Cultural environmentalism in Leicester

/in , , , , , , , , , /by

A small but fascinating interdisciplinary workshop at the University of Leicester on March 6th, on the theme of environmental justice in Latin America, convened by Paula Serafini, proved a congenial occasion for a screening of ‘Cuba: Living Between Hurricanes’. The event, which focussed on cultural production in response to environmental injustice, was  slightly depleted by two or three non-arrivals due to understandable reluctance to travel from abroad; two of them gave their contributions via internet – is this how things will shape up in the foreseeable future?

What made it so engaging was the variety of presentations about a diverse range of cultural manifestations – street theatre, performance, music, textiles, video – and of phenomena susceptible to cultural intervention – conservation in the Colombian paramo, potato cultivation in the Peruvian Andes, conflict over pulp mills on the Uruguay river, shareholder meetings in London. Read more

Stop ¡Basta!

/in , , , /by

For over fifty years, radical and independent filmmakers across Latin America have been making films targeting the history of Latin America’s domination by imperialist powers and above all, in the twentieth century, the USA, whose methods have been economic exploitation, mass cultural colonisation and direct or indirect military intervention. In Mexico, where the threat represented by Donald Trump is particularly keenly felt, a group of filmmakers has come together under the banner Stop ¡Basta! to campaign for Latinos north of the border to use their vote to defend their own interests, which means their past, their traditions, their history, their people. Their instrument of choice is their own films, in the form of scenes selected to ‘suggest the nightmare that our world can become if ruled by the worst traditions in the history of the United States’.  Read more

‘Money Puzzles’ almost ready

/in , , , , /by

Almost ready. About to get delivery of  the first DVD preview copies of ‘Money Puzzles’, and then I’m off to Lisbon, where its first screening takes place at Doclisboa on 29th October.

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/174092191[/vimeo]

Over the eighteen months I’ve been making ‘Money Puzzles’, a good deal has happened in the world and not much has changed, and where it has, matters are getting worse. Read more

Brexit, Labour & the Media

/in , , , /by

What the anti-Corbynistas are doing is unconscionable. In pursuing their cackhanded coup, they are abdicating from intervention in the process of negotiating Brexit. They wouldn’t admit it, likely not even to themselves, but this might even be one reason why they’re doing it, because of course they too have no plan for how to proceed, any more than the Tories (while Owen Smith even seems to think he can successfully challenge Corbyn by proposing a second referendum). They’re like animals caught in headlights, not knowing which way to turn, while now installed behind the wheel is Theresa May and her equally clueless crew, driving in the dark with no road map and their GPS out of range, sniffing their way to the unshackled neoliberal dreamland of neo-Thatcherism.

Read more

What the big media don’t show

/in , , , , , , /by

Paris 29 November 2015.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/147310542[/vimeo]

By chance I was in Paris for the weekend. No demos are allowed in Paris because of the State of Emergency following the November 13 terrorist attacks, so at midday protestors organised a human chain along Boulevard Voltaire. One of the organisers, a friend of mine, told me that the police agreed to this as long as roads were not blocked, and the memorial site at the Bataclan theatre was excluded. None of this was reported in the big media, which focussed instead on the shoes at the Place de la Republique and a violent clash which took place there later in the afternoon. The shoes made a powerful symbolic statement, but so did the human chain which the media ignored. Read more

Filming the Greek Crisis

/in , , , , , /by

Athens, 20 July 2015

Two weeks after the referendum in which the Greek people delivered an overwhelming No to Austerity, one week after the Syriza government nonetheless accepted the terms dictated by Brussels, many people in Greece feel either betrayed or confused or both. I’m in Athens with Lee Salter to film an episode for our new film, Money Puzzles, and attend an international conference called, hopefully, Democracy Rising, where some of the best brains of the academic left from Europe and North America have been trying to grapple with the contradictions which these unexpected developments have now thrown up, and relate them to the broader canvas of the anti-capitalist social movements that have emerged in the last few years around the world. It is not an easy brief, in part because of a degree of disconnection between the academic language of many of the panellists and the political need for plain-speaking. This disconnect is also part of the political blockage of the left that we all need to learn to overcome. We need to speak simple truth not only to power but also each other.

Read more

Behind the News from Gaza

/in , , , /by

When the issues become too sharp and the contradictions too blatant, the news media are severely challenged to contain them within normal bounds. They generally try to keep stories apart in order not to have them contaminate each other, but just recently this became impossible. The events in Gaza and Ukraine are not directly connected, yet in the mediasphere they became coupled by their coincidence in time and their jostling day by day for the top story slot. As a result, it was impossible not to see, for example, the shameless hypocrisy of the British Prime Minister berating France for selling warships to Russia while everyone’s military support for Israel continues unabated. In Britain’s case, it has emerged that the value of all British military exports to Israel currently being processed stands at £7.9 billion, including a single deal last year worth more than £7.7 billion for cryptographic technology. Read more

University of Chile attacked with Tear Gas and Water Cannon

/1 Comment/in , , , /by

It doesn’t only happen in Turkey. Yesterday, while filming in Santiago, I had my first experience of tear gas. I went to film the latest student protest march against the heavily privatised education system which is a heritage of the neoliberal policies of the Pinochet dictatorship. I filmed far more than I needed, because it was huge and very impressive (it took 75 minutes to pass the National Library where I was stationed) with all the expectable banners, drumming, bands, and dancing, and perfectly peaceful, following the pattern established a couple of years ago when the protest movement began. Read more