LPIRG has another exciting semester of Cinema Politica planned to keep you
informed and entertained. Join us every Tuesday evening at 7pm in
Galileo's Gallery for thought-provoking documentary films.
On Tuesday, January 13th at 7pm we will be screening "The Take", a film by
Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein, who both had speaking engagements on campus
last semester. (A synopsis of the film is below.)
Unfortunately, we placed an ad in the Meliorist announcing that the
January 13th film would be "Roadsworth," and then found out minutes after
the Meliorist went to print that Cinema Politica does not yet have the
screening rights to Roadsworth. We apologize for the misinformation. The
film on January 13th will really be "The Take."
We hope to have our full Cinema Politica schedule out soon for this
semseter. Films that we are hoping to screen include:
Between Midnight and Rooster’s Crow
Yes Men
Boy I Am
Girl Named Kai
Fix, The Story Of An Addicted City
Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People
A Day in Palestine
King Corn
SPIT: Squeegee Punks in Traffic
No More Smoke Signals
You Are On Indian Land
Five Ring Circus: The Untold Story of the 2010 Games
We hope to see you at our Cinema Politica films, every Tuesday.
The Take - synopsis
The Take opens in suburban Buenos Aires, where thirty unemployed
auto-parts workers walk into their idle factory, roll out sleeping mats
and refuse to leave.
All they want is to re-start the silent machines. But this simple act -
The Take - has the power to turn the globalization debate on its head.
A film which is almost guaranteed to make you alternately cry and laugh
and most of all leave the screening with an overwhelming desire to change
the world, The Take is a powerful manifesto to the power of ordinary
people to come together and achieve extraordinary things.
In the wake of Argentina's dramatic economic collapse in 2001, Latin
America's most prosperous middle class finds itself in a ghost town of
abandoned factories and mass unemployment. The Forja auto plant lies
dormant until its former employees take action. They're part of a daring
new movement of workers who are occupying bankrupt businesses and creating
jobs in the ruins of the failed system.
But Freddy, the president of the new worker's co-operative, and Lalo, the
political powerhouse from the Movement of Recovered Companies, know that
their success is far from secure. Like every workplace occupation, they
have to run the gauntlet of courts, cops and politicians who can either
give their project legal protection or violently evict them from the
factory.
The story of the workers' struggle is set against the dramatic backdrop of
a crucial presidential election in Argentina, in which the architect of
the economic collapse, Carlos Menem, is the front-runner. His cronies, the
former owners, are circling: if he wins, they'll take back the companies
that the movement has worked so hard to revive.
Armed only with slingshots and an abiding faith in shop-floor democracy,
the workers face off against the bosses, bankers and a whole system that
sees their beloved factories as nothing more than scrap metal for sale.
With The Take, director Avi Lewis, one of Canada's most outspoken
journalists, and writer Naomi Klein, author of the international
bestseller No Logo, champion a radical economic manifesto for the 21st
century. But what shines through in the film is the simple drama of
workers' lives and their struggle: the demand for dignity and the searing
injustice of dignity denied.
