Click here to view the embedded video.

BRISTOL
Friday, 24 February
St. Matthias Campus, UWE, Room A123, 5pm.

OXFORD
Saturday 10 March,
Shulman Auditorium, Queen’s College, High Street, 3.30pm
as part of ’Latin American “Third” Cinema and Its Legacies’

A trilogy by Michael Chanan made on a visit to Chile in November 2011.

1. Homage ･ 2. Community ･ 3. Protest
2012, 34mns 

Three glimpses of Chile in 2011. Homage is a visit to Valparaiso. Community is a portrait of
Población La Victoria and its community television station, Señal 3. Protest is an account
of the momentous student protest movement—the occupations, marches, demonstrations,
street actions and web activism—and its tremendous impact on the country’s political life,
as they denounce the most intensely privatised education system in the world, demand the
return of free public education, and question the legitimacy of actually existing democracy in Chile.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Watch the original version of Protest

on the New Statesman
here

PROTEST CHILE

premieres on Saturday 3 December 2011 at
Latin America 2011  A d e l a n t e !
Congress House, Great Russell Street, London WC1

~

also screening on Saturday 10 December at
Roehampton Human Rights Film Festival
University of Roehampton

~

A video by Michael Chanan

No to Profit!

Filmed in November 2011.

An account of the huge student protest movement in Chile including
occupations, marches, demonstrations, street actions and web activism
and its impact on the country’s political life as they demand the return of free public education
in place of the most intensely privatised education system in the world

Essential viewing for anyone concerned with the future of
schools and universities in Britain under the plans enacted
and laid in by the Coalition Government

with generous collaboration by

Filmmakers
Renato Dennis, Rodrigo Tossi, Marcos Salazar

Archive
Señal  La Victoria, Revista Vaso

Interviews
Carlos Ossa, Manuel Antonio Garretón
Marcia Tambutti Allende

ICEI Universidad de Chile,
Tiziana Panizza, Carlos Flores

Available Soon!

WRITTEN BY GAH-KAI LEUNG | 02 SEPTEMBER 2011

In his study “Rabelais and His World,” literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin writes of carnival as a “temporary suspension… of hierarchical rank [which creates] a special type of communication impossible in everyday life.” Bahktin’s influential theory of the carnivalesque seems to leave traces all over the very public demonstrations against cuts to government spending, as painstakingly catalogued in this film by Michael Chanan, which took place throughout late 2010 and early 2011. The overturning of the established order and the cry for democracy that spurred these protests, as well as utopian demands for a just society manifested in the realism of ordered chaos inflicted on urban centres, seems to be a replay of the same ideas a Russian thinker was writing about some sixty years ago.

In its own carnivalesque way, “Chronicle of Protest” too eschews some of the expectations of a documentary film. The finished project has no voice-over narrator: instead it is essentially a montage of newsreel, police footage, activist home video and vox-pops, all strung together with words that occasionally flash across the screen. The narrative, at once disjointed and yet unified by the sung refrain of “Society is too big to fail” (a mockingly ironical reworking of the now-clichéd phrase applied to bloated banks), suggests the simultaneous unity and disunity that characterised the protests: all those involved shared a common message, but there were distinct ways of communicating that message. Clips of the few students who tarnished the image of millions of peaceful protestors through their actions, and who yet came to symbolise the apparent degeneracy of the entirety of modern British youth, are an eerie precursor to the much more magnified destruction that would occur in the same city a few months later. Indeed, the vociferous but coolly measured way that the vast majority of the people captured in this film address their concerns is in striking contrast to the relentless annihilation of communities, both socially and physically, this August. One student, who will forever remain anonymous, declaims: “Protest is saying that I disagree with something; resistance is saying that I will not let this happen.” Equally arresting is the colourful multitude of non-violent protest methods: a young woman’s stand-up routine in a Barclays bank; the call-and-response chants of a group on the street; the beating of drums on the civilian warpath.

Chanan’s real achievement in this film, though, is to situate these students’ era of discontent within wider contexts, both past and present. Another literary academic, Terry Eagleton, draws parallels to the unrest in the 1960s when “the academia became the catalyst for a much wider social movement,” while other connections are made to the credit crisis, Egypt, Bahrain and Bristol, and from the rather triumphantly named University of Strategic Optimism to an ordinary library on the fringes of London. Through a collection of interviews, you get the sense that right-wing politics as symbolised in this country by the Conservative Party is increasingly being associated with “ignorance of the reality of the situation [the electorate] is in,” and that the Liberal Democrat contingent, far from being a moderating force, have simply accepted the new status quo: students who voted Lib Dem in the last election constantly speak of being “betrayed” by the party. One older woman complains about the “dishonesty” of the government’s commissioned research into people’s happiness when “the sort of things that make people happy [are merely] being able to go to your library and get some books and CDs.” Though ostensibly Chanan tries to include a variety of voices, I did notice when I watched the film that most of the interviewees were white: besides some black singers, only the impassioned Mehdi Hasan stands out as an important commentator of ethnic origin. Hasan, to his credit, shows thought and restraint for a man whose unnecessarily violent assault on Michael Heseltine on the BBC’s ‘Question Time’ infuriated this viewer.

From a technical standpoint, the soundtrack is a bit iffy at times, and the lack of subtitles is occasionally frustrating. But judging the film alone, as a catalogue of the various schemes that took place to combat the threats to higher education in the coming decades, it largely works. Where it fails, however, is to say anything really new or challenging: Chanan does not develop his thesis to include meaningful debate around its implications. How can we really reconcile the threat of sovereign debt default and the need to balance our budgets with the imperative to preserve a system of higher education that is equitable, accessible and – above all – adequately fulfilling? Have the demonstrations – in the context of a wider post-credit crunch culture where economics has become a political football – achieved anything at all? Maybe I’m expecting too much from a “chronicle of protest,” not an “essay on protest.”

Regardless, the ultimate power of “Chronicle of Protest” lies at its climax, when the images of millions of chanting, waving, placard-holding citizens that throng the capital resemble a gigantic literal carnival. The mostly silent crowd come to speak for themselves, so much so that you really do want to stand up and join them. Unfettered by narrative intrusion, the film perfectly captures the zeitgeist of its period. At that ‘Question Time’ debate shortly after the new coalition government was elected, Michael Heseltine warned the incumbent administration would be “deeply unpopular”. Chanan’s timely work reaffirms how wrong I wish he could have been.

Socialist Worker

Sometimes it’s easy to forget just how much has gone on over the past eight months.

This documentary is a celebration of the anti-cuts movement in Britain. It charts the movement from the student protests of late last year through to the huge 26 March TUC demonstration.

Director Michael Chanan uses footage from video blogs, TV news and activist media to paint a picture of the breadth of resistance to the cuts, and reflects some of the debates within the movement on how to resist and what alternatives are on offer.

The film tries to do a lot. We see everything from the media’s manipulation of the student protests, to the BBC’s Paul Mason giving a crash course in the financial crisis. We also get a look at the occupation of libraries and the arrival of the Arab uprisings which fed inspiration into the movement.

The likes of Michael Rosen, Terry Eagleton, Josie Long and Nina Power also offer their take on the struggle.

Having taken such a wide ranging subject matter, it’s inevitable some things get left out. But it would have been good to see some more of how the big protests came about. Grassroots campaigns such as Education Activist Network don’t really get a mention, while the organisational power of Twitter gets too much attention.

And I’m not sure it really reflects the young, working class dynamism which was so apparent on the demos. Lots of white, middle aged academics are interviewed at length. The soundtrack also seems to miss the mood—it would have been nice to see some of the dubstep and hip-hop, which for me was far more symbolic of the creativity thrown up by the campaigns.

But otherwise this is a useful record of the story so far, and what we can hope is only the beginning of our campaign of resistance.

Emma-Louise Williams’ Under the Cranes, which premiered to a capacity audience at Dalston’s Rio Cinema, featured the work of [a] long-time resident, Michael Rosen, whose documentary play Hackney Voices steered this engaging, gentle, slightly dreamlike documentary… Rosen also appears in Michael Chanan’s Chronicle of Protest, extolling the revolutionary potential of Shakespeare. Co-produced by the New Statesman and Roehampton University, Chronicle of Protest’s freshness and urgency – the most recent footage, of the 26 March TUC demo, is only a month old – is perhaps a necessary counterweight to the archival feel in evidence elsewhere. Activist video, news footage and interviews are edited into chapters including December 2010’s student occupations, campaigns against library closures and the actions of UK Uncut; commendably, Chanan gives space not only to London protest footage but also to a lecturers’ strike in Bristol.

The recent wave of protest at government policy has sometimes been couched in simplistic terms of the young versus the old, but this intelligent and highly watchable film suggests a continuum of protest, as veterans like Terry Eagleton appear alongside a new generation of technology-savvy activists. Its screening in the East End, an area that has harboured chartists, suffragettes, anti-racist campaigners and many other oppositional groups, strikes a challenging note.

full review here

Directed and Produced by
Michael Chanan

Camera
Michael Chanan
Kaveh Abassian
Enrica Colusso
Philippa Daniel

Edited by
Michael Chanan
Additional editing
Philippa Daniel

Production (New Statesman)
Daniel Trilling

For Banner Theatre
Don Bouzek: filming, video editing
Dave Rogers: filming

Additional Footage
ReelNews
Richard Hering, visionon.tv
Pete Beckworth-Wilson
UCL Occupation video

Music 
First of May Band
Musical development and songs arrangements
Vince Pryce: vocals, keyboard, bass, drums
Dave Rogers: lyrics, vocals, guitar
Laura Owen Wright; vocals, guitar, keyboard
Fred Wisdom: vocals, guitar

‘Buen amigo’, Anibal Troilo

Thanks
Josh Abrams ‧ Terryl Bacon ‧ Anna Burton ‧ Patricio Coll
Jonathan Derbyshire ‧ Gillian Gadsby ‧ Alan Gibbons
James Hunt ‧ Karen Jonason ‧ Andy Keenan
Joe Kelleher ‧ Sophie Mount ‧ Paul O’Prey ‧ Nina Power
Peter Richardson ‧ Lee Salter ‧ Anthony Scully
Eva Slotegraaf ‧ Richard Stainton ‧ Paul Sutton
Dave Tinham ‧ John Wood ‧ John Wyver

Natasha Reid, Lewisham Council
Chelmsford TUC

Today at 1545 local time, Chronicle of Protest, a film directed by Michael Chanan premiered at The Rio Cinema, Dalston, as part of the East End Film Festival.

On seeing its inclusion, I was heartened fearing a lack of films commentating on the events which have engulfed the capital over the past year. And so, looking forward to it I took up my seat, coffee in hand.

A note on the slightly deceptive title; this film chronicles recent protests, and is not literally a history lessons.

Depicting familiar scenes of the student protests, ukuncut’s “creative civil disobedience” and that of march26, the film does little to add to the trove of footage that floats about cyber-space.

It stands up by the inclusion of interviews. Not those given by public figures, who tend to recite recycled rhetoric (the exception being Michael Rosen), but by those delivered bynormal people. Those folk effected by the closure of their local library, those students and lectures effected by the higher education squeeze, those nurses facing redundancies due to NHS reforms.

Other then that, I didn’t see to much to scream about. Luckily enough, Chanan had the foresight to make these interview pieces the driving force of the film and so they constitute a great majority of the film.

During the subsequent question & answer session a critic at the back voiced his dissatisfaction of the film being a little soft, [presumably upset with it’s lack of call to arms] stating “its our job to make it happen.” [referring to the collapse of the government.]

I’m reluctant to say this film is a missed opportunity. I’m a strong advocate of quality output, and in this respect the film falls short. In a world in which we are bombarded with the “polished output of MTV”, jittery hose-pipe viewing cannot compete, and is more suited to the world of youtube.

Chanan shed light on the films inception, stemming from a series of blog post and this goes someway to explaining, if not excusing, the at times poor quality footage.

I suppose the question it raises is: is there a place for a film which occupies the middle ground. One which doesn’t directly challenge the state propaganda. There is certainly the case for fighting fire-with-fire, but this film more falls within the middle-ground bracket, quietly sowing the seeds of resistance. For those in London, it may not offer anything radically new, but it does have the potential to inform those a little more removed. Whether it ever reaches them is another question.

Source: Nurks World | Review: Chronicle of Protest
Address : http://nurksworld.tumblr.com/post/5079368646/review-chronicle-of-protest

One of the qualities I love about cinema is its assertiveness: it’s so much harder to overrule or ignore a film when it’s on a cinema screen, whether that screen is in the Grand Palais in Cannes or the Slough Cineworld, than when it’s on television, laptop or iPod. I was impressed when I watchedChronicle of Protest, the omnibus edition of Michael Chanan’s attentivevideo blogs for the NS, on DVD this week. But its real power will become apparent, I suspect, only when it is screened in a cinema, as it will be this Saturday as part of the East End Film Festival.

Chanan’s blogs have already contributed to the democratising of the media by drawing heavily on amateur videos, shot by activists on the various protests and sit-ins which have engulfed and energised the country since the coalition government came to power. Moving that material to a cinema screen provides a kind of ratification that is pleasantly at odds with the film’s urgent, snapshot feel.

The idea behind the commission, if I understand it correctly, was to provide a coherent picture of the mood of protest. Mainstream media can only fragment and dissipate such a groundswell, filtering each separate demonstration through its own agenda. (One example highlighted by some of the film’s interviewees is the bizarre way in which the unhappy travel experiences of two members of the Royal Family became the focal point of the protest against the hoisting of tuition fees.) Chronicle of Protest goes some way toward being a corrective to this.

Through some nifty editing and lucid rhetoric, the connections between the actions of the coalition and the hardships imposed on communities become transparent. A level-headedness emerges in the judicious cutting of scenes which another documentary might have played straight; I especially liked the way Chanan cuts back and forth between the temperate oratory of Terry Eagleton and the incendiary scenes of protestors storming Jeremy Hunt’s appearance at the LSE. Laurie Penny of the NS reflects that the government is rather like a spider, in that it is more scared of us than we are of it, and Chanan helpfully replays in slow-motion close-up a shot of Hunt looking mortified as the room is besieged.

I also liked the material showing another of this magazine’s writers, Mehdi Hasan, imagining at the podium what he would do to attack the government if he were Ed Miliband. I express no favouritism to Mehdi, whom I have met only once (I believed we discussed Terminator-related matters), when I say that his address gives the film an extra jolt of fiery energy. (Later, Chanan films an interview with him from a suspiciously low angle, as though Mehdi is being stung in a Panorama exposé, perhaps on a cash-for-guest-editorships scandal.)

One thing I didn’t like about this otherwise involving film was its framing device of performances by the First of May Band, whose compositions (“Hey there, Mr Banker Man/ You don’t look so great/ Someone ought to tell you/ You’re past your sell-by date”) seem too simplistic to provide more than a cosmetic reflection of the woes documented on screen.