Directed by Michael Chanan – Written by Lee Salter

Click here to view the embedded video.

On 15 October 2011 anti-capitalist protestors, intending to set up camp in front of the London Stock Exchange in Paternoster Square under the banner of Occupy LSX, were ejected from the square and parked themselves instead in front of St Paul’s Cathedral. The result was one of the starting points for this film: a highly public debate about capitalism and the Church.

But there was also another power acting in the shadows to eventually eject the Occupiers – the City of London Corporation. An ancient body which dates back before William the Conqueror, before there was a parliament in Westminster, which zealously guards its autonomy and privileges to this day.

This is the subject of Secret City: a state within a state, with deleterious effects on democracy, politics and economics in London, the country, and the world, for the City is the linchpin of global finance capital. In short, not just a film for Londoners—especially in these times of crisis, the role of the City concerns everyone everywhere.

Secret City had its premiere on October 16, 2012 at the House of Commons.

Available on DVD and streaming from E2 Films

Click here to view the embedded video.

‘Secret City’ is an investigation into the Corporation of the City of London which governs the famous square mile that serves as joint-HQ with Wall Street for global finance capital. We originally thought we might include a sequence about the illusions of money, but in the end left it out, so instead we fashioned the footage we’d collected into the satirical short you can see here.

Watch the trailer for Secret City here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It accompanies my film on the students protests in Chile, ‘Three Short Films about Chile’.

http://cine.revistacoronica.com/2012/09/tres-cortos-sobre-chile-por-michael.html

which Javier Toloza writes about here (in Spanish):

(Day begins at 12.30 – details http://bit.ly/NpyRO8)

DocHouse presents…

‘RESISTENCIA: Focus on Latin America’

A journey across Latin America today, through revealing documentaries and illuminating discussion.

DAY PASS – £22 / £18 student or concs
SINGLE TICKETS – £7 / £5 student or concs

A panoramic view across Latin America today, from life at the Mexican border, through the Peruvian jungle, and all the way to the streets of Rio.

These outstanding documentaries show the Latin America you don’t see on TV.

No horror stories of drug cartels and gangsters, these award-winning docs and discussions are about the indigenous people of Latin America – from Peru to Brazil to Cuba – those suffering from, and those resisting, the international, corporate exploitation of their land and resources.

Saturday 22^nd September

12.30pm ONE FRONTIER, ALL FRONTIERS – UK PREMIERE – (David Pablos, Mexico, 2010)
Contemplating life on either side of the 2,000 mile wall that separates Mexico from the USA.

+ THE INVISIBLES (Marc Silver & Gael García Bernal, UK/ Mexico, 2010)
Meet migrants on the dangerous journey to the border.

2.30pm LAW OF THE JUNGLE – LONDON PREMIERE – (Michael Christoffersen, Hans la Cour, Denmark, 2012)
A young indigenous leader and his lawyer fight the government and PlusPetrol for his rights and his freedom.

+ PROTEST CHILE (Michael Chanan, UK / Chile, 2011)
Capturing Chile’s mass student demonstrations.

3.10pm CITY OF PHOTOGRAPHERS (Sebastián Moreno, Chile, 2006)
The story of the fearless Chilean photographers who risked death to record life under Pinochet’s brutal military regime.

+ WITH FIDEL WHATEVER HAPPENS (Goran Radovanovic, Serbia, 2011)
The 52^nd anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, in the sedate village of Sierra Mastra.

8pm STOLEN LAND – UK PREMIERE – (Margarita Martínez & Miguel Salazar, Colombia, 2010)
The Nasa people of southern Colombia are fighting to reclaim their ancestral land.

Join us for ‘drinks between the docs’ for a taste of Latin America too.  Complimentary Chilean wine provided by TRIO and exotic fruit juices provided by Fruto del Espíritu.

www.dochouse.org 

Details: New Voices Festival

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!