Movie night: Ekümenopolis – city without limits (Turkey, 2011)

By: ready - October 1st, 2014  Filed under: Filmavond, Solidarity

Sunday October 12th 2014, Ekümenopolis – city without limits. Directed by Imre Azem 2011, 93 minutes, in Turkish with English subtitles. Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm.

Eukemonopolis is documentation about neo liberal city development in Istanbul and the aspiration of its political leaders of turning it into a global city, one of those cities like London, Tokyo, Amsterdam or São Paulo, that shape globalisation and form the network of global cities where the service, banking and real estate businesses accumulate, where mega events takes place and a hegemonial hipster culture is cultivated. While the global alpha, beta and gamma cities posses the intellectual knowledge, tools and power the global division of labour is further extended, with the majority of factory production being outsourced to those parts of the world where people earn a shit for their 60 hours working week, have no labour rights whatsoever and endanger their health and well being by working in super precarious conditions, let alone the environmental destruction that this system of global division of labour provokes. Eukomonopolis shows quite in detail what the negative effects of repressive neo liberal urban development in Istanbul mean to local citizens and to the city’s natural environment while it also explains concepts like the global city (which was developed by Saskia Sassen) so that we can look at our own living environment and have more tools at hand to better understand what happens around us and affects us. We can develop strategies and actions to be solidare with the exploited people worldwide and get active locally in order to develop and realise our own strategies in contrast to that what is opposed on us by the state and its institutions, urban planners and the capitalistic system.

As further background  we want to provide a text about urban development in the city which is part of more a comprehensive report about squatting in the Istanbul and a collection of reports about radical grassroots neighborhood and factory organisation provided by the the solidarity campaign for left neighborhoods in Istanbul, translated from german to english. Even though the documentary does not relate those particular stories, those texts may shed some light on local resistance against the urban development that takes place in the city.

[…Lees verder]

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International Solidarity Movement info-night

By: börek - October 1st, 2014  Filed under: Filmavond, Infoavond

Friday October 10th 2014, International Solidarity Movement info-night, 8pm.

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the long-entrenched and systematic oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian population, using non-violent, direct-action methods and principles. Founded in August 2001, ISM aims to support and strengthen the Palestinian popular resistance by being immediately alongside Palestinians in olive groves, on school runs, at demonstrations, within villages being attacked, by houses being demolished or where Palestinians are subject to consistent harassment or attacks from soldiers and settlers as well as numerous other situations. […Lees verder]

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Knoflíkáři (1997)

By: börek - October 1st, 2014  Filed under: Filmavond
Can_Dialectics_Break_Bricks_Cinema_Knoflikari

Sunday October 5th 2014, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema by Jeffrey Babcock: Knoflíkáři (Buttoners). Directed by Petr Zelenka, 1997, 106 minutes, in Czech with English subtitles. Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm.

The unbelievable burst of creativity that emerged from Czechoslovakian cinema of the 60s is mostly something of the past. Today the general film scene there is as dim as it is everywhere else. But of course there are exceptions, and director Petr Zelenka is one of them. Where many directors are going for a more slick Hollywood-derived approach to cinema, Zelenka is one of the black sheep, the enfant terrible of his generation. His movies are wild, deranged and surreal black comedies, but at the same time they ultimately culminate in some sort of philosophical observation. In general his films explore the broken dreams of the so-called Velvet Generation… the moral confusion and existential loneliness that was ushered in with western consumerism. […Lees verder]

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Movie night: Los Santos Inocentes (Mario Camus, 1984)

By: börek - September 12th, 2014  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday September 28th 2014, Movie night: Los Santos Inocentes (The Holy Innocents), a film by Mario Camus ( Spain, 1984,  107 min, spanish with english subtitles). Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm.

Back to the middle of the 20th century, the countryside of the Iberian peninsula was controlled by land tenants who enjoyed a set of privileges that would be considered more typical of the middle ages than of modern times. As for example, having enslaved families working on their farms.

Now this is obviously an issue that 2 actual european countries like Spain and Portugal don’t like to be reminded of. Nobody likes to remember that less than 50 years ago this was still a reality. So with time it became a non-issue, an unsponsored reality.

What Camus does with this movie is remarkable. Not only by his technique and the end result of this film, but mainly because it gives voice – and more importantly, it gives images – to this hundred of anonymous stories that were never portrayed before with such care. […Lees verder]

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PerverT CinemA presents: The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (2012)

By: börek - September 1st, 2014  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday September 21st 2014, PerverT CinemA presents: The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (2012) by Sophie Fiennes, screenplay by Slavoj Žižek, 136 minutes. Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm.

Few (if any) modern intellectuals have the public profile of Slavoj Žižek, a man whose long-form thoughts on everything from The Wire to modern Marxisim are consumed in equal amounts — and, no less, with as many lengthy responses. Those occasional dips into moving images come to this writer’s attention more strongly than, say, a battle with Noam Chomsky, so what follows, here, is of genuine interest: The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, a sequel of sorts to 2006′s The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema — i.e., a reunion with director Sophie Fiennes — that, again, brings the philosopher into recreations of famous films. […Lees verder]

Movie Night: I Love Hooligans + Idiots And Angels

By: ready - September 1st, 2014  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday September 14th 2014, Movie night: I love hooligans, an animated short film by Jan-Dirk Bouw (2013, 12min, dutch with english subtitles) and Idiots and Angels, an animated feature film by (2008, 78min, no spoken language). Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm.

I Love Hooligans

In “I Love Hooligans” we enter the world of a homosexual hooligan who feels unconditional love for his club. However, being gay, this hooligan has to hide his identity in order to survive in this world that is so precious to him. Football is what he lives for, and his sexual orientation and love life have been relegated to the margin. It is a well-kept secret.

Update Fr. 12.09.2014: There might be the chance (not yet 100% confirmed) that Jan-Dirk Bouw is joining us for questions and answers about I Love Hooligans. Really great!

Idiots and Angles

Plympton on what inspired the idea for “Idiots and Angles”…
The core idea of “Idiots and Angels” came to me while I was in France and someone asked me, after seeing “Hair High,” what my next project would be. Off the top of my head, I don’t know where it came from – I blurted out “An asshole guy wakes up one morning with wings on his back, and he doesn’t like it because the wings make him do good things.”
The kid who asked the question thought that was an excellent idea for a film, and after I thought about it, so did I. […Lees verder]

Hands off the trees! Call for action in the Hambacher Forest

By: börek - September 1st, 2014  Filed under: Benefiet, Filmavond, Infoavond, Volkseten/Voku

Thursday September 11th 2014: Hands off the trees! Call for action in the Hambacher Forest, Volkseten Vegazulu, 7pm. With the screening of the Hambacher Forest movie (german with english subtitles) that was finished in 2014.

Time for Ac­tion! ​Cut­ting se­a­son starts in oc­to­ber! We won‘t just stand and watch! Every au­tumn the fo­rest pre­pa­res for the slee­py win­ter­ti­me. The lea­ves fall off the trees, the squir­rels hide the last nuts and the ac­tivists in­so­la­te their tree hou­ses. Every being is look­ing for­ward to a cold but quiet and peace­ful time. But with the be­gin­ning of oc­to­ber, the ma­chi­nes in­tru­de the Ham­bach Fo­rest again. Hu­mans and so-​cal­led “Har­vester” (big ma­chi­nes for cut­ting trees) will not grant any rest to the fo­rest and for­ward the cut­ting bar­ri­er for ano­ther 200m towards the camp, to kill more of the al­re­a­dy woun­ded Ham­bach Fo­rest. But if they won‘t let the fo­rest sleep, we don‘t want to rest eit­her.

There’s in­nu­me­ra­ble pos­si­bi­li­ties to in­ter­fe­re, let it be by di­rect ac­tion, con­fu­si­on or the ex­pan­si­on of the oc­cupa­ti­on.
So for all those, who don‘t have the time or en­er­gy to spend a long time in the fo­rest, there is en­ough ways to sup­port the strugg­le: Get your af­fi­ni­ty group (peop­le you trust), sit to­ge­ther, be crea­ti­ve and think of an ac­tion you would like to do in the fo­rest – on the ac­tion weekends, but also on any other day.
If you want to come on your own, you can join in on the big­ger month­ly ac­tion days or come whe­ne­ver you want and sup­port us in ma­king a dif­fe­rence! […Lees verder]

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Movie night: The Land Between (David Fedele, 2013)

By: börek - September 1st, 2014  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday September 7, 2014, movie night: The Land Between, a documentary film by David Fedele (2013, with english subtitles). Door opens at 8pm, film begins at 9pm.

Synopsis: THE LAND BETWEEN offers an intimate insight into the hidden and desperate lives of Sub-Saharan African migrants living in the mountains of northern Morocco. For most, their dream is to enter Europe by jumping a highly-militarized barrier into Melilla, a Spanish enclave on the African continent. With unique and unprecedented access, this film documents the everyday life of these migrants trapped in limbo, as well as the extreme violence and constant mistreatment they face from both the Moroccan and Spanish authorities. It also explores many universal questions, including how and why people are prepared to risk everything, including their life, to leave their country, their family and friends, in search of a new and better life. […Lees verder]

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