A Festival of Protest Film

Saturday 11th June 2011

Buckingham House Lecture Theatre

FREE ADMISSION

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Programme Notes

A rock is thrown, a bullet fired, a fist raised. A march planned. What happens next...

The world has been rocked by revolutions and protests: Egypt, Syria, Spain, the United Kingdom. The images come from more sources than ever before, more directly, more immediately. Twitter, Television, Facebook, Youtube, Radio.

For every person filming, writing, holding up their cell phone, there is a person watching. Or two people, or a hundred. Hoping to understand what is happening, to know whose story is being told, how lives half the world away can change in an instant.

How are protest films shaped? Whose story is being told, and by what means?

Have changing media forms changed the nature of protests?

From Europe in 1969, from Israel, from the United States, Cuba, the Middle East, filmmakers and activists have utilized striking images to mobilize their communities.

Join us for a deep and critical perspective on how history and the present moment are being shaped by media.

With films from Witness, Avi Mograbi, 18 Days in Egypt, Undercurrents, Pink Bloque, and more.

3pm to 5pm: Protest Film

'Seeing Is Believing' (Witness, NYC)
Work by Avi Mograbi
Undercurrents UK)
Featuring Pink Bloque, Feminist activist dance troupe
Guest Speaker: Ms Sarah Peters-Harrison
Women's Officer, Cambridge University Student Union

6pm to 8pm: Recent Revolutions

Tunisia, Syria and Spain
Featuring 18 Days in Egypt
Guest Speaker: Dr Anne Alexander
Buckley Fellow, University of Cambridge

Films and Film-makers

Avi Mograbi

"...all my films are based on subjects that trouble me anyway, that I am involved in. So I do not think I should become less active because I film." - Avi Mograbi, Cineaste

Avi Mograbi was born in Israel in 1956. Between 1979 and 1982 he studied philosophy at Tel Aviv University and art at the Ramat Hasharon Art School. Since 1982 he has been working as first assistant director in local and foreign feature films and commercials. Directed his first film Deportation in 1989. Filmography includes The Reconstruction, How I Learned to Overcome My Fear and Love Arik Sharon and Relief.

For more information, interviews and clips of Avi Mograbi's films:

Witness

Uses video to open the eyes of the world to human rights violations. Provides training for video advocacy, legal action and justice.
www.witness.org/

18 Days in Egypt A collaborative Documentary Project about the Revolution

We want to tell the story of the Egyptian revolution with the same tools that helped share it with the world in real time. We want 18 Days In Egypt to be a crowd-sourced interactive documentary of the events in Egypt from Jan 25 to Feb 11.
www.18daysinegypt.com/

Pink Bloque

The Pink Bloque (2001-2005) was a Chicago-based radical feminist dance troupe dedicated to challenging the white supremacist capitalist patriarchal empire one street dance party at a time. Members are now dispersed across the country. This site serves as an archive for research and hopefully to inspire others to creatively resist the wack social relations of our times.
www.pinkbloque.org/PinkBloqueWebDanceHi.mov

Peter Snowdon

Peter Snowdon was born in Northumberland, England. He studied French and Philosophy at Oxford University, before moving to Paris where he worked in publishing and journalism, and as a consultant to UNESCO. He lived in Egypt from 1997 to 2000. On his return to Europe, he started making agit-prop documentary films in collaboration with activist groups and local communities. Over time, his work has evolved beyond the purely political to engage with the experimental and avant-garde traditions, and to address wider philosophical issues, while remaining firmly rooted in the documentary moment.

His films have been shown at Documenta Madrid, Experiments in Cinema, Ecrans documentaires, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Cinema Vérité (Tehran), Entrevues (Belfort) and Abandon Normal Devices, as well as at the Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. His work is distribued by the Collectif Jeune Cinéma (screenings) and Dérives magazine (DVD).

Peter holds a Master in Transmedia from Sint Lukas Hogeschool, Brussels (2010).

He is currently an LSM research fellow at Provinciale Hogeschool Limburg, where he is preparing a practice-based PhD on poetic documentary and collective memory.

Undercurrents

Undercurrents is an award winning media charity producing and distributing video compilations reflecting UK and global counter-culture. We are a non-profit company mostly working with video makers and communities who have been marginalised or overlooked by TV broadcasters. We focus on social and environmental justice issues.

Who do we work with?
Undercurrents connects mostly with communities or campaign groups. We have also worked with a wide range of individuals including comedian Mark Thomas, music bands Radiohead and Chumbawamba, top journalist John Pilger, campaigners Howard Marks and former MP Tony Benn amongst others. We have produced programmes for Channel 4, SciFi channel, Community Channel and BBC2. Our archive has supplied images for cinema movies such as Glastonbury, Human Traffic and movies by Michael Moore. We are a part of the volunteer Indymedia network and members of the National Union of Journalists. Our internet provider is the ethically motivated GreenNet.
www.undercurrents.org/

Participants

Jigar Mehta

I'm a documentary filmmaker and a journalist. I'm currently at Stanford University as a Knight Journalism Fellow working on developing tools for collaborative journalism.

Before coming to Stanford, I worked as a video journalist for The New York Times. While at the Times, my passion was for telling stories through strong characters and accurate reporting.

I'm a believer in collaboration and building community and as president of the South Asian Journalist Association I've fostered programs that reflects those ideals.

Dr. Anne Alexander Buckley Fellow, CRASSH, Cambridge University

The current focus of my research is on leadership, collective action and social movements in the Middle East. I have a particular interest in Egypt, Iraq and Syria post-1945 and labour movements across the region.

I am interested in how digital media is qualitatively different from earlier waves of new media in its interactivity, immediacy and connections to global networks.
Writing for the BBC

Sarah Peters-Harrison

Women's officer, Cambridge University

Programmer: Meg Jamieson

I'm a New York based documentary filmmaker, professor and writer. Currently I am working on a series of profiles for the Smithsonian Institution, several independent film projects and am delighted to be working with Murray Edwards College, programming film screenings.

Contact: mvjamieson@gmail.com