CURATED BY:
PETER VAN HOOF, KEES BRIENEN, BABETH M. VAN LOO & GISELLE MICOLO
The choice for the films to be shown during Next 5 minutes: Tactical media lies within the wider cultural, social and political ramifications of the conference itself. Most of the films are thus to be seen within the framework and the context of the core themes: Art of campaigning, Post governmental organisation and Tactical media and are not necessarily chosen as autonomous works. It is in the tradition of the Cinema as a subversive art that these works function as empowerment media.
Programme notes by Babeth M. Van Loo.
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For more information on the Next 5 Minutes conference:
http://www.n5m.org
info@n5m.org
For comments and questions about the film programme;
Cinema@n5m.org
Address:
De Balie: De Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10
1017 RR Amsterdam
020- 55 35 188
Paradiso: Weteringsschans 6-8
1017 SG Amsterdam
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BALIE (main hall) - FRIDAY, MARCH 12
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20:30-23:00
THE NIGHT OF THE VIDEOACTIVISTS
Tactical Television. The powerful new forms of decentralized production and distribution possible through the net often make people forget that television is still western society's overwhelmingly dominant medium and will remain so for the foreseeable future. If activists want to bring their campaigns to a mass audience then mainstream broadcast media cannot be overlooked.
Hard-core video activists will together attempt to identify the most effective uses of the medium, not only for external communications but also as a tool for organization and mobilization.
Participants:
Undercurrents. UK based group that train, facilitate, distribute and produce tactical video that reflect the diversity and effectiveness of the UK's dissident campaigning culture.
Tony Doument/Hi8us/England. Video activists who work with mainstream broadcast TV
Michael Eisenmenger/ Paper Tiger TV / USA
Sonja Radenkovic of b92's video production / Serbia
Yutaka Tsuchiya/ Japanese Video activist / Tokyo.
.Free Speech TV/USA, an Umbrella organisation for content providers |
23:00-01:00
-WACO: THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT by WILLIAM GAZECKI
USA 1997. 136 min
However extremely cruelty can be depicted, few images are as effective and shocking as the pictures with the word 'live' underneath. 'Live from Waco Texas' was on millions of TV screens for days on end in April 1993. But did we see what was to be seen? No, nowhere near, is the message of Waco: the rules of engagement, a film that brings the genre 'investigative documentary' onto an entirely new and high level. The story distributed by the media and the American governmental organisations (the feds), that a crazy sect leader was whipping his followers up to commit mass suicide, is totally rewritten by the stubborn William Gazecki. The home-video recordings by the sect itself, including those of the wounded leader and the infra- red aerial shots made during the actual storming, question the validity of the news-images shown by regular news-casting agencies. |
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BALIE (main hall) FREE ENTRY - SATURDAY, MARCH 13
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14:00-16:30
-MUMIA ABU JAMAL: JUSTICE DENIED by THOMAS FILMYER
USA 1998, 25 min.
Recently conducted rare interview with the death row political prisoner. The case of Mumia Abu-Jamal is what the death penalty is all about. It exposes not only the arbitrarily cruelty of this ultimate form of state terror, but also the inherent racism of it&Mac226;s application. As a former Black Panther Party spokesman and an outspoken MOVE supporter, Abu Jamal was President of the Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia at the time of his arrest in 1981. March 21, 1999 another large demonstration will take place in Washington DC to protest his pending execution. |
-MICKEY MOUSE GOES TO HAITI: Walt Disney and the science of exploitation by CROWING ROOSTER
USA / Haiti 1997, 24 min.
This film deals with exploitation of cheap labour questioning the conditions of workers in a Haitian factory sewing Disney children&Mac226;s clothing. It supports the campaign of worker&Mac226;s demanding from Disney that they should not close down their factories in response to the organisation of the workers, and run from Haiti to another low wage haven like China. They should stay and help to clean up their contractor&Mac226;s factories, paying the workers a living wage and open their plants to independent human rights organisations to monitor conditions. |
-ZONED FOR SLAVERY: The child behind the label by CROWING ROOSTER
USA/ Honduras 1996 24 min
A campaign to defend women&Mac226;s rights, mainly young girls and teenagers, who work in the garment industry in Honduras, manufacturing clothes for major labels like GAP and other US companies in extreme deprivation. The campaign addresses issues like: Prohibiting forced overtime by offshore contractors; guarantee the right of young workers to attend night school to complete their education. |
-MC LIBEL: TWO WORLDS COLLIDE by FRANNY ARMSTRONG
UK 1997, 58 min.
Filmed over three years, with the full co-operation of the defendants, this is the definitive picture of the longest trial in English history. Includes dramatic reconstruction directed by Ken Loach, Dave Morris's visit from Ronald With a McDonald, a secret meeting between the two sides and interviews with everyone from Professor Colin Campbell to McDonald's spy |
21:00-23:00 FREE ENTRY
-LA PITIE DANGEREUSE by RONY BRAUMAN and FRANCOIS MARGOLLIN
France 1996, 58 min.
Made by the former President of Medicines Sans Frontiers for fifteen years Dr. Rony Brauman, and Dr. Francois Margollin this film is an archives documentary of a Twentieth-century story of politics seen under the aegis of humanitarianism. One will be able to reach into the heart of a burning news story that exposes the complex relationships between politics and humanitarianism, from the foundation of the Red Cross to the genocide in Rwanda. Bosnia, Rwanda, Somalia and Kurdistan have all been witness to the change in humanitarianism, a change into a new international value that all kinds of politicians and the military are using to hide their real intentions: we hear Defence Ministers speaking only of humanitarian intervention knowing it to be a pretext under which they can re-deploy their armies. The film is not meant to celebrate -neither to discredit- relief action, but to provide an historical reflection on some fundamental issues related to humanitarianism." |
-A PIG'S TALE by LEAH GORDON and ANNE PARISIO
UK, 1998, 52 min.
Twelve years ago the entire race of little black Haitian pigs was massacred by a US AID backed programme to combat African Swine Fever. The pigs had been the banking system of the peasants: they could be left to forage for themselves and then sold when needed to provide medicine, schooling and housing - all considered luxuries in Haiti. US AID promised to repopulate with American industrial pigs. These enormous white Iowa porkers were dubbed the "four legged princes". They required medicine, special food and concrete houses to survive and died in the hands of peasants who could not even afford such things for themselves.
Edgar the voodoo priest and Juste a Haitian Rasta from Brooklyn go in search of the few remaining creole pigs rumoured to have survived the killing. EDGAR needs a pig to satiate the ferocious female spirit Erzulie Dantor. She demands a genuine Haitian pig in memory of the one sacrificed in the slaves ceremony which precipitated the Haitian revolution in 1791. JUSTE has returned to Haiti from New York to become a farmer and wants to know why it was necessary to kill every single animal. Many people declare that the eradication was part of an American Plan to destabilise the peasant economy. He&Mac226;s hoping to find some answers as he looks for creole pig survivors. As we follow them on their journey a strange and surreal story begins to unfold.
Written and Narrated by Maggie O'Kane, A Pigs Tale has gathered a number of awards in 1998; Best TV Documentary in the British Environmental awards, Best Film of the Black Experience at the Berlin Black Film Festival and Best Creole Film at the Montreal Film Festival. |
23:00-01:00
-CORAJE by ALBERTO CHICO DURANT
Peru, 1998,110 min
Coraje is about the last few months in the life of María Elena Moyano, who was killed at the age of 33 by the Peruvian revolutionary movement Sendero Luminoso. María Elena was the founder and leader of the so-called Women's Federation of Villa El Salvador, a slum district that had been built in the desert on the outskirts of Lima and was run by the inhabitants themselves. This community won several prizes abroad, such as the Spanish 'Principe de Asturias' and the 'Messenger City of Peace'. Two months before the brutal attack, María had spoken out against the campaign of hatred and violence of Sendero Luminoso and even though she was called 'Mama Coraje' by the local press, that condemned her to death. |
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BALIE (main hall) - SUNDAY, MARCH 14
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19:30-23:00
-SLAM: LET THE WORDS FLY by MARC LEVIN
USA, 1997/98, 98 min.
Short description of the film: see programming on Saturday March 13 in Paradiso. |
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PARADISO - SATURDAY, MARCH 13
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21:00-23:00
-SLAM: LET THE WORDS FLY by MARC LEVIN
USA, 1997/98, 98 min.
Winner of the 1998 Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and of the Camera D&Mac226;Or 1998 at the Cannes Film festival, SLAM tells the story of a gifted rapper-poet, played by poet/writer Saul Williams, in Washington D.C. He is arrested on a petty drug charge and is swallowed up by the capital&Mac226;s criminal justice system. In prison, he meets a beautiful writing teacher, played by actress/poet Sonja Sohn, who recognizes his unique talents and inspires him to use the power of creative expression.
memorable amount of real inmates playing supporting roles in the film, shot on location in Washington D.C., director Marc Levin incorporates his experience as an award-winning documentary filmmaker of films like: GANG BANGING IN LITTLE ROCK (1993), THE CIA: AMERICA&Mac226;S SECRET WARRIORS (1996) and THUG LIFE (1998).
In the film the main character learns to survive both in and out of jail, using his verbal talent as a weapon against the brutality of his surroundings and gives a voice to the pain of his generation.
Levin: „I hope on a social and political level viewers will not question what he does, but what we as a society are going to do about it. |
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PARADISO - SUNDAY, MARCH 14
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21:00-23:00
-THE GODS OF TIME SQUARE by RICHARD SANDLER
USA 1992-98, 100 min.
Video documentary about the colourful collection of preachers to be found on New York Times Square, a spot where commercial interests ensure increasingly tight streamlining. Sandler concentrates on the religious fanatics who are attracted precisely by the outspoken profane and sinful character of Times Square. Sandler who himself comes from an orthodox Jewish background and is interested in oriental mysticism, recorded in this film the diversity and sometimes extremeness of these religious expressions, before the old atmosphere disappeared entirely. |
-BLACK FLAG by ISTVAN KANTOR
Canada 1998, 10 min.
Black flag explores the architecture of textuality through the language of confrontation, contest and revolt. It juxtaposes the noise of the body-machine and fragmented passages of words to reflect direct relations of actual political issues (cutbacks, eliminations), to social situations (poverty, daily survival) and individual existence (frustration, struggle).
It's message is summed up in a political slogan, "Down with the government that starves us!", that repeatedly appears throughout the video, in the form of 3d animation and as a refrain of a song, and seems to be the pillar of BLACK FLAG.
Among the performers are Toronto's controversial art-rebel Jubal Brown, performance artists Julie-Andrée T., Louise Liliefeldt, transsexual actor Tanisha Robinson, a group of children and the author Istvan Kantor aka Monty Cantsin? Amen! |
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