BOLIVAR HALL, 54 GRAFTON WAY (WARREN STREET TUBE STATION)
SCREENING FOLLOWED BY A DEBATE WITH REPRESENTATIVES FROM:
HANDS OFF VENEZUELA
BOLIVIA SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN
COLOMBIA SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN
MOVEMENT OF ECUADORIANS IN UK
VENEZUELA BOLIVARIANA - NEXT SCREENING AT BOLIVAR HALL
Venezuela Bolivariana is a 76-minute documentary by Venezuelan film maker Marcelo Andrade which examines the Venezuelan Revolution as connected to the worldwide movement against capitalist globalization.
Venezuela Bolivariana shows how the Bolivarian revolution, thanks to its incredible grassroots and networking power, transcends the national frontiers of Venezuela and contributes with concrete alternatives in the fight against neoliberal capitalism. Covering the period from the 1989 "Caracazo" to the April 2002 coup against Chavez and beyond, this is a must-see film."
The screening will be followed by a debate with special guests.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, AT 6:45 PM
BOLIVAR HALL, 54 GRAFTON WAY, (WARREN STREET TUBE STATION)
SOME NOTES ON "MEMORY OF A PLUNDER" (A SOCIAL GENOCIDE)
The experience of Grupo Cine Liberación in Argentina was cut shoRt by the military coup of 1976 and the repression that followed, which left more than 30,000 “desaparecidos”.
Solanas, as the rest of Grupo Cine Liberación members, had to flee the country and go into exile. After a short time in Spain he finally settled in France, where he finished the last of group’s projects, “Fierro’s sons” (Los hijos del Fierro).
Solanas, as the rest of Grupo Cine Liberación members, had to flee the country and go into exile. After a short time in Spain he finally settled in France, where he finished the last of group’s projects, “Fierro’s sons” (Los hijos del Fierro).
His next works, The others’ glance (La mirada de los otros, 1980), Tangos, Gardel’s exile (Tangos, el exilio de Gardel, 1985) or South (Sur, 1988) would take a more intimate colouring, closer to the “cinema d’auteur” than to that “third cinema” he had theorised about and made within Cine Liberación.
“Memory of a plunder” (Memoria del saqueo), shot between 2002 and 2003, marked Solanas’ return to a cinema openly social and political. He explains his decision this way:
“The tragedy we lived with the collapse of De la Rúa’s liberal government made me return to my beginnings in cinema, more than forty years ago, when the search for a cinematic and political identity and the resistance against the dictatorship led me to film “The hour of the furnaces”. Circumstances have change to the worse: How is it possible to starve in the “world’s granary”? The country had been devastated by a new type of aggression, silent and systematic, which left more deaths than State terrorism and the Malvinas war (Falklands). In the name of globalisation and free trade, the economic recipes of the international orgaisations ended up in a social genocide and the country’s financial bankrupt. The responsibility of the governments of Menem and De la Rúa does not exempt of theirs own responsibility to the IMF, the World Bank and the countries that dominate them. In their search for extraordinary profits, a neo-racist plan was imposed upon us; a plan that suppressed acquired social rights and condemned millions of people to death for malnutrition, premature aging and curable diseases. These were crimes against humanity in times of peace.”
Visually, “Memory of a plunder” may not be as powerful and challenging as “The hour of the furnaces”, a truly revolutionary piece of cinematographic art in itself. However, the reality that it reveals is no less dramatic and shocking. Solanas’ capacity to analyse and dissect the mechanisms by which the neo-liberal agenda was imposed in Argentina during the nineties and the devastating consequences that this had for the mass of the Argentine people is certainly remarkable.
“Memory of a plunder” was conceived as the first piece a series of four feature documentary films, independent amongst themselves, but united by the topic of Argentina; from the devastation and plunder of the neo-liberal model, to the reconstruction and alternatives of a new project able to reclaim rights which had been taken away and democratise democracy.”
“Memory of a plunder” was followed by “The nobody’s dignity” (La dignidad de los nadie, 2005) and “Latent Argetina” (Argentina latente, 2007). The final film of the tetralogy, “Land in revolt” (Tierra sublevada) is due to be released in 2009.
Asked for his first impression after seeing “Memory of a plunder”, Costa Gravas, the director of Missing, commented: “We feel disturbed, angered, puzzled by what you have make us discover in detail. Our first reflection was about the French and Western press and media. They are constantly attacking Cuba, but we were told nothing or very little about Argentina and the vastness of this plunder.”
Direction: Fernando E. Solanas
Script and voice: Fernando E. Solanas
Research: Acira Argumedo and Fernando E. Solanas
Image: A. Fernández Mouján and Fernando Solanas
Montaje: Juan Carlos Macías, Fernando Solanas, Sebastián Mignona, A. Ponce
Sonido: J. Kuschnir, M. Dickinson, G. Scheuer, E. Vaucher
Música Original: Gerardo Gandini
JUNE 18, NEXT SCREENING AT BOLIVAR HALL
In December 2001 the Argentine financial system collapsed. The life savings of millions of people evaporated overnight, while billions of dollars had been taken abroad by corporations and millionaires. The effects on the real economy were devastating: mass unemployment, hunger and pauperisation. On the 20th and 21st of December 2001, millions of people took on the streets of Buenos Aires. In fifteen days country had three presidents.Six months earlier the IMF was presenting Argentina as the example to follow for Latin America. What happened to the promises of modernity, employment and welfare made by politicians, businessmen, economists and their media communicators? “Memory of a plunder” is the chronicle of the neo-liberal roaring 90’s and its consequences in Argentina and, by extension, in the whole of Latin America.
“Memory of a plunder” means Fernando “Pino” Solanas’ return to social documentary. The result is, once again, a remarkable document and a breathtaking film.
6:45 PM FREE ENTRY AT BOLIVAR HALL - 54 GRAFTON WAY (WARREN STREET TUBE) see map
SOME NOTES ON THE HOUR OF THE FURNACES
The people of a neo-colonial country, like ours, do not own the land they walk on; the dominant culture is not theirs, neither its subversive possibilities. Rebellion is their major cultural expression. The only valid role for an intellectual, or an artist, is to join that rebellion, documenting and furthering it.”“Our commitment, as men of cinema and individuals, is not with universal culture, neither is it with art, nor with an abstract man; it is and, above all, will be with the liberation of the Argentine and Latin American man.”
Those are the first and last paragraphs of Grupo Cine Liberación’s declaration of principles – An act of liberation.
Setting out from Fanon’s adage – “every spectator is a coward or a traitor” – Getino and Solanas formed Grupo Cine Liberación around the project of “The hour of the furnaces”. They did not think of it simply as a film, but rather as a film-act, which was to be both political and cinematographic.
“The hour of the furnaces” analyses and reflects upon the causes of neo-colonialism and the mechanisms by which the neo-colonial order is imposed upon the peoples of Latin America, and by extension, of the world. . In that sense, “The hour of the furnaces” is a documentary.
But the film, or rather the film-act, is in itself an invaluable document of its time, one of generalised anti-imperialist struggle; from Vietnam to Cuba; from Bolivia to Congo.
No least, “The hour of the furnaces” is also a finest piece of cinematographic art, one where form and content are smelted into a unique language. The silent truths that “The hour of the furnaces” spells out could only be uttered by the images, music and words so admirably put together by Solanas and Getino.
Solana drinks in a rich a varied cinematographic tradition. Einsenstein, Orson Wells and Fernando Birri are all influences recognised by the film-maker.
“The hour of the furnaces” was secretly filmed between 1964 and 1967 and it had to be put together in Italy only a few days before its first public screening in Pesaro.
The film was obviously banned in Argentina, as in some other countries of Latin America, most of them under military dictatorships, and the members of Cine Liberación became social pariahs for the established culture.
In spite of this, in the following years thousands of people would see the film in underground screenings up and down the country. These would often be interrupted by the audience to discuss the issues raised in it, as the film-act encouraged.
After Perón’s return to Argentina in 1973 the ban on “The hour of the furnaces” was lifted. However, first the fascist organised violence of the Triple A (the Argentine Anti-communist Alliance), and later the military coup, would send all Grupo Cine Liberación members into exile.
Director: Fernando Solanas
Production companies: Grupo Cine Liberacion
Producer: Edgardo Pallero
Assistant director: Gerardo Vallejo
Screenplay: Octavio Getino, Fernando Solanas
Director of Photography: Juan Carlos de Sanzo
Editors: Octavio Getino, Fernando Solanas
Music: Fernando Solanas
Sound: Octavio Getino
Argentina 1968
more information at http://www.pinosolanas.com/
"VENEZUELA: A REVOLUTION ON FILM" LAUNCHED
In spite of Manchester United and Chelsea playing a historical Champions League final at that very same time, over seventy people gathered on the evening of May 21, at London’s Bolivar Hall for the opening of the film season Venezuela: a revolution on film, which is organised by Hands off Venezuela in association with the Venezuelan embassy in the UK.
The season opened with the screening of the first part of “The hour of the furnaces”– Neo-colonialism and violence -, opera prima of the legendary Grupo Cine Liberación, founded in the sixties by film-makers Fernando “Pino” Solanas y Octavio Getino.
As it was pointed out at its introduction, the season’s aim is to deepen the understanding of the Bolivarian process within a wider historical, social, political, economic, and continental framework through the screening and debate of some cinematographic works of outstanding artistic and documental value, like “The battle of Chile”, “The hour of the furnaces” or “Memories of underdevelopment”, amongst others.
José Baena, film-maker (Memories of a future) and a habitual collaborator in the film magazine Vertigo¡, introduced “The hour of the furnaces” and spoke about the importance of Grupo Cine Liberación’s work.
The screening was followed by a debate with Alan Woods, founding member of the Hands off Venezuela campaign, and author, amongst other works, of Reason in revolt: Marxist philosophy and modern science, The Venezuelan revolution and his latest book Reformism and revolution: Marxism and 21st Century socialism, whose Spanish edition will be presented in June at Madrid’s the Book Fair.
Alan Woods pointed out that Bolivar’s ideas on the unification of Latin America, “not the dream, because dreams have a rather unrealisable character, is not only possible, but necessary. However, this idea can only be materialised in the struggle for socialism. Can anyone think of a united Latin America while the oligarchs – the bankers, industrialists and landowners – keep holding political or economic power?”, he ended up asking.
The season will continue with the screening of “Memory of a plunder” (Argentina, 2003) on the 18th of June. This work marked “Pino” Solanas’ return to a cinema openly social and political. “Memory of a plunder” is an implacable chronicle and analysis of the devastating neo-liberal wave that hit Latin America throughout the nineties.
The season opened with the screening of the first part of “The hour of the furnaces”– Neo-colonialism and violence -, opera prima of the legendary Grupo Cine Liberación, founded in the sixties by film-makers Fernando “Pino” Solanas y Octavio Getino.
As it was pointed out at its introduction, the season’s aim is to deepen the understanding of the Bolivarian process within a wider historical, social, political, economic, and continental framework through the screening and debate of some cinematographic works of outstanding artistic and documental value, like “The battle of Chile”, “The hour of the furnaces” or “Memories of underdevelopment”, amongst others.
José Baena, film-maker (Memories of a future) and a habitual collaborator in the film magazine Vertigo¡, introduced “The hour of the furnaces” and spoke about the importance of Grupo Cine Liberación’s work.
The screening was followed by a debate with Alan Woods, founding member of the Hands off Venezuela campaign, and author, amongst other works, of Reason in revolt: Marxist philosophy and modern science, The Venezuelan revolution and his latest book Reformism and revolution: Marxism and 21st Century socialism, whose Spanish edition will be presented in June at Madrid’s the Book Fair.
Alan Woods pointed out that Bolivar’s ideas on the unification of Latin America, “not the dream, because dreams have a rather unrealisable character, is not only possible, but necessary. However, this idea can only be materialised in the struggle for socialism. Can anyone think of a united Latin America while the oligarchs – the bankers, industrialists and landowners – keep holding political or economic power?”, he ended up asking.
The season will continue with the screening of “Memory of a plunder” (Argentina, 2003) on the 18th of June. This work marked “Pino” Solanas’ return to a cinema openly social and political. “Memory of a plunder” is an implacable chronicle and analysis of the devastating neo-liberal wave that hit Latin America throughout the nineties.
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