Fedayin: The Struggle of Georges Abdallah (Vacarmes, 2020)

By: börek - December 2nd, 2023  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 3rd December 2023, Movie night – Fedayin: The Struggle of Georges Abdallah (Vacarmes, 2020). 81 min. Documentary with English subtitles. Doors open at 20:00, intro & film start at 20:30.

Fedayin: The Struggle of Georges Abdallah traces the course of an indefatigable Arab Communist and fighter for Palestine. From the Palestinian refugee camps that shaped his conscience to international mobilizations for his release, we will explore the situation of one of the longest-held political prisoners in Europe.

Synopsis: For over 35 years, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah has been imprisoned. A Lebanese communist engaged in resistance alongside Palestinian fighters, he has been imprisoned by the French judicial system and successive governments since 1984. Beyond the judicial harassment to which he has been subjected, this documentary film will trace the political course of Georges Abdallah and seeks to show how his ideas and struggle are still vital and necessary.

This film about the critically important case of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah includes interviews with Samidoun international coordinator Charlotte Kates, Samidoun Europe coordinator Mohammed Khatib, Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat coordinator Khaled Barakat and many others, including Robert and Maurice Abdallah (Georges’ brothers), Jean-Louis Chalanset (Georges’ lawyer), Suzanne le Manceau (co-founder of the Collectif pour la Libération de Georges Ibrahim Abdallah (CLGIA)), Bertrand Sassoye (former political prisoner) and Jean-Marc Rouillan (former political prisoner).

The film takes us to Lebanon, to the Palestinian refugee camps, where he forged himself politically. We follow his engagement in the Palestinian resistance and against the Israeli occupation with the FARL (Lebanese Revolutionary Armed Fractions), a commitment that will take him to France in the 1980s, where he will be sentenced for complicity in murder. Through a series of interviews (in France, Lebanon, Belgium and Germany), we go to meet his family, his lawyer, his supporters, his friends and people who have rubbed shoulders with him. With them, we trace a life of resistance to imperialism and Zionist occupation.

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

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VoKu benefit + Documentary Screening “Hotel Mokum” for ZZW Rafelrand Mobilization

By: börek - November 23rd, 2023  Filed under: Benefiet, Filmavond, Infoavond, Volkseten/Voku

Thursday 30 November 2023, VoKu benefit + Documentary Screening for ZZW Rafelrand Mobilization. Food served from 7pm, screening Hotel Mokum (Yannesh Meijman, 2023, 30′) starts at 9pm, no reservation.

“ZZW Rafelrand” is one of the last frayed edges of Amsterdam, mobilizing under “Nightingales & Chickens: Unite! 4 de Laatste Rafelranden van Amsterdam”, in light of its threatened eviction starting in June 2024. The rafelrand has been a colorful patchwork of communities on Zeeburgereiland in the East of Amsterdam for over 40 years. Part of its communities is the ZZW student community of 235-people existing for 20 years. We have communal gardens, a give-away shop, organize skillshares & OnsEiland Leven community events. The DIY character of the ZZW community emerged in close relation to its surrounding frayed edges, among which artist community Fort Knox, the trailer community One Peaceful World, rockabilly club the Cruise In, to name but a few.

In light of the threatened eviction of the whole neighborhood, our mobilization is focused on bringing attention to our case, fighting against the erasure of Amsterdam’s frayed edges and its (young) creative spaces of counterculture and self-organization. Donations will go to sticker & flyer printing for ADEV (in collab with Krektek & Kloki) and for printing upcoming sticker & flyers.

We will cook a vegan dinner, while we introduce you to ZZW Rafelrand! Afterwards, there will be a screening & discussion of Mokum Kraakt’s documentary “Hotel Mokum”.

Hotel Mokum (Yannesh Meijman, 2023, 30′), in Dutch with English subtitles.
Hotel Mokum is a documentary about a collective that squatted the abandoned Hotel Marnix in the heart of Amsterdam on October 16th, 2021. Over six weeks the collective transformed the hotel into a home, a self-proclaimed free space and an oasis in a city smothered by hypergentrification. At the height of its popularity, Hotel Mokum got evicted under the guise of fire safety. The story of Hotel Mokum is rooted in protest: against both the housing and cost of living crises, as well as the criminalization of squatting in 2010 that led to the eviction of over 300 squats in Amsterdam alone. The film combines documentary footage, archival materials, and constructed scenes to create a complex and intimate portrait of a hopeful collective and the city they are working to reclaim.

Find ZZW Rafelrand events on Radar https://radar.squat.net/en/amsterdam/zzw-rafelrand
Join our mailing list: zzw [at] riseup [dot] net

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.

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Cinema Italia: The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970)

By: börek - November 10th, 2023  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 26 November 2023, THE CONFORMIST [IL CONFORMISTA] (1970) * Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci * 108min * In Italian with English subtitles * doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30. After the film, please engage in sharing comments, ideas, and inspiration with the host(s) of the evening!

Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is a member of the secret police in Mussolini’s Fascist Italy. He and his new bride, Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli), travel to Paris for their honeymoon, where Marcello also plans to assassinate his former college professor Luca Quadri (Enzo Tarascio), an outspoken anti-Fascist living in exile. But when Marcello meets the professor’s young wife, Anna (Dominique Sanda), both his romantic and his political loyalties are tested.

In his perhaps most appreciated film, Bertolucci depicts the psychology of Fascism through a series of hypnotic shots using lush colors, striking contrasts, and stylized lighting. A surrealistic environment constellated by political and moral symbolism helps us recall a brutal, but still sought-after, ideology.

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

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Sambizanga (Sarah Maldoror, 1972)

By: börek - November 10th, 2023  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 12 November 2023, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: SAMBIZANGA * 1972 * Directed by Sarah Maldoror * 97 Minutes * In Lingala and Portuguese, with English subtitles * Doors open at 20:00, intro & film start at 20:30.

This flick takes place during the Portuguese occupation of Angola and focuses on the liberation struggle of African people living under a dictatorship and secret police force. And although there are freedom fighters that are being rounded up and arrested, this film was directed by a woman and therefore she gives it a more unusual and personal perspective. Different from most movies about colonialism, this one is much more intimate, moves at a human speed, and follows the plight of a single mother’s experience when her husband is arrested and disappears. She goes from police station to police station, from prison to prison, searching for him and what she experiences is a labyrinthine Kafkaesque bureaucracy.

It is based on the 1961 novella The Real Life of Domingos Xavier by José Luandino Vieira. When the film was made Angola was still under a dictatorship, and therefore the film had to be shot in the Congo. Many of the so-called actors in the film are real people that were working in the liberation movements at the time. Two years after the film was made a left-wing coup overthrew the government and liberated the country from the Portuguese. This film created an incredible historical president, helping people to understand what was happening on a grass-roots cultural level. Although the situation is harsh, director Sarah Maldoror was able to create a film of pure poetry. The cinematography shimmers, and one critic compared it to a Caravaggio painting.

This will be a high definition screening.

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

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Palestinian movie night: Homage by Assassination (Elia Suleiman, 1992), Aisheen, Still Alive in Gaza (Nicolas Wadimoff, 2010)

By: börek - November 1st, 2023  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 5 november 3023, Palestinian movie night: Homage by Assassination (Elia Suleiman, 1992), Aisheen, Still Alive in Gaza (Nicolas Wadimoff, 2010). Free admission. Doors opens at 20:00, films start at 20:30

Homage by Assassination – Short film by Elia Suleiman – 1992 – 23 minutes – Arabic with English subtitles
A Palestinian filmmaker is writing a script in his New York apartment during the first Gulf war. As much as he tries to shut himself off from the exterior world, images of past wars in the Middle East come back to haunt him.

Aisheen, Still alive in Gaza – Documentary by Nicolas Wadimoff – 86 minutes – 2010 – Arabic with English subtitles
Synopsis: « Where is the ghost town? », asks the little boy to the theme park attendant. « It’s there, right there. But it has been bombed… Do you want to see it? » It is with these words that the film, « Aisheen», begins – an impressionist journey through a devastated Gaza after the war. And the ghost town? Gaza is the ghost town.
Clowns that try to make children forget the bombing, armed with rubber balloons; a beached whale, “as big as a building” that feeds the fantasy; a scrawny, stuffed lion, bizarrely hanging in a cage at a zoo as if it were a trophy. A woman, at the side of the road, who has already been waiting for three weeks for a petrol delivery…
“Aisheen” (Still alive in Gaza) tells the story about the wait after the disaster. The wait for a better future inside the biggest prison in the world.
Through encounters in these otherwise ordinary places (but places that, here, take on another meaning), the film portrays a different Gaza. Poetic, surreal at times. “Aisheen” is a tribute to life…
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/240881521

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

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Cinema Italia: Blown to the heart (Gianni Amelio, 1982)

By: börek - October 23rd, 2023  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 29 October 2023, BLOWN TO THE HEART [COLPIRE AL CUORE] (1982) * Directed by Gianni Amelio * 105min * In Italian with English subtitles * doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30. After the film, please engage in sharing comments, ideas, and inspiration with the host(s) of the evening!

Dario is a university professor who wants to live a quiet life, dealing with research and being a good husband. What is happening in Italy does not concern him. His son, Emilio, does not confront with him, so he tries to connect with him at the university, listening to his father reading poetry in French. He becomes intrigued by politics, thanks to a friend of his father’s, Giulia. Then, a terrorist act attributed to the Red Brigades changes the perception by Emilio forever.

Considered a masterpiece in the depicting the psychology of its characters, Gianni Amelio’s Colpire al Cuore shows a turbolent moment of the Italian recent history (early 80s) through the lenses of the conflict father-son. Notwithstanding the political background, Amelio puts intimacy and emotional transformations at the heart of his poetic view of cinema.

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

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Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Nola Darling (Spike Lee, 1986)

By: börek - October 13th, 2023  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 15 October 2023, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: NOLA DARLING 1986 * Spike Lee * 82 minutes * In English * Doors open at 20:00, intro & film start at 20:30.

Maybe the best feature film by Spike Lee is the one he made at the very beginning, the one that has been kind of dumped, left behind and forgotten about. The one before he started getting more money, and before he started doing the Hollywood shtick (שטיק). In a sense, it is an ode to the spirit of women, and the right for a woman to own her own body and decide her own fate.

The main character of this movie is Nola Darling, who has an ongoing relationship with three different men. It must’ve been almost impossible to find an unknown actress that would be able to handle a role like this, and Tracy Camilla Johns absolutely sparkles in an incredibly naturalistic way. This being a Spike Lee joint means that it is also about urban black culture, but that is actually in the background in relation to the film’s real focus – Nola Darling’s struggle for autonomy. It’s a surprisingly playful film, not only in its content, but also in its style and structure. Like I said, this was made before Spike went straight. Having said that, there is one sensitive scene that was rushed through insensitively, and Lee says in hindsight he regrets it. Once again, the great thing about these community cinemas is that it gives us the opportunity to discuss these issues after the screening.

It was shot in shimmering black-and-white, and there is a kind of lush sensuality in its camerawork, giving respect to the human body in ways that we don’t see in cinema much these days. It keeps its rough edges and is leagues away from a glossy CGI’d, photoshopped look, offering us a great alternative to the Barbie sham that is being hyped at the moment. This first film by Spike Lee was considered to be groundbreaking when it came out and a triumph of independent cinema, but for years now it’s been almost impossible to see. It’s snappy, clever, charming, and creative, but it’s Tracy Camilla Johns’ disarming performance as Nola that ignites the entire project and sets it ablaze.

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

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Cinema Italia: Bianca (Nanni Moretti, 1984)

By: börek - September 22nd, 2023  Filed under: Filmavond

Sunday 24 september 2023, Cinema Italia: BIANCA (1984) * Directed by Nanni Moretti * 96 min * In Italian with English subtitles * doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30. After the film, please engage in sharing comments, ideas, and inspiration with the host(s) of the evening!

Nanni Moretti, director and main actor in many of his movies, in Bianca explores the genre of crime. But it is a Moretti’s film, so it’s not a real crime film, but a film with his alter ego Michele Apicella — here at its debut — travels from romantic comedy to political, engaged film, in a surrealist humorous way, with a touch of grotesque here and there.

Most of the plot happens inside a school, where portraits of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis are juxtaposed to Dino Zoff, the Italian national hero of football, as well as Descartes, Pythagoras, and Kant.

If you have never seen a Nanni Moretti’s movie, Bianca is for you. If you have seen his classics like Caro Diario, you will understand with Bianca when everything started. If you watched Il sol dell’avvenire and you did not understand anything, come and watch Bianca as well.

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

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