Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Turtles Can Fly (Bahman Ghobadi, 2004)

Sunday January 12, 2025, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: TURTLES CAN FLY * 2004 * (کیسەڵەکانیش دەفڕن, Lakposhtha hâm parvaz mikonand) * Directed by Bahman Ghobadi * 96 minutes * In Kurdish with English subtitles * doors open at 20:00 * intro & film start at 20:30.

Set in a Kurdish refugee camp near the Iraqi-Turkish border, the movie focuses on its orphans. For them life is temporary, fleeting, and always shifting. The fact that any human being is forced to live in such a volatile situation is crazy. These homeless kids makeshift everything, and life can be finished at any moment if you step on an American landmine. Many of the children who act as extras are actually real Kurdish refugees, and many of them are missing arms and legs. In other words, the issue of landmines isn’t just a narrative device for this film – it’s a reality that these people live with every day. But at the same time, bringing up facts like this doesn’t prevent the film from also achieving a kind of poetry.

This movie is so far removed from our daily lives here in the western world, that it takes on an almost surreal edge even though it’s based in a reality far away. For us a scenario like this is otherworldly, and it opens up so many questions. For example, for me, one of its interesting reflections is about the nature of communication. One of the boys in the camp seems to be a clairvoyant and can foretell mysterious prophecies that seem to come true. But then, on the other hand, we have other Kurds who are desperate to watch television thinking it will tell them what is going to happen next. Our main character, whose name is Satellite, realises that the blitzkrieg of sensationalistic information, music videos, and Fox news reports on the television are mostly a distraction and provide little to help understand the situation. Even though the lives these people live are desperate, they are at least rooted in a reality that is stripped down and understandable. Once the characters in this movie get a hold of a working television set and start flipping around all the channels, we feel like we have entered a world of total chaos.

This is a movie that brings up urgent issues, both political and on a human level. It has a strong emotional impact, but one that helps us contextualise a part of the world that we otherwise can’t comprehend. It doesn’t try to get us to take sides and any issue, but instead it is simply conjuring up a tragic situation with all its complexities.

As you have probably noticed, one of the reasons why I’m showing movies is to explore the world around us. Through movies we can see how people feel, think, and approach life in countries we will never reach. Cinema can help break down prejudices, and I always encourage people to use movies to listen to the other side of the story. Right now the entire Middle East, which was carved and divided up largely by Europeans after World War I, is now rapidly changing. To understand these changes a movie like this can shed some light. It is about a displaced Kurdish community at the Iraqi-Turkish border, and was the first movie to be made in Iraq after the American invasion and the fall of Saddam Hussein. It’s insightful and poignant, and what might shock you is that it’s an Iranian movie, and one that I feel will surprise many.

Other movies from Bahman Ghobadi screened at Joe’s Garage: https://joesgarage.nl/archives/tag/bahman-ghobadi

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

Radical Sunday School: Public Intellectuals – Why would anyone listen to Jordan Peterson or Slavoj Žižek?

Sunday January 12, 2025, Radical Sunday School: Public Intellectuals – Why would anyone listen to Jordan Peterson or Slavoj Žižek? From 18:00 till 20:00.By being involved in various leftist and/or educational spaces, I have noticed quite a few recurring behaviours regarding knowledge production and sharing, that I found somewhat toxic, even if the people exhibiting them, had the best intentions. And, in my immediate environment, I heard similar complaints from others over the years. By now, I had enough experiences to understand, interpret, and even handle these issues in my day-to-day life, at least to the extent that I can organise a discussion around the topic.
So, this evening, I invite everyone to share their experiences with toxic behaviours regarding knowledge and learning in communities, and think about potential solutions for these problems together.

Radical Sunday School
radicalsundayschool [at] riseup [dot] net
https://radar.squat.net/en/amsterdam/radical-sunday-school
https://radicalsundayschool.noblogs.org/

All Crafts Are Beautiful

Sunday January 12, 2025, All Crafts Are Beautiful, from 14:00 till 18:00.

Doe deze zondag met ons mee voor All Crafts Are Beautiful! Er is een tijd om samen de barricades op te gaan en er is een tijd om samen te komen om het samenkomen. Kom en breng je eigen handwerkproject mee of leer nieuwe vaardigheden van anderen zoals breien, haken, repareren enz. Vanaf 14:00 tot 18:00, elke tweede zondag van de maand. Joe’s Garage is op de begane grond en heeft een steile ramp bij de entree. De toilet is erg smal. Qua zitplekken is er 1 comfortabele bank en verder zijn er veel houten stoelen en tafels. Tijdens dit evenement wordt er binnen niet gerookt.

Join us this Sunday for All Crafts Are Beautiful! There is a time to go on the barricades together and the is a time to come together for the sake of coming together. Come and bring your own craft project or learn new skills from others like knitting, crocheting, repairing etc. All Crafts Are Beautiful is from 14:00-18:00 every second sunday of the month. Joe’s Garage is on the ground floor and has a very steep ramp at the entrance. The toilet is very narrow. There is one comfy couch and there are a lot of wooden chairs and tables. During this event there is no smoking inside.

All Crafts Are Beautiful https://radar.squat.net/en/amsterdam/all-crafts-are-beautiful

Cleaning Weekend & Joe’s Garage open assembly

Friday 10 and Saturday 11 January, 2025, Cleaning Weekend from 10:00 till 18:00.
Saturday 11, from 19:00 to 20:30, Joe’s Garage open assembly.

Come and help us clean Joe’s Garage and then join us for the monthly Joe’s Garage assembly to start planning for the 20 anniversary party in summer, and to decide which squats and social centers should get money from the Joe’s calendar.
Join the Joe’s Garage open assembly on Saturday evening. Get involved at Joe’s Garage, a squatted social center. Come along to figure out how you could contribute to such a space. Joe’s Garage always needs active participants to remain open. Such a monthly meeting is also the moment to discuss your proposals, get to know each others, share tasks, plan the coming weeks.

Aman molli: Practice of east Mediterranean Music

Friday January 10, 2025, Aman molli: Practice of east Mediterranean Music. From 20:00 to 23:30.

This is a weekly open practice session of east Mediterranean music, in which we play genres such as rebetiko and Greek/Balkan/Turkish/Middle Eastern folk music. Together we explore the melodic pathways, rhythms (e.g. 9/8, 7/8. 5/4) and harmonies of, as well as connections between these musical traditions. We gather to have fun playing music together, to share musical knowledge and experience, and improve our skills on our instruments. We welcome interested newcomers to join in, regardless of musical experience, and using any kind of instrument (strings, percussion, wind, voice).

Aman Molli https://radar.squat.net/en/aman-molli

Solidarity Voku for Hamoudi’s family from Gaza

Thursday January 9, 2025, Solidarity Voku for Hamoudi’s family from Gaza. Food served from 7pm, no reservation.

Come have dinner at Joe’s to raise money for helping Hamoudi’s family of 4 escape the horrors of genocide. Dinner is vegan and all money raised will be donated to the gofundme, where you can also read more about their story. […Lees verder]

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Benefit Voku for Takland Vrijstraat

Monday January 6, 2025, Benefit VoKu for Takland Vrijstraat. Food served from 7pm, no reservation.

Takland is a squatted house and social center that’s been running since Kingsday 2023, when we declared ourselves independent from the Dutch state. For the past months we’ve been hosting a weekly jazz bar with different musicians opening and a jam session after. Running the space, getting all the equipment and also maintaining the house costs a lot of money and energy. So come by for some great food and to support another social center so that we can also host benefits again.
TⒶkland Vrijstraat https://radar.squat.net/en/amsterdam/tkland-vrijstraat

Volkseten Vegazulu is a people’s kitchens existing since the very beginning of Joe’s Garage, June 2005. Your donations are welcome. Food is vegan, no reservation. All benefits go to social & political struggles. Joe’s Garage is a space run by volunteers. Without a collective effort, without your active participation, we’re remaining closed. Get in touch in you feel like giving a hand. We’re always looking for cooks. Any help is welcome in the kitchen. Experience not required. If you want to know which days are still available, mail us.

Radical Sunday School: Reflections & Resolutions

Sunday January 5, 2025, Radical Sunday School: Reflections & Resolutions. From 18:00 till 20:00.For our first session in 2025, we would like to invite you all to look back on the sessions we did in 2024, and look forward the things you would like to see or do with Radical Sunday School in 2025!
Radical Sunday School
radicalsundayschool [at] riseup [dot] net
https://radar.squat.net/en/amsterdam/radical-sunday-school
https://radicalsundayschool.noblogs.org/