema that is committed to social and cultural emancipation.
It was first coined in the 1960s by Latin American film theorists, in contrast to First cinema (the mainstream) and Second cinema (arthouse films).
This innovative book explores the theory and practice of Third Cinema in relation to films from all over the world that are made specifically for political, transformative purposes.
Mike Wayne argues that Third Cinema is central to key debates concerning contemporary film practices and cultures. He offers an original, dialectical approach that repositions the traditional debate, exploring the affinities and crucial political differences between First and Third Cinema.
The Edinburgh Film Festival is also about to start. It is an elitist, exclusive institution, and people who haven’t studied film either in an art school or at University will not be able to volunteer or able to afford the extremely expensive entry prices of about £10 per ticket per screening. I tried and did not succeed to volunteer last year, and, believe me, there can not be any other person in Edinburgh doing more film and video screenings than I do without studying film as a subject, so therefore I declare the Filmhouse, but in particular the Edinburgh Film Festival, to be discriminative against everybody who hasn’t studied film.
Looking through the Film Festival catalogue, the only film which sounds interesting as in “Third Cinema” seems to be the one about Bolivia in Crisis, titled “Our Brand is Crisis” about US spindoctors failing in Bolivias gas war.
That is probably the only film ticket I can afford this year for the film festival.
There are 2 films about Bolivia, and both documentaries.
The other one is “The Devils Miner”.
Some other documentaries include films about Iraq, but seem to be either too arty farty and not political enough or with tear-dropping narrative made artificially too dramatic.
Beside the Film Festival the Edinburgh Festival also includes the Book Festival and the Fringe.
All events are usually quite pricey, so the socialists in particular have founded and keep on going with the “Edinburgh’s People Festival”, a festival not primarily for tourists and visitors, but for the people, who live here in this city.
Hopefully I have time to go to some of these events.
My parents are visiting me next week, and I try to tidy and clean up. Yes, I admit it, I fell victim to advertising. i just could not resist Cillit Bang to get rid of all the fat, grease, grime and dirt like in the adverts within minutes having everything shiny and the householder smiling away happily. Unfortunately it did not work like that.
I am still scrubbing since yesterday evening with limited results. The spray was good on the cooker, the microwave and the rubbish bin, but not much more. And I really had to scrub not just dip it in the solution like in the advert.
Result of this evaluation:
It is not worth the money, better to try homemade solutions with less agressive chemicals – better for the skin, too!