LRFF 2016: Friday 25th – Sunday 27th November
Bridewell Arts Studios, 101 Prescot St, Liverpool, L7 8UL
LRFF 2016 has been divided into two strands. Saturday 26th November is dedicated to the relation between localised, indigenous struggles and international resistance. Here we foreground the fact that indigenous struggles over land and water rights (often fought by governments at the behest of huge multinational corporations) embody some of the most urgent questions facing humanity today, such as climate change. Meanwhile, Sunday 27th November is committed to looking at acts of resistance and radical solutions. Drawing on historic examples as well as the campaigns of contemporary activist organisations, our aim is to discuss pragmatic ways of resisting neoliberalism.
LRFF 2016 also includes two Liverpool premiers. The first, Bakur (North), is currently banned in its home country. The film explores how the PKK guerillas have resisted the Turkish government for the past 30 years. Next, filmmaker and professor of Film at Roehampton University, Michael Chanan, will be joining us for a screening of his latest documentary, Money Puzzles, which combines a revealing examination of the history and nature of money with a contemporary focus on austerity across Europe and the radical solutions being taken up by its citizens.
Our Radical Histories screenings celebrate the lives and works of two revolutionary artists who often go under the radar. On the 40th anniversary of their deaths, LRFF 2016 pays tribute to folk singer, Phil Ochs, and Argentine filmmaker, Raymundo Gleyzer.
This years workshops are programmed by AKI (The Artivism Knowledge Initiative) who will be using film to explore issues around land dispossession and trauma, and Reel News, the longest running video activist news reel in UK history. We also have a curated program of shorts on the plight of refugees in Calais and a closing event that pushes the limits of documentary format.
You can view some of the highlights below, or download a PDF of our full program.
Friday 25th November
7.30pm – 11pm – Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune (Kenneth Bowser 2011)
American folk singer, Phil Ochs, emerged as a spokesperson on causes such as racial injustice, political oppression and the horrors of war during the 1960s. Equally critical of the left and the right, he gained a sizable following. By the time of his tragic death at just 35 years old the FBI had a dossier on him that was over 400 pages long. This is a biography of a conflicted truth seeking troubadour who stood up for what he believed in and challenged us all to change the world for the better. Followed by Radical Music Videos – a curated program of politically charged music videos that explores the development and potential of the medium.
Saturday 26th November
1pm – 2.30pm – Mexico: The Frozen Revolution (Raymundo Gleyzer 1973)
On the 40th anniversary of his assassination by the Argentine military junta, we screen Raymundo Gleyzer’s seminal documentary on the betrayal of the 1910 revolution, incorporating rare newsreel footage of Mexican revolutionaries, Villa and Zapata, not as historical decoration but as part of a dialectic that culminates in the massacre of some 400 students in one day during the 1968 Mexican Olympics.
3pm – 5pm – Workshop: Land and Trauma
AKI (The Artivism Knowledge Initiative) will use film to explore the experience of trauma through displacement and dispossession. The short film, ‘Brid living by the Sea, Ireland’, will be followed by ‘Islands of Sanctuary’, a documentary on Sacred Land rights and the experiences of indigenous communities in Australia and Hawaii as they deal with settler colonisation.
5.30pm – 7.30pm – LIVERPOOL PREMIER: Bakur (North) (Çayan Demirel, Ertuğrul Mavioğlu 2015)
Currently banned in its home country, this documentary focuses on the PKK guerrillas who have waged a campaign of resistance against the Turkish Government for the past 30 years, losing 30,000 of their own people in the process. Hear what they have to say about their struggle, and their ideas on how they believe we can build a new society.
8pm – 10.30pm – LIVERPOOL PREMIER: Money Puzzles (2016) + Q&A with director Michael Chanan
A documentary about money and debt, austerity and solidarity. Filmed in 2015 in the UK, Greece, Spain, Belgium and Argentina, with contributors ranging from children to two erstwhile Ministers of Economy, it questions the myriad forms of money in modern times. Alongside the crushing effects of austerity and the neoliberal agenda of finance capitalism which holds Europe in its grip, Money Puzzles reports on grassroots solidarity networks and ground-level anti-austerity initiatives which aim to construct an alternative social economics.
Sunday 27th November
1pm – 3pm – Jungle Films: Documentaries from Inside Calais
Jungle Films screen a curated program of short documentaries shot inside the Calais refugee camp. These films explore the contentious issues that surround life inside the camp, its continued existence and eventual demolition. Screened together, they offer a vivid and consummate vision of the situation in Calais, and a viewing experience that is in equal parts revealing, moving and uplifting.
3.30pm – 5.30pm – This session is curated by guest programmers, Reel News, the longest running video activist newsreel in UK history.
Paris: Climate Change, Militarism and War
The days of lobbying governments are over – we hear from working class and indigenous voices who are leading worldwide direct action against fossil fuel projects. The film also explores the untold connection between climate change, militarism and austerity.
Veterans for Peace
Veterans for Peace is one of the most rapidly expanding social movements in Britain, going from just a handful of people a few years ago to now over 450 veterans of every war the UK has been involved in over the past 70 years. Their experience: that war is futile. A Million Climate Jobs’ Campaigners, Veterans for Peace, and anti-austerity groups will facilitate post screening discussion.
6pm – 8pm – 1971 (Johanna Hamilton 2014)
In 1971 eight people broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, and took hundreds of secret files. In doing so, they uncovered the FBI’s vast and illegal regime of spying and intimidation of civil rights and anti-Vietnam war activists. Despite one of the largest investigations ever conducted, the identities of these extraordinarily brave burglars remained a secret. Until now. With increasing surveillance today, and the WikiLeaks and Snowden stories in the news, the events of 1971 provide a historical perspective on the act of whistleblowing.
8pm – 10.30pm – Films outside the format
The closing event of LRFF 2016 is a program of shorts that are pushing the documentary form. Join us for a night of firelight, activist stories, animation and incantation. We have David Jacques film trip deep underground, stop motion and stark video truth from Without These Walls (Janet Brandon and Jayne Lawless) the lament of Ghost Mural and an array of strong moving image from beyond our borders. With anonymous poetry and discussion with the film’s directors.