[URBANTH-L]ANN: Argentine documentary film

[Angela Jancius]

From: Marie Trigona <mtrigona at msn.com>

Saludos Compañeras/os,

We are writing to inform you that Grupo Alavío has just premiered several 
new films and launched the brand new Internet Community TV Station Ágora TV, 
www.agoratv.org. We are working to let as many people as we can know about 
Ágora TV, "a window for freedom and a new working class imagery". It is a 
great way for people around the world to learn about current struggles and 
to create networks. A member of Alavío is going to be travelling to the US 
and would like to sell videos to raise funds for Ágora TV. If anyone is 
interested in acquiring copies, please contact me this week. I'm leaving 
next week for the US and can take the copies with me.

Grupo Alavío, Argentine direct action and video collective has participated 
in working class struggles and supported them with audio-visual materials 
for over 15 years. Grupo Alavío has produced over 50 films dealing with many 
social conflicts: occupied factories, unemployed worker organizations, 
political prisoners, Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, subway workers struggling for 
a 6 hour workday, art and Iraq. Alavío just launched the internet community 
TV station, www.agoratv.org
Contact info:
www.alavio.org
alaviocine at yahoo.com.ar
or Marie, mtrigona at msn.com

A list of material that we have in DVD (NTSC format with English subtitles)

1. Argentina 30 years after the coup (compilation of short films)****Premier
This March 24, Argentines commemorated the 30 year anniversary of the 
nation's 1976 military coup and the brutal nightmare of state terror that 
followed.

Letter to the Military Junta, 6min, 1996, Grupo Alavío
Rodolfo Walsh wrote the "Open Letter to the Military Junta" on the first 
anniversary of the military coup in 1977 reporting the tortures, mass 
killings, and thousands of disappearances. The political writer was 
disappeared just one day after the letter was distributed. This 6 minute 
video essay reconstructs Walsh's powerful report, imagery from the bloody 
dictatorship and the writer's disappearance.

Escrache a Videla, 12min, 2006, Grupo Alavío
Events to mark the 30 years since Argentina's military junta kicked off with 
an escrache or "exposure" protest against the coup's first dictator, Jorge 
Rafael Videla. Over 10,000 people participated in the protest in front of 
Videla's home, where he is under house arrest in connection with numerous 
charges of human rights abuse. Human rights group H.I.J.O.S. brought a crane 
and gave the ending remarks directly in front of Videla's fifth floor 
apartment.

Memories of Struggle and Resistance: Rio Santiago Ship Yard, 10min, 2006, 
Grupo Alavío
The dictatorship attempted wiped out an entire generation of working-class 
resistance, which the nation decades later is still recovering. This year 
for the first time, over 1,500 workers from the Rio Santiago Ship Yard in 
Buenos Aires commemorated the ship yard's 48 disappeared.

2. For a 6 hour workday

For a 6 hour workday, 20min, 2004
Reducing the workday to six hours with a salary increase for all workers 
would create jobs for more than 3 million unemployed and lift many out of 
poverty.  Subway workers who have been organizing wildcat strikes for salary 
increases have spearheaded Argentina's movement for a six-hour workday. In 
2003, subway workers (in all sectors from ticket office to train drivers) 
won a six-hour workday. Since this victory, subway workers, other labor 
conflicts, economists and unemployed workers organizations have formed a 
movement for a 6-hour workday for all workers, with increased salaries. The 
campaign also demands the release of political prisoners and the definitive 
expropriation of all recuperated enterprises.

3. La Foresta belongs to the workers
La Foresta belongs to the workers, 52min, 2005
The film tells the story of a group of workers who are fighting to 
recuperate La Foresta meatpacking plant in La Matanza, on the outskirts of 
Buenos Aires city. Most of the factory's employees have worked their for 
decades, through the good times and bad times. In 1999, the plant went bust, 
a series of businessmen rented the facilities, making quick profits and then 
abandoning the factory for greener pastures. In January 2005, the last such 
renter, MEYPACAR, told the remaining 186 workers that the plant would be 
closing temporily for renovations. MEYPACAR never reopened the plant. Grupo 
Alavío's film follows the 70 workers who've put up a legal fight to keep 
their factory and start up production without a boss or owner, under 
worker-self management.

4. The Face of Dignity, Memories of MTD Solano

The Face of Dignity, A Memory of MTD (Unemployed Workers Movement) of Solano
58 minutes, 2002
In the shambles of an economically ruined Argentina, a new practice of 
protest emerged, blockading roads.  Since 1997, what is now known as the 
unemployed workers movement has taken root.  Without access to the factory 
and utility of tools for liberation-strike, sabotage, and occupying the 
factory, unemployed workers sought out new practices for struggle. Today 
road blockades are used to prevent merchandise from arriving to the market. 
Through these means, unemployed workers demand the right to work and 
dignified salaries.  One of the most important experiences that emerged in 
these years was Unemployed Workers Movement-MTD (Movimiento de Trabajadores 
Desocupados) in Solano (inside Quilmes, a city in the province of Buenos 
Aires).  MTD's formation was based on the principles of horizontalism, 
direct democracy, autonomy from the state and power, and the integral 
political formation among members.  Work, capacitation, democratic debate of 
ideas, sharing life in the struggle for work, dignity and social change are 
some of this memory's content.

5.  Compañeras

Compañeras, 45min, 2005
Compañeras brings together four working women who give testimony of their 
lives and daily struggles. MAGDALENA, works on a small farm in the province 
of San Juan. KARINA is a train conductor. REGINA lives n Villa Fiorito, she 
collects cardboard from the streets, classifies and then sells it. NINA is a 
militant from the 70's, during which she exiled from Argentina to Nicaragua 
and participated in the Sandanista revolution. Stories that mix with other 
history, women who revidicate their identity as workers, but without easing 
to be mothers, without giving  up the struggle, continuing to be compañeras.

6. Zanon (Constructing resistance)

Zanon (building resistence), 18min, 2003
Argentina's Patagonian province of Neuquén, is home of the Zanon ceramics 
factory. In 2001 Zanon's owner fired the workers and abandoned the factory 
for greener pastures. After resisting outside the plant, the group of 
workers decide collectively to recuperate and put the plant to produce. 
Since 2001, the workers at Zanon have occupied and managed the plant, which 
is Latin America's largest ceramics factory. Today, the plant employs 473 
workers, more than 200 of whom were hired after the plant came under worker 
control. In the film, Zanon ceramists narrate their day-to-day work, 
struggles and hopes to continue production under worker control.

7. Organizing Resistance (Chronicles of Freedom, Martin, Recuperating Our 
Work)

Chronicles of Freedom (organizing resistance) , 45min, 2002
June 26, 2002 two activists Darío Santillán-22 and Maximiliano Kosteki-25 
from Argentina's unemployed workers' movement were killed during a road 
blockade of Pueyrredón Bridge in police repression.  The repression was part 
of a known and announced government plan to control growing social protest. 
33 were wounded from lead bullets, 160 detained and hundreds injured from 
rubber bullets.  Unquestionably, the deaths and repression have left an 
unforgettable mark on the movement-generating internal debates and 
self-criticisms. Chronicles of Freedom provides a space for protagonists and 
this particular audience to see themselves represented and reflecting own 
practice of struggle.   Within interviews, the film's protagonists generate 
debates surrounding the right to identity, self-defense and organizing to 
confront state repression.

Martín, 2002, 7 minutes
Synopsis: Martín, 27 years old, Argentine, brother, compañero from the 
barrio Florida in Solano was killed during a fight with a neighbor.  The 
experimental narration explores inner-violence and questions the absurdity 
of the system's violence that is imposed on us.  "Some day, some day soon 
this hate among pairs, among equals will be replaced, it will convert itself 
into a struggle for liberation.  We will clearly identify the enemy and put 
an end to exploitation.  That day, along with Martín on the corner, we will 
remember the road blockades, we will laugh and toast to freedom."

Recuperando nuestro trabajo, 2003, 18min
Argentina's worker occupied factory movement has been an example of 
resistance for workers all over the world.  In response to the process of 
deindustrialization and flexible labor markets, thousands of workers have 
said enough to exploitation of the working class by bosses and owners. 
"Taking this factory to produce without an owner, producing without bosses 
is what's important for us," worker from occupied factory Del Valle 
Caramics.

8. Resistance in Iraq: Perspectives in Video, 2004, 25min

9. Obreras en lucha (The struggle of Brukman workers). Spanish with ENGLISH 
SUBTITLES
This documentary tells the story of the "recuperation" of Brukman textile 
factory in Buenos Aires by its workers, after its owners decided to close it 
down in December 2001. Workers (most of them women) decided to occupy the 
plant on December 18, 2001 to protest their reducing and delayed salaries. 
Only two days after, the economic and political crisis exploded in 
Argentina.
>From that moment on, with the support of unions, workers, popular assemblies 
and people in general workers managed to keep the factory working until the 
police expelled them from the factory. This documentary contains impressive 
images of the expulsion of the workers from the factory by the police in 
2003, the massive popular protests which followed and the brutal repression 
with which Duhalde's government replied. It contains as well interviews with 
workers and images from the assemblies at the factory.

10. 1 de Mayo (Resitance of a love)
1 de Mayo (resistance of a love, 7 min, 2004:  Video poem narrating the 
marks left behind from an encounter, love, reconstruction and resistance.

11. Hotel BAUEN: Workers' Cooperative
The BAUEN Workers' Cooperative, 20min, 2004
The Hotel BAUEN was an emblematic symbol of neoliberalism in Argentina. The 
hotel was constructed in 1978, in the glory of the military dictatorship, 
with government loans and subsidies. In the height of Argentina's economic 
meltdown, the owners ransacked the hotel and closed the hotel's doors, 
leaving the workers in the streets. In March 21, 2003 the workers decided to 
occupy the hotel. The workers cleaned up the hotel and slowly began to rent 
out services. With over 150 workers employed at the hotel, BAUEN hotel has 
become a symbol for the working class. "With worker 
self-management/organization we are in a process of creating workers in 
solidarity, people who aren't only worried about a wage. Instead they're 
trying to improve social conditions, culturally and politically," explains 
Marcelo. BAUEN cooperative is a real example of a group of workers planting 
seeds so that future generations can create new social relations.

12. Music in Solidarity with Zanon, 90min
This film was produced as part of a video work shop for the workers. Music 
in solidarity with Zanon: musicians León Gieco, Rally Barrionuevo, Ciro 
(Ataque 77) and other artists performed a concert in December, 2004.  The 
workers organized the super event, with more than 10,000 supporters from the 
community of Neuquén.

Les mandamos el listado de titulos que tenemos en DVD (NTSC) con subtitulos 
en Ingles.
Estreno:

*****30 años después la dictadura militar (memoria y lucha)******
1. Por una jornada laboral de 6 horas
2. La Foresta es de los trabajadores
3. El Rostro de la dignidad, memorias del MTD de Solano
4. Compañeras
5. Zanon: Experiencias communitarias (varios cortos)
6. Organizando Resistencia (Cron. de libertad, Martin, Recuperando Nuestro 
Trabajo)
7. Resistencia en Irak: Perspectivas en video
8. Brukman: Obrer at s en Lucha
9. 1 de mayo (resistencia de un amor)
10. BAUEN (varios cortos)
11. Recital solidario en Zanon