Monday 25 March 2024, Benefit voku for propaganda. Food served from 7pm, no reservation.
This week we are raising money to print posters and stickers focused on squatting, against gentrification and against Desokupa, a Spanish private company that evicts squatters. […Lees verder]
Thursday 15 June 2023, Benefit voku for Venezuelan refugee family. Performance by Bella Luna. Food served from 7pm, no reservation. Music on the stage around 9pm.
Two years ago Yameli and her daughter Laumar arrived in Gran Canaria from Venezuela, they had to emigrate for family health issues, one of her daughters was having a very complicated pregnancy at that moment and needed family support. Once they got on the island the only legal support they had was the ex-husband of Yameli who was abusing them physically and verbally in a daily basis. So they had to leave his house and start a new journey on the streets, they become totally homeless without any right to apply for government support, not even for charity food.
New chapter starts on them life, they got a small house provide by a neighbour where they can stay long term, but they need some money for food and medicines still. Yameli is 70 years old, so she can’t work anymore, and Laumar have disability due to a car accident she had years ago and without an official permit that says which type of disabilities she has, she can’t work at all, the waiting list to get this paper goes up to two years or more.
So we will be cooking a delicious vegan meal and enjoying of an Acoustic set by the hand of Bella Luna to support this powerful women who despite everything continue fight by day to survive.
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.
Sunday 11 june 2023, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Hola, ¿estás sola? (Hi, Are You Alone?) * 1995 * by Iciar Bollain * 92 minutes * In Spanish with (special) English subtitles. doors open at 20:30, intro & film start at 21:00.
Behind this daft film title lurks an extremely rare gem from Spain’s speckly tradition of social realism. Except that, in this incarnation, it has left the arid countryside with a backpack or two in its freshest everyday summer top.
Hola tells the story of two young women who would much later be referred to as the ni-ni generation: ni estudia ni trabaja, i.e. neither working nor studying. Suddenly finding themselves homeless, they pack their bags and head southward to Big-Hotel-land dragging their smelly feet over asphalt and traintracks. Their intellectual baggage is so light they don’t even have their words to describe the quest they’re embarking on. But below this apparent poverty of ideas lies a deep humanity and a clear sense that adventures and ‘personal growth’ are pointless unless they’re a shared experience.
This little early film by Iciar Bollaín features some of the most delicious lines of dialogue she has ever written, in tandem here with Julio Medem, who by 1995 had made a name for himself with films like Vacas and The Red Squirrel. It features an astonishing Candela Peña. Already in this debut role, she let her enormous heart not only shine bright, but also make space for an arguably unworthy co-star: Silke, a pretty face who was being pushed by the film industry to be Spain’s one and only grunge star. Kind of like a Kurt Cobain, but for tampon commercials. Together with a few supporting male characters, these two girls made waves in the summer of 1995. And then they were forgotten, pretty much forever.
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
Sunday 9 april 2023, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: La comunidad * 2000 * (Common Wealth) * Directed by by Álex de la Iglesia * 110 minutes * In Spanish with English subtitles. Doors open at 20:00, intro & film start at 20:30.
After the dictator Franco died in the mid-70s, Spain became a democracy and people celebrated. But catchwords like ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ can be tricky, and are often just a feel-good ruse for capitalism. In his own special way, Spain’s enfant terrible film director Álex de la Iglesia turns to Alfred Hitchcock to expose the darker aspects of the new Spain.
The premise of this black comedy is dead simple… when a middle-aged real estate agent (Carmen Maura) is sent to sell a Madrid apartment, she accidentally discovers a small fortune (300 million pesetas) a dead neighbor had stashed away. She secretly takes the money, and thinks she has hit a gold mine. This already shows a kind of Hitchcockian twist, revealing the murderous greed under the surface of bourgeois everyday life. But when it turns out the neighbors also had their eyes on the cash and were just waiting for the old man to croak, things really go nuts, turning the tale into a brutal farce of secret plots, dirty deals and backstabbing.
Director Alex De Iglesia has a reputation for conjuring up his own brand of madness, cranking his movies so tight they become over-the-top absurd. This approach goes against the grain of most flicks these days that wallow in a cesspool of graphic violence. When De Iglesia uses violence there is always an aspect of flamboyant panache that saves it from becoming too serious. In the end this is a punchy black humored critique of neo-liberal capitalism, bordering on a horror film. Winner of 3 Goya awards, including one for the lead actress Carmen Maura.
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
Monday 30 January 2023, VoKu benefit for legal fees for Rodrigo Lanza. Food served from 7pm, no reservation.
Here is the unfair story of Rodrigo Lanza, sentenced to 18 and a half years in prison.
Rodrigo, a Chilean, was arrested along with two other South American boys, Alex and Juan, in the street, in front of a squatted house where a party was being held, on 4F, February 4, 2006 in Barcelona. Four other young men were also arrested when they were leaving the house and two more people who had gone to a hospital because they had fallen on their bicycles. bicycle. During the arrest, the 3 South Americans were tortured, both by the urban guard and by mossos de squadra, which they denounced, but it was filed by the judge, who was the same one who was handling the case that accused them. The mayor of Barcelona at the time, Joan Clos, made a public statement saying that the injured policeman had been hit by a flowerpot that had been thrown from the building. As the three boys arrested in the street were not in the building, they changed that version to a stone thrown from the street and set up another story. Rodri was falsely accused of having thrown the stone at the policeman. He, Alex and Juan spent two years in custody awaiting trial. We took to the streets in demonstrations to demand explanations for the change of versions and to ask for parole, which ended with a hunger strike by the three boys and myself, to make ourselves heard, before the investigation was closed. It did not have result. Rodrigo was sentenced to 5 years in prison. Alex and Juan served a slightly lesser sentence and, after the appeal to the Supreme Court which ratified the sentence, Patri who had been detained at the hospital and who was not even at the scene of the crime, entered prison. During a prison leave, she committed suicide in 2011. The rage over the death of Patri and the discovery that the police officers who had tortured the boys had been convicted, in another case, for torturing the son of a diplomat, made that, with Patri’s friends, disassembly 4F was born and with this name a documentary was made, Ciutat Morte, which received, among others, even an award from the Barcelona City Council in 2014. The case became, then, very well known. Rodrigo was finally released from prison in December 2012.
Years later, in December 2017, Rodrigo goes to a bar at night, in Zaragoza, a friend tells him that a person who was there was a known Nazi, and when the group he was with saw that this person, they get scared and decide to leave the bar. While they were leaving, the man followed them and tried to stab Rodrigo, but a boy had warned him “watch out he has a knife” and Rodrigo turns around and defends himself, hits him and runs away. This person subsequently dies. Summarizing…. the police allow friends of the man to enter the place, they even give his phone to an unidentified girlfriend, the bartender who was the main witness to the accusation, leaves the bar and returns to enter …. we assume that the knife may have been his… the knife can’t be found, the cell phone is not known who has it… It was the time of the plebiscite for the independence of Catalonia and the news is in the media as “the crime of the suspenders”, because it was said that the man was wearing suspenders with the Spanish flag on them. It was even said that it was the first Catalan crime against a Spanish person. The media tore us to shreds, we received hundreds of threats and we were afraid to go out in the street. Politicians were happy to “prove” that Rodrigo is a criminal. Back in jail, this time in Zaragoza, he is put in solitary confinement for two years, until the trial. In this trial, with a popular jury and all the press against him, the sentence was 5 years for reckless homicide with the aggravating circumstance of ideological motives. The accusations appealed and, quickly to prevent him from being released on parole, the trial was annulled and repeated with a different jury, in the middle of the pandemic, without the presence of family members and the public, in a trial that was more of a circus than anything else, and with jurors who had already members of the jury who were already prejudiced against Rodrigo. The sentence was 20 years in prison for murder with malice aforethought, with the aggravating circumstance of ideological motives. This aggravating factor for racism, discrimination and gender was created to protect minorities and the weakest, and are distorting its function. Subsequently the Madrid Supreme Court upheld the conviction but rejected the ideological motives and lowered the sentence to 18 and a half years. For us, the role played by the press and the political power in this case has been a nightmare. the media campaign against him and also against me, full of lies and hatred, has condemned Rodrigo. Everything we said at the beginning, they turned it around to use it against him. to use it against us. At the end of last month the lawyer filed an appeal to the Constitutional Court. We are waiting for a response on whether they accept our appeal or not. Then we will go to Strasbourg. All this has been very long and difficult, both emotionally and economically. We still owe money borrowed for the first trial and in the second trial we couldn’t raise money because of pandemic restrictions. All of this has cost us dearly in every way. and, in spite of all the solidarity we have received, the help from Rodrigo’s friends in Zaragoza, from our friends in Barcelona, in Madrid, of people who come to us without knowing them, we still do have a lot to achieve! A year ago Rodri was transferred to Catalonia, he is well, he is strong and he knows that he has us. he has us. He is studying, working and doing many activities that keep him busy.
He answers all the letters he receives!
The documentary Ciutat Morte was screened at Joe’s Garage in 2018, also gives an account of the story: https://joesgarage.nl/archives/14011
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.
Monday 31st october 2022, Benefit Voku for Women refugees homeless from Venezuela. Food served from 7pm, no reservation.
The anti-authoritarian collective Ajo Negro is cooking at Joe’s Garage. The benefit will go to Women refugees homeless from Venezuela in Gran Canaria. Come to eat delicious vegan food!
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.
Monday 4 April 2022, Benefit voku: For Stefan Lachen’s family. Stefan Lachen died in police custody in Madrid on the 15th April 2018. Volkseten Vegazulu. Food served from 7pm, no reservation.
Stefan Lache was 28 years old with a partner and two kids. One night, he was out partying with a couple of friends and was randomly stopped by police, they arrested him for not having identification on him (he had left it in the car in another neighbourhood). The next morning he was found dead in his cell at the Carabanchel police station in Madrid. There is no footage of what happened inside the cell but you can see photos of how one of the agents who enters with him takes out his baton and another of them puts on his gloves.
The autopsy said he died of natural causes, yet he had no previous medical issues before his arrest. His family appealed the decision with no different result. The cost of the lawyer and the independent autopsy were expensive, which led to Liliana (his parthner) to morgage the family house, she and their kids were evicted from the property.
The benefit from this voku is to support Stefan Lache’s family and their ongoing costs.
“¿Quién ha matado a Stefan Lache?”: medio centenar de personas exigen que se reabra la investigación sobre su muerte bajo custodia https://www.elsaltodiario.com/violencia-policial/quien-matado-stefan-lache-medio-centenar-personas-exigen-reabra-investigacion-muerte-bajo-custodia
Tres años de lucha para que se investigue la muerte de Stefan Lache en una comisaría de Carabanchel https://www.elsaltodiario.com/violencia-policial/tres-anos-luchando-investigue-muerte-stefan-lache-comisaria-carabanchel
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.
Sunday March 24th 2019, Libertarias (Vicente Aranda, 1996), 131 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles. Doors open at 20.00, film at 20.30.
Spain, 19 July 1936. The revolution has begun in a city near Barcelona. María, an innocent young nun, flees her convent when revolutionaries invade the area and finds refuge in a brothel. Here she meets a group of “Libertarias,” anarchist militia women who are fighting not only Franco, but also the conservative attitudes toward women that prevail as well in the revolutionary ranks. The group is led by hard-liner Pilar, whose seconds-in-command are the clairvoyent Floren and the big-hearted prostitute Concha. Pilar quickly feels a strange fascination for this young nun whose father is a fascist. On their way to the front, the group runs into a defrocked priest who joins up with them and falls in love with María. There are three main locations: the vicinity of Barcelona, the trenches, and Saragossa. Aranda describes the daily existence of these anarchist freedom fighters, not without a touch of humor, as in the scene when Floren does an imitation of Linda Blair in The Exorcist. When the protagonists arrive in Saragossa, the streets are strewn with bodies and weeping women. María catches her first glimpse of the face of war and her sympathies, despite her background, go out to the freedom fighters. The defrocked priest arrive with the strange news that the anarchist leader Durutti has forbidden women to go to the front: the militarisation of politics has won out over utopian ideals.
Libertarias is an epic of sorts that mixes documentary, tragedy, romance, comedy, objectivity and introspection in order to dramatize not only a war for freedom, but also a more underground struggle, the war between the sexes.
Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to play a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net
